ON THE STONE WEDGES OF JAVA, AND SIMILAR ANCIENT OBJECTS OF STONE, DISCOVERED IN BORNEO.
TRANSLATED, WITH SOME OMISSIONS, FROM A MEMOIR IN THE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF HOLLAND, BY DR. CONRAD LEEMANS, CURATOR OF THE MUSEUM OF ANTIQUITIES AT LEYDEN.
COMMUNICATED BY JAMES YATES, Esq., F.R.S.
Although, until recently, the Museum of Antiquities at Leyden possessed no objects of this description from Java, there can be no doubt of the existence of many such weapons and implements of ancient origin both in Java and in others of our East Indian possessions, where now, in consequence of the progress of civilisation, the use of metal has become universal. We may in general assume that the inhabitants of every country, in its rude state, have availed themselves, in order to make the tools and implements requisite for supplying their primitive wants, of such materials as they could most easily obtain, viz., stone, shells, bones, and fishes' teeth. Experience has not contradicted this supposition. Wherever we have penetrated to the stratum where the reliques of these uncivilised nations are deposited, we constantly find stone hatchets, hammers, wedges, spear-heads, points of arrows, and similar objects.
In Java these objects excited little interest in the presence of a rich store of statues, bas-reliefs, statuettes, and utensils designed both for the temple and the domestic abode, which were found in magnificent shrines and private houses, and which arrested the exclusive attention and admiration of antiquaries. Whilst the small intrinsic value of the chisels, wedges, hatchets, &c., caused them to be neglected, their similarity in form and workmanship to the weapons and implements, which are still, or were lately in use in the neighbouring islands, led to the impression that they were of modern date. This opinion was the more plausible, because, for want of an accurate knowledge of the circumstances and localities in which these objects were discovered,
