Pre-Colombian Jamaica: Caribbean Archeology and Ethnohistory

252 / Appendix D.
CHAPTER III
IMPLEMENTS
Jamaica has been noted by several writers as having furnished a particularly
abundant series of examples of the stone and flint weapons and implements
of its ancient inhabitants (1870, p. 239). This is certainly true as regards the
various stone implements, but flint objects are exceptional; flakes having been
only recently discovered in the refuse- heaps.
In the Exhibition has been gathered together probably the largest series of
implements ever shown from the island. Inspector Church’s collection numbered
171 specimens; the Institute’s about 70; Dr. G. J. Neish’s 40; Lady Blake’s
18; Mr. W. H. Plant’s 21; while additional minor ones bring the number up
to nearly four hundred. Notices and presentations of other small collections
are constantly being received at the Museum, while the peasantry are known
to still have occasional ones in their possession and to be often finding them.
Quite recently a collection of one hundred specimens has been obtained from
and around the District of Vere. This quantity was secured by the exertions of
one collector, within a period of three or four months. Numbers have also left
the island at various times and been dispersed. Inspector Church informs me
that between one and two hundred have been thus sent abroad by him, and
Lady Blake has obtained at various times a total of over a hundred examples.
Considering the small extent of Jamaica, 4,193 square miles, this number of
specimens is rather surprising. A further important fact is the uniformity in
the type presented. About 90 per cent belong to the well known [32] petaloid
or almond- shaped celts, with only slight variations in form. The remainder are
fashioned as wedges, chisels, axes, mealing- stone rollers, smoothing stones, or
are spherical.
Celts
Different forms of celts are presented on Plate I.
Many of the specimens are apparently accidentally and recently chipped at
the broad cutting edge, and more rarely at the narrow edge; but practically all
are well shaped, beautifully finished, and smooth. Many are highly polished,
and others appear to have lost their original polish by long burial in the ground.
Most are sharpened, while a few have the broad cutting edge rounded. Opposite
parts are not always symmetrical to any axis.
The sizes vary from some about an inch in length to a petaloid one, lent by
Mr. H. P. Deans, 9 inches long and 4 inches across at the broadest part.
The material of which the implements are composed varies considerably, ex-