EARLY MAN
selected as illustration, and the distribution of them is indicated by lists of 'findspots.' The arrow-heads, however, are few in number and of special interest: they are not altogether peculiar to this area, being found also at Manchester, and even towards the mouth of the Mersey at Wavertree near Liverpool.
The flint chippings of the Pennine range, from their very numbers, combined with the absence of metal among the deposits, constitute the only definite evidence of habitation during the neolithic period. The stone implements described below, classified as celts and perforated implements, adzes, axes, hammers, and the like, are not necessarily to be considered as the product of a purely Stone Age, though of neolithic character.
1. Roughly-worked Stones
Cores and flakes, and evidences of flint-working associated with these early inhabitants of the South Lancashire moors, have been found at many sites. Among them, in the main or central area, Brandwood Moor, Brown Wardle Hill, Cow Heys, Crow Knoll, Culvert Clough, Flower Scar Hill, Foxton Edge, Great Winning Gulf, Hades Hill (on the border), Haulgh, Helpet Edge, Hunger Hill, Longden End Moor, Lower Moor, Rushy Hill, Robin Hood's Bed, Ramsden, Rough Hill, Todmorden (on the border), Turnshaw Hill, Wardle Moor, Well i' th' Lane; especially also at Besom Hill, Blackstone Edge, Bull Hill, Knoll Hill, Middle Hill (Wardle), Readycon Dean, Tooter Hill, Trough Edge, and Wardle. From Bolton-le-Moors comes a 'flint-polisher;' and from Hollingworth Lake, as from Trough Edge, Knoll Hill, Middle Hill, etc., roundish hammer-stones, and 'thumb-stones.'
Further south, in the Manchester area, similar finds are recorded: at Broughton, Cheetham, Chorlton-upon-Medlock, Kersal Moor, Moss Side, and Radcliffe, near Bury.
From the Irwell House grounds, Lower Broughton, is an interesting specimen with serrated edges, found in the gravel about 5 ft. deep.
To the north the boundary of the settlement seems to be reached at the Worsthorne Moor, though isolated finds of small workings have been made at Mellor, Clitheroe, Longridge, Chipping, Bleasdale, and elsewhere as previously mentioned. A selection of typical worked flints from the moors around Rochdale is seen in Plate I. Other discoveries of miscellaneous worked flints have been made in association with interments and funeral deposits, and as such will be referred to in a later section.
2. Arrow-heads
With a few exceptions the finds of shaped arrow-heads are associated with the same area of neolithic settlements. The small pointed flints which might have been used as tips of arrows have been freely found wherever flint-working has been evidenced. A series of these is illustrated in the upper photograph of Plate I.
Arrows fashioned with a definite form, lozenge-shaped, leaf-shaped, and winged, are also common: Tooter Hill and Culvert Clough have yielded good examples. A fine class of barbed arrow also was produced by these
215
