Third Report of the Sub-Committee of the South-Western Group of Museums and Art Galleries on the Petrological Identification of Stone Axes

J. F. S. Stone; F. S. Wallis

doi:10.1017/S0079497X00018636

Third Report of the Sub-Committee of the South-Western Group of Museums and Art Galleries on the Petrological Identification of Stone Axes

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 May 2014

J. F. S. Stone and

F. S. Wallis

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Fourteen years have elapsed since the appointment of the sub-committee in 1936 to consider the petrological identification of stone implements with special reference to the area covered by the South-Western Group of Museums and Art Galleries; and two reports have been published in the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, VII (1941), 50 and XIII (1947), 47, outlining briefly the results of its work. Considerable progress has been made since the appearance of the Second Report and it has therefore been deemed advisable to issue a more comprehensive Third Report summarizing as far as possible all results and thus making available in compact form many of the facts accumulated.

In the Second Report, we drew attention to the fact that in 1945 the value of the work to archaeology was appreciated sufficiently for the Council for British Archaeology to raise what was virtually a regional monopoly on to a national basis, and to appoint, as Honorary Secretary, Mr W. F. Grimes, M.A., F.S.A., Director of the London Museum, to coordinate the work of the existing museum federations. A generous grant towards the cost of the work was made in 1949 by the Lever hulme Trust, since it seemed unlikely that extension of studies would be possible from museum resources alone.

Type: Research Article
Information: Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , 1951 , pp. 99 - 158

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0079497X00018636 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1951

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References

^{page 100 note 1} ‘The Cotswold Megalithic Culture’ in The Early Cultures of North-West Europe (H. M. Chadwick Memorial Studies), 1950Google Scholar.

^{page 103 note 1} le Rouzic, Z., Les Cromlechs de Er Lannic, 1930Google Scholar.

^{page 103 note 2} MrsHawkes, J. has summarized the views bearing upon this subject in The Archaeology of the Channel Islands, II, The Bailiwick of Jersey, 1937, 51Google Scholar.

^{page 103 note 3} Prehistoric Chamber Tombs of England and Wales, 1950, 24Google Scholar.

^{page 104 note 1} Wilts Arch. Mag., LIV (1951), 162Google Scholar.

^{page 106 note 1} Antiquity, X (1936), 422Google Scholar.

^{page 106 note 2} Antiquity, III (1929), 75–88Google Scholar and plan.

^{page 110 note 1} J. Roman Studies, III (1913), 132Google Scholar.

^{page 110 note 2} The Archaeology of Yorkshire, 1933, 49Google Scholar.

^{page 110 note 3} Celtic Tumuli of Dorset, 1866, part I, 52Google Scholar.

^{page 112 note 1} W.A.M., XXXVIII (1913), 334Google Scholar; Ancient Wilts, I, 75Google Scholar, Pls. V, VI and VII.

^{page 114 note 1} Maiden Castle, Dorset, 1943, 137Google Scholar.

^{page 115 note 1} Proc. Prehist. Soc., XV (1949), 1Google Scholar.

^{page 118 note 1} Kinvig, R. H., History of the Isle of Man, 1950Google Scholar, fig. 5.

^{page 119 note 1} Archaeological Journ., LXXXVIII, 121Google Scholar, fig. 15; see also later map in his Neolithic Cultures of the British Isles (1952), fig. 48.

^{page 119 note 2} loc. cit.

^{page 119 note 3} Antiquaries J., VII (1927), 460Google Scholar.

^{page 119 note 4} Arch. J., LXXXVIII, 89Google Scholar.

^{page 119 note 5} ibid, 96, fig. 22.

^{page 119 note 6} Antiquity, XXII (1949), 33Google Scholar; P.S.A.S., LXXXII (1947–1948), 76–81Google Scholar.

^{page 120 note 1} J.R.A.I., XLIX, 342Google Scholar.

^{page 120 note 2} Axe no. 139 from Picket Barrow ditch, Windmill Hill, was incorrectly included under Group VII in our First Report. The axe belongs in reality to Group VIII.

^{page 120 note 3} Proc. Coventry and District N.H. and Sci. Soc., II (1949), 76Google Scholar.

^{page 121 note 1} Antiquity, VIII (1934), 346Google Scholar.

^{page 121 note 2} ibid, X (1936), 422.

