CELT (kelt, also selt), as once used by British and French archaeologists, described the hatchets, adzes or chisels of chipped or shaped stone used by primitive man. The word is variously derived from the Welsh cellt, a flintstone (the material of which the weapons are chiefly made, though celts of basalt felstone and jade are found), from being supposed to be the implement peculiar to the Celtic peoples; or, more probably, from a Low Latin word celtis, a chisel. The term is somewhat loosely applied to metal as well as stone axe-heads. In general form, stone celts approach an oval in section, with sides more or less straight and one end broader and sharper than the other. In length they vary from about two to as much as 16 inches. Some were fixed in wooden handles, and in the later stone adzes, holes are sometimes found pierced to receive the handles.
The term "celt" has been largely superseded by "axe," though it is by no means certain that all "celts" were "axes." Some, such as the larger ones of ground stone, may well have been used in agriculture for moving the soil. Many were doubtless mounted as adzes, particularly those of the "shoe-last" type (Schuhlasten beil), which have a very wide European distribution from the Balkans to Scandinavia.
Bronze celts are found in Europe, in Siberia, India (the Shan States) and China. They are flat, flanged, winged and socketed. An intermediate form is called "palstave" ; and it has been sug gested that the socketed celt was derived from the palstave by a natural transition, the invention being attributed to the people of the Lausitz culture of Germany. It is equally possible that the socketed celt was suggested by the beating over of the wings of the winged celt of Switzerland and Bavaria. Both explanations may be correct. The socket itself had been independently invented in England in the early bronze age, where it was applied to the spearhead.
In the west of England the country folks believe that the wea pons fell originally from the sky as "thunderbolts," and that the water in which they are boiled is a specific for rheumatism. In the north and in Scotland they are safeguards against cattle diseases. In Brittany a stone celt is thrown into a well to purify the water. In Sweden they are regarded as a protection against lightning. In Norway the belief is that, if they are genuine thunderbolts, a thread tied round them when placed on hot coals will not burn but will become moist. In Germany, Spain, Italy, the same beliefs prevailed. In Japan the stones are accounted of medicinal value, while in Burma and Assam they are regarded as thunderbolts and as infallible specifies for ophthalmia. In Africa they are the weap ons of the Thunder God. In India and among the Greeks the hatchet appears to have had a sacred importance, derived, doubt less from the universal superstitious awe with which these weapons of prehistoric man were regarded.
See Sir J. Evans, Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain; Lord Avebury, Prehistoric Times (1865-1900) and Origin of Civiliza tion (1870) ; E. B. Tylor, Anthropology and Primitive Culture. For the history of polished stone axes up to the 17th century see Dr. Marcel Baudouin and Lionel Bonnemere in the Bulletin de la Societe d'Anthropologie de Paris (April-May, 1905).