75. Harpoons and Weapons
Towards the end of the Upper Palæolithic, in the Magdalenian, the harpoon came into extensive use. The shafts have of course long since decayed, but many of the reindeer antler heads have remained intact. At first these were notched with barbs along one edge only. In the later Magdalenian the barbs were cut on both sides. The harpoon differs from the simple spear or javelin in having its head detachable from the shaft. The two are fitted together by a socket. If the prey, be it fish or mammal, is not killed by the first throw, its struggles to escape shake the shaft loose, while the barbs hold the head firmly imbedded in its body. A line is attached to the head and tied to the shaft or held in the hand of the hunter. The animal is thus kept from escaping. During the Magdalenian the line was kept from slipping off the head by one or two knobs near the butt. In the subsequent Azilian period the head was perforated, as is the modern Eskimo practice. The harpoon is really a rather complicated instrument: it consists of at least three pieces—head, shaft, and line.
Another device which the Magdalenians shared with the Aztecs, the Eskimo, and some other modern peoples, is the spear thrower or atlatl. This is a sort of rod or handle, one end of which is grasped by the fingers while the other engages the butt end of the harpoon or dart. The hand only steers the shaft at the beginning of its flight: the propulsion comes from the thrower. The instrument may therefore be described as a device for artificially lengthening the human arm and thus imparting greater velocity and length of flight to the weapon. There is without doubt considerable ingenuity involved in this apparatus, both in its invention and in its successful use. A person unskilled in bodily movements would never hit upon the invention; nor could a race of high native dexterity acquire proficiency in the art of hunting with the thrower until each individual was willing to practise for a considerable period. It may once more be concluded, accordingly, that by the end of the Palæolithic, civilization had developed to a point where men were much readier to undergo protracted training and forbearance than they had been at the beginning of the period.
One instrument that we are wont to associate with the beginnings of civilization, because of its almost universal employment by savages of to-day, is the bow and arrow. So strong has the preconception been that the Palæolithic peoples must have been like modern savages, that time and time again it has been assumed that they possessed the bow. There is no convincing evidence to show that this was so, and a good deal of negative evidence to establish that they were unacquainted with the weapon. All the Palæolithic remains of flint, bone, or horn, which at times have been interpreted as arrow points, are more conservatively explained as knives or heads of darts. The prevailing opinion is that the bow was not invented until the Neolithic. This would make the weapon only about ten thousand years old—a hoary antiquity, indeed, but recent as compared with the knife, the spear, and even the harpoon. The reason for this lateness in the invention of the bow and arrow is probably to be sought in the delicacy of the instrument. It is not essentially more complex than the harpoon, certainly not more complex than the harpoon impelled by the spear thrower. But it involves much finer adjustments. A poorly made harpoon is of course inferior to a well-made one, but may be measurably effective. It may retrieve game half the time. But a bow which falls below a certain standard will not shoot at all, or will shoot so feebly as to have a zero efficiency. In fact, one of the things that students of the beginnings of culture have long been puzzled about is how the bow and arrow could have been invented. Most other inventions can be traced through a series of steps, each of which, although incomplete, achieved a certain utility of its own. But, other than toys or musical instruments, no implement has yet been found, or even satisfactorily imagined, which was not yet a bow, which would still serve a purpose, and which, by addition or improvement, could give rise to the bow.