Kellys_Berks_Bucks&Oxon_1915_0032.jpg

B E R K S H IR E .

[ k e l l y ’s

C halk, 3,373 tons ; value / 18 6 .
Chert and Hint, 140 to n s; value ¿ 2 1 .
O lay, 126,762 tons ; value ,£5,622.
G rav el and sand, 8,719 tons ; value ,£532.

skilfully fashioned than the pakeoliths, and have often
been shaped or finished by means of rubbing or polishing :
they are assigned to the later or N eolithic Stone A g e .
From a “ barrow ,” or in term en t or burial-m ound on Lam Persons employed (a) Underground, or inside quarries, bourn Downs, a beautiful dagger of white flint was
140 : (b) A bove-ground, or outside quarries, 8. Total, 148. obtained, which is now, with an arrow-head, a perforated
stone-ham m er, a bronze knife, and other objects from the
Some beautifully
P r e h i s t o r i c M a x . — O f those early dwellers in our same locality, in the British Museum.
islands to whom the use of m etal was unknown, and who formed arrow-heads of the same m aterial, a scraper prob­
m ade their tools chiefly out of lumps of flint, numerous ably used for preparing skins, celts or flint axe-heads, and
relics have been found in Berkshire. Bronze appears to a nodule of iron pyrites are also recorded by S ir Jno.
have been the first m etal to have been used ; and there is Evans, in his “ A ncient Stone Im plem ents of G reat
som e probability that the Bronze A ge began in B ritain about B rita in ” (8vo., Lon don ; second edition, 1 8 9 7 ) , as having
2 ,0 0 0 B .C .
In the Stone Age which preceded the Bronze been found on the Berkshire Downs. A flint arrow-head
A ge— and which goes back through an unknown but doubt­ was also found at Sutton Courtney. A large chipped but
broad, was found in the
less very long period of tim e— we can distinguish two unground celt, 8 inches long by
m ain epochs or stages. F irst we have an older or P a leo ­ peat at Thatcham , near N ew bury ; and in the Geological
Museum,
Jerm
yn
street,
London,
there
is a fragm ent of a
lith ic Stone A ge, when the im plem ents were principally
lum ps of flint, chipped into shape by means of blows struck slender pointed flint “ p ick,” which was picked up near
w ith another stone— never rubbed or polished. The tools Maidenhead. A perforated stone ham m er-head was found
of this older Stone A ge are also often called “ R iver-D rift a t Sunninghill, and an oval flint blade near Long WittenIm plem ents,” because they are m ostfy found in the old ham. A trian gular scraper of ochreous flint occurred in the
gravel-beds which occur along and upon the sides of the Thames near Windsor ; other scrapers have been found at
existing valleys, a t heights of from 40 to 60 or more feet Cockmarsh, and in a barrow (burial mound) at G reat Shefabove the level of the existing stream s. Old stone tools, or ford. A polished flint celt or axe-head, 4^ inches long, is
pal eolith s, have been found in the river gravels at Rus- recorded from Abingdon ; and a sim ilar one from Cherbury
combe, and at Cookham, near Maidenhead ; at W allingford Camp, Pusey (near Faringdon) ; flint arrow-heads have also
and C h o lsey; and at Grovelands and P ig’s Green, near been found at Abingdon, at Wallingford, and at Childrey,
Probably m any more
R eading ; m any fine exam ples m ay be seen in the Reading and a flint flake at W allingford.
such prehistoric objects would tu rn up if they were intelli­
M useum .
gently searched for. and there is no better preparation for
N eolithic, or Newer Stone A g e.— Contained in the surface ! the task than to endeavour with two flint nodules or a flint
soil, or sim ply lying upon the surface of the fields and and a ham m er to produce sim ilar specimens ; the task w ill
d o w n s ; or buried with the dead in the “ barrows ” or give us some idea of the dexterity, and acquaintance with
burial mounds which stud the chalk-hills— we find the the properties of this refractory m aterial, which m ust have
stone tools of later and evident]}- m ore advanced prehistoric been possessed by our predecessors of the “ Btone A ge ”
tribes. These later flint im plem ents or neoliths are more who lived in Berkshire, up to say, 2,000 years ago.
W. J ero m e H a r r is o n , f.g .s .