FLINTS & NEOLITHIC ARALDITE: PREHISTORIC BRITISH BULLROARERS?
Several 19th century authors listed the names used for the toy bullroarer used in Britain: there were many variations on boomer, bummer
and, particularly in Scotland,
thunder spell. ‘Spell’ here means not a magic charm, but a thin shaving of wood used in fire-lighting. All refer to the bullroarer as a toy, with just one hint that it may once have been taken seriously. Haddon, in 1898, declared that Irish boys in County Down commonly played with the bullroarer. He added: “My informant stated that once when, as a boy, he was playing with a ‘boomer’ an old country woman said it was a ‘sacred’ thing. It would be worthwhile to follow up this clue.”
Was the bullroarer used in prehistoric Britain? It would be remarkable if it was not.
However, wood does not survive well in these damp islands, so there are virtually no traces in the archæological record. But not all bullroarers are made of wood. From the Neolithic to the Bronze Age, objects described as ‘flint knives’ were ritually deposited all over Britain in their thousands, showing no signs of having been used for cutting. Back in 2010, I was examining some of these flints in the Keiller Museum, Avebury. Looking at a broken knife in cross section, I suddenly realised why the shape was familiar: it was an aerofoil section. This could have been used as a bullroarer!
Knapped flint knives come in two types, plano-convex and
bi-facial. Plano-convex knives are flat on one face, rounded on the other. They are so simple that an experienced flint knapper can make one with a single strike of his hammer stone on a flint core. Bi-facial knives are worked on both faces. I bought some quick-drying cement, and set about making copies of the knapped flint knives. For convenience, I embedded a piece of wire in each ‘knife’ to attach a string to. When whirled, they did indeed make a sound – these were bullroarers! Drilling a small hole in a piece of flint is extremely difficult, but there are other ways to attach a string, such as soaking a piece of rawhide and letting it shrink onto the flint as it dries.
I consulted with Karl Lee, a professional flint knapper. Karl made me a plano-convex flint knife, then cleverly attached a string to it using Neolithic technology. He notched a small piece of wood to match the flint’s shape, then lashed the wood to the flint using a fine string made from plant fibres. The lashing was then covered with ‘Neolithic Araldite’ – a mixture of beeswax and pine resin. It works beautifully.
Whirling easily, it makes a loud roaring, yet still functions as a knife and is sharp enough to cut meat. Bullroarers do tend to fly off their strings sometimes, but this is entirely in keeping with bullroarer tradition. What could be more masculine than braving razor-sharp flints as they fly through the air? 1
Proving that the bullroarer could have been used in prehistoric Britain is not the same as proving that it was. Organic glues would likely not have survived, but who knows? Perhaps flints will someday turn up with other indications that they have been used as bullroarers. 2 Stone objects that are definitely bullroarers are rare, but have been found. A slate bullroarer found in Norway and dated to 2,800 BC, for instance, has carved notches at one of its ends for tying onto a string. 3
1 S Marshall, “The Flint That Roared”, British Archæology, MayJune 2010.
2 No wooden examples from Britain have yet been identified, though it is possible that some may have been found but not recognised. Ponting in 1882 found “a singular piece of wood in the form of a knife” inside a round barrow on Overton Hill near Avebury. Although deposited in Devizes, it has not survived (reported in Wiltshire Archæological Magazine, Vol. xx, 1882, pp342–345).
3 G Kolltveit, “Classification of Sound, Sound Tools, and Soundscapes”, Monographs of the Archæological Society of Finland 2, 2014, pp73–84.