On four leaf and lozenge-shaped flint javelin-heads, from an oval barrow near Stonehenge : and on the leaf-shaped type of flint arrow-head, and its connection with long barrows / by John Thurnam.

  • Thurnam, John, 1810-1873.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On four leaf and lozenge-shaped flint javelin-heads, from an oval barrow near Stonehenge : and on the leaf-shaped type of flint arrow-head, and its connection with long barrows / by John Thurnam. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    was never departed from as regards the blades of javelins and spears, it being the most suitable for the purposes of those weapons; but was, for the most part, replaced by the barbed form for the heads of arrows. When I speak of the leaf-shaped as the long harrow type of arrow-head, I desire not to be understood as restricting it to that form of tumulus, but as indicating it as that which is alone found there.1 The long barrows are a remarkable class of tumuli, which stand apart from all others. The narrow and elongate (steno- or dolicho- cephalic) character of the skulls foimd in them contrasts strongly with the prevailing broad and short {hr achy cephalic) form of the skulls from the round barrows. Again, many of the long-barrow skulls are cleft in all directions; having been shivered, as would appear, by the stroke of a stone axe, wielded perhaps by a sacrificial priest or Druid, in honour of the obsequies of some primeval British chief. Another feature, derived from the form of the associated flint weapons, may now, I think, be added to the characteristics of a class of tumuli, which there are many reasons for regarding as the oldest sepulchral monuments of this part of Britain.2 1 Such a discovery as that by Mr. J. R. Mortimer, of leaf-shaped arrow and javelin heads in a circular barrow on Bishop Wilton Wold, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and which has been described by Dr. J. Barnard Davis in the “ Reliquary.” (vol. v., p. 185,) and since brought by him under the notice of the Society of Antiquaries, (May 17th, 1866, Broc. Soc. Antiq. 2nd series, iii., p. 323) is by no means inconsistent with the conclusions arrived at in this communication. 2 Since this was written, I have ascertained that the fictile remains in the long barrows are of a quite distinct and peculiar type Pottery of any kind, however, associated with the primary interments, is of very rare occurrence in them. H. BULL, Printer and. Publisher, Devizes.