The fact that tin is a metal of rare occurrence, though found in nearly inexhaustible quantities in some regions, has given a peculiar significance to certain historical researches, apart from the special interest involved in the processes of the primitive metallurgist, and the widely diffused traces of workers in bronze. The comparative rarity of flint, and its total absence in many localities, suggest a like inquiry into the probable sources of its supply in regions remote from its native deposits. The flint lance or arrow head, thrown by an enemy, or wrested from the grasp of a vanquished foe, would, as in the case of improved weapons of war in many a later age, first introduce the prized material to the notice of less favoured tribes. As the primitive tool-maker learned by experience the greater adaptability of flint than of most other stones for the manufacture of his weapons and implements, it may be assumed that it became an object of barter in localities remote from those where it abounds; and thus, by its diffusion, it may have constituted a recognised form of _pecunia_ ages before the barter of pastoral tribes gave rise to the peculiar significance attached to that term.
One piece of confirmatory evidence of trade in unwrought flint is the frequent occurrence of numerous flint flakes among the prized gifts deposited with the dead. Canon Greenwell describes, among the contents of a Yorkshire barrow in the parish of Ganton, a deposit of flint flakes and chippings numbering one hundred and eighteen, along with a few finished scrapers and arrow heads;[24] and smaller deposits of like kind are repeatedly noted by him. Still more, he describes their occurrence under circumstances which suggest the probability of the scattering of flint flakes, like an offering of current coin, by the mourners, as the primitive grave was covered in and the memorial mound piled over the sacred spot. Flints and potsherds, he says, occur more constantly, and even more abundantly than bones; and this presents to his mind a difficult problem, in considering which he refers to an analogous practice of a very diverse age. The maimed rites at poor Ophelia’s grave are familiar to the reader of _Hamlet_. The priest replies to the demand of Laertes for more ample ceremony at his sister’s burial:—