Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-dfsvx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T21:48:34.141Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

VI. On the Use of the Deer-Horn Pick in the Mining Operations of the Ancients

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2011

Horace W. Sandars
Get access

Extract

Implements fashioned from the antler of the red deer have long been known to have formed part of the tools with which primitive man and his successors in much more recent times carried on the varied industries that claimed his care and skill, enabling him to turn to good account the many products of soil and chase which thoughtful Nature had placed at his disposal. Almost every part of the antler was utilized; the tines being removed in order to form gouges, punches, hand levers, and piercing instruments, while the beam, when deprived of its tines, was cut up into sections from which adzes and such-like cutting implements wrere formed, or hammers were devised. A useful instrument which served as a rake, or scraper, was made from the branching points at the cup; while a clever combination of beam and tines produced a tool which served the double purpose of pick (or lever) and rake (or scraper). Much ingenuity was shown in devising and considerable skill in forming such implements, but in no case is this more evident than in that of the deer-horn pick. Generally speaking, the pick was formed from an antler by severing the cup end and removing the bez and the trez tines, thus leaving the beam to form the haft and the brow tine to form the pick (fig. 1), while the burr remained in position in order to give strength to the weakest part, the angle of intersection between the handle and the “blade”, and to add weight to the blow. The “false brow”, or undeveloped bez, was sometimes left in place (plate XVI, no. 1), but this was rather the exception than the rule. The upper portion of the beam or the longest point beyond the “cup” was often left in position to form an elongation of the shaft which assisted greatly in directing the blow, while it added very materially to the leverage of the pick. Fig. 1 offers a very good example of a double-handed pick with an elongated shaft, and with blunted point and stem worn smooth by usage.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 62 , Issue 1 , 1910 , pp. 101 - 124
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1910