^{page 121 note 3} W.A.M., LII (1948), 295Google Scholar.

^{page 121 note 4} Arch. Cambrensis, XC (1935), 189Google Scholar.

^{page 121 note 5} Antiquaries J., XXX (1950), 149Google Scholar.

^{page 122 note 1} J.R.A.I., LX (1930), 211Google Scholar.

^{page 122 note 2} Proc. Prehist. Soc. of East Anglia, VII (1933), 154Google Scholar, Pl. V, fig. 6B; see also Piggott, and Powell, , P.S.A.S., LXXXIII (1948–1949), 103–161Google Scholar.

^{page 124 note 1} Proc. Prehist. Soc., XV (1949), 13Google Scholar.

^{page 121 note 2} ibid, XVI (1950), 191.

^{page 126 note 1} J.R.A.I., XXXIII, 360Google Scholar.

^{page 128 note 1} Antiquaries J., III (1923), 239Google Scholar.

^{page 128 note 2} Ibid, XXX (1950), 145.

^{page 128 note 3} Arch. Cambrensis, LXXXV (1930), 407Google Scholar.

^{page 128 note 4} ibid, XC (1935), 278.

^{page 128 note 5} National Museum of Wales, Guide to the Prehistory of Wales, 1939, 172Google Scholar.

^{page 128 note 6} Antiquity, X (1936), 220Google Scholar.

^{page 128 note 7} Antiquaries J., III (1923), 252Google Scholar, note 1.

^{page 129 note 1} Arch. J., CIV (1947), 16Google Scholar.

^{page 131 note 1} Adze-blades as defined by Childe are excessively rare which illustrates his general thesis that neolithic Europe can be divided into an ‘axe province’ extending from the Alps to the Iberian Peninsula, and an ‘adze province’ from the Alps to the Balkan Peninsula (Jahrbuch der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft für Urgeschichte, 1949, 156)Google Scholar. We have noted four possible specimens only, all from Cornwall (nos. 522, 523, 680 and 685), and one (no. 436) probably introduced from abroad by a collector and subsequently lost.

^{page 132 note 1} Proc. Prehist. Soc., XV (1940), 70Google Scholar; Arch. News Letter, Vol. 4 (1951), 53Google Scholar.

^{page 132 note 2} Ancient Stone Implements, 1872, 213Google Scholar.

^{page 135 note 1} Archaeologia, LXXXIV (1935), 99Google Scholar.

^{page 132 note 2} Antiquity, XIII (1939), 223Google Scholar.

^{page 136 note 1} P.S.A.S., LXV (1930–1931), 91Google Scholar.

^{page 136 note 2} Antiquaries J., XIV (1934), 991Google Scholar.

^{page 136 note 3} Sussex Arch. Coll., LXX, 33Google Scholar; LXXII, 100.

^{page 136 note 4} The small chip 1 inch square of a Group XI axe (no. 8) found on the bottom of the Middle Ditch could easily have been introduced unintentionally by the excavators.

^{page 137 note 1} Prehistoric Chamber Tombs of England and Wales, 1950, 139 and 174Google Scholar.

^{page 137 note 2} Archaeologia, LXXXV (1936), 253Google Scholar.

^{page 137 note 3} ibid, 274.

^{page 137 note 4} Prehistory of Scotland, 1935, 67Google Scholar. But axes were found in six chambered tombs in the Orkney-Caithness regions.

^{page 137 note 5} ‘The Cotswold Megalithic Culture’ in The Early Cultures of North-West Europe (H. M. Chadwick Memorial Studies), 1950Google Scholar.

^{page 137 note 6} In view of mesolithic interest in non-local rocks, some of which appear to have been derived from Cornwall (Rankine, W. F. in Proc. Prehist. Soc., XV (1949), 193CrossRef Google Scholar and A Mesolithic Survey of the West Sussex Greensand, 1949, 39Google Scholar), it may even be possible that the trail to the western outcrops had been blazed before the introduction of polished stone axe manufacture.

^{page 138 note 1} Antiquity, X (1936), 424Google Scholar.

^{page 138 note 2} Proc. Prehist. Soc., XV (1949), 126Google Scholar.

^{page 138 note 3} Woodhenge, 1929, Pl. 40.

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Third Report of the Sub-Committee of the South-Western Group of Museums and Art Galleries on the Petrological Identification of Stone Axes

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