At the doors of the mounds or in an entrance chamber many bones have been discovered, the traces of a funeral feast, the wake or watch kept on the evening of the burial. Likely enough, if the chief were almost deified after death, the funeral feast would become periodical. It would be considered canny and of good omen that the elders of the tribe should meet there at times in solemn conclave, on the eve of a warlike expedition or whenever the watchful care of the dead hero might avail his descendants. From the remains of these feasts, and from the relics of the tombs, we have the means of forming some idea of man’s acquirements at this time. His implements are improvements upon those of the stone age: in all respects, that is, save in this one, that he had now no barbed weapons; whereas we remember that in the caves barbed harpoons are frequently met with. Nor, again, had he the artistic talent of the cave-dwellers: no traces of New Stone-age drawings have come to light. For the rest, his implements and weapons may be divided into a few distinctive classes:--
1. Hammers, hatchets, tomahawks, or chisels; an instrument made of a heavy piece of stone brought to a sharp cutting edge at one end, and at the other rounded or flat, so as to serve the double purpose of a hammer and an axe. When these are of an elongated form they are called celts or chisels. As subspecies to the hammers and celts we have picks and gouges. 2. Arrow and spear heads, which differ in size but not much in form, both being long and narrow in shape, often closely resembling the leaf of the laurel or the bay, sometimes of a diamond shape, but more often having the lateral corners nearest to the end which fitted into the shaft. Viewed edgeways, they also appear to taper towards either end, for while one point was designed to pierce the victim, the other was fitted into a cleft handle, and bound into it with cord or sinew. Implements have been discovered still fitted into their handles. 3. The stone knives, which have generally two cutting edges, and when this is the case do not greatly differ from the spear-heads, though they are commonly less pointed than the latter. And to these three important forms we may add, as less important types, a rounded form of implement, generally called a scraper, and similar to the scrapers of the palæolithic era; stones designed for slinging, net-weights, and perhaps corn-grinders or nut-crushers. A few bone implements have been found in the tumuli, a pin, a chisel, and a knife or so; but they are very rare, they are never carved, and have not one quarter of the interest which belongs to the bone implements of the caves. Finally, we must not omit to say that in Anhalt, in Germany, a large stone has been found which seems to have served the purpose of a plough. For there can be little doubt that if some of the tumuli belong to a time before the use of domesticated animals--save the dog--they last down to a time when man not only had tame oxen, pigs, goats, and geese,[11] but also sowed and planted, and lived the life of an agricultural race; nor will it be said that such an advance was extraordinary when we say that the minimum duration of the age of polished stone in central Europe was probably two thousand years.