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie de Bruxelles, tome v, quatrième fascicule, 1886–7, pp. 298 and 346.Google Scholar
2. Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie de Bruxelles, tome xxiv, 1905. Découverte d'un nouveau squelette de mineur préhistorique à Strépy, par A. Rutot.Google Scholar
3. La Nature, no. 1733, 11 août 1906. Mineurs préhistoriques, par A. Rutot.Google Scholar
4. Malaise, C., Sur les Silex ouvrés de Spiennes (Bruxelles, 1866). [Bulletins de l'Académie Royale de Belgique, 2me série, tome xxi, no. 2.]Google Scholar
5. Congrès International d'Anthropologie et d'Archéologie préhistoriques, 6me session, Bruxelles, 1872, p. 279, iv. L'Homme pendant lâge de la pierre polie. Sur lâge de la pierre polie et les exploitations préhistoriques de Silex dans la Province de Hainaut, par MM. F. L. Cornet et A. Briart.Google Scholar
6. Ateliers et Puits d'extraction de Silex en Belgique, etc. Notice sur des Fouilles pratiquées récemment sur l'emplacement d'un vaste Atelier Néolithique de Spiennes (Hainaut), par MM. le Baron A. de Loë et E. de Munck. Extrait du Congrès international d'Anthropologie et d'Archéologie préhistoriques. (Xme Session, Paris, 1889.) Paris, Leroux, 1892.Google Scholar
7. Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. v, no. 3, January, 1876. Col. A. Lane Fox. Excavations at Cissbury Camp, Sussex. (Spiennes, pp. 361, 362, and 363.)Google Scholar
8. Mémoire de la Société des Sciences, des Arts et des Lettres du Hainaut, 3e série, t. ii, 1867. de Lehaie, A. Houzeau, Cornet, F. et Briart, A., Premières découvertes d'anciens travaux d'exploitation de Silex faites à Spiennes.Google Scholar
9. Bulletin de l'Acadeinie Royale de Belgique. Report of MM. Cornet et Briart, read 1st Feb. 1868.Google Scholar
10. Les Ateliers préhistoriques de Spiennes: communication faite à la Société d'Anthropologie de Bruxelles dans la Séance du 29 avril 1889, par L. de Pauw et E. Van Overloop.Google Scholar
11. Des Puits d'extraction de Silex de Champignolles, Commune de Flavacourt (Oise), et des Outils destinés à l'extraire à l'Époque néolithique, par le Docteur Th. Baudon, Quatrième Congrès préhistorique de France, Session de Chambéry, 1908, pp. 304–16.Google Scholar
12. Das Glas in Altertume, von Anton Kisa, W. Hiersemann, 1908, Band i, p. 113, Abb. 56.Google Scholar
13. Journal of the Ethnological Society, new series, vol. ii, 1869–1870, p. 419, xxxix. On the opening of Grimes Graves in Norfolk. By the Rev. William Greenwell, M.A., F.S.A. (p. 427, two picks found.)Google Scholar
14. Archaeologia, vol. xlv, 1890, pl. xxvii. v.Google Scholar
15. Les Puits préhistoriques à Silex de Valennes (Oise), par L. Thiot et G. Stalin. Communication faite à la Société Académique de l'Oise dans la Séance du 17 février 1902. Beauvais, Imprimerie Eug. Boucher, 49, rue Sadi Carnot.Google Scholar
16. Puits préhistoriques de Nointel, par l'Abbé Renet. Mémoires de la Société Académique de l'Oise, Année 1884.Google Scholar
17. Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. v, no. 3, January, 1876, p. 357. Col. A. Lane Fox. Excavations in Cissbury Camp (1875).Google Scholar
18. Ibid. vol. vi, 1877, p. 431. Report on some further discoveries at Cissbury, by J. Park Harrison, M.A.Google Scholar
19. Ibid. vol. vii, 1878, p. 412. Additional discoveries at Cissbury, by J. Park Harrison, M.A. (pl. x. Plan of Excavations made in 1876 and 1878.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
20. Exposition préhistorique organisée à Bruxelles, etc. Notice, Catalogue par le Baron Alf. de Loë, 1892.Google Scholar
21. Découverte et Fouille de Puits et de Galeries préhistoriques d'extraction de Silex à Avennes, par le Baron Alfred de Loë, Bruxelles, 1894.Google Scholar
22. Sur l'âge des Squeletles de Mineurs néolithiques d'Obourg et de Strépy, par A. Rutot, Bruxelles, 1907.Google Scholar
23. The Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. xxxix, January-June, 1909. Rev. J. W. Hayes. Dene-holes and other Chalk Excavations. Their Origin and Uses.Google Scholar
24. Revista Minera, Metalúrgica y de Ingenieria, Madrid, 1893. Año xliv. Números 1463 and 1466, pp. 333–7 and 361–5.Google Scholar
25. Die Mineralbenutzung in vor- und frühgeschichtlicher Zeit, von E. Treptow. Verlag von Craz & Gerlach, Freiberg in Sachsen, 1901, pp. 40–2.Google Scholar
26. Geschichte der Bergbau-und Hüttentechnik, von Dr. Ing. Fr. Freise. Erster Band: Das Altertum, Berlin. Verlag von Julius Springer, 1908, pp. 40–1.Google Scholar
27. Das Grabfeld von Hallstatt in Oberösterreich und dessen Alterthümer, von Dr. Ed. Freih. v. Sacken. Wilhelm Braunmüller, Wien, 1868, pp. 124–7.Google Scholar
28. Gray, H. St. George. Report British Association, Dublin, vol. 1908, pp. 401–13, and Report Winnipeg, 1909.Google Scholar
29. Excavations at Bokerly Dyke and Wansdyke, 1888–1891. Lieut-General Pitt-Rivers. Vol. iii, p. 135.Google Scholar
30. Archaeologia, lxi. 214.Google Scholar
31. Interim Report on the Excavations at Maumbury Rings, Dorchester, 1908. By Gray, Harold St. George. From the Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club, vol. xxix, 1908.Google Scholar
32. Matériaux pour l'Histoire de l'Homme, 21me volume, tome iv, Janvier 1887. Marcelin Boule.Google Scholar
33. British Barrows, Greenwell and Rolleston. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1877, p. 231, &c.Google Scholar
34. Archaeological Journal, vol. xxxi, 1874. Ancient Mining Implements in Cornwall, by Worth, R. N., p. 54.Google Scholar