THE TANGED POINT
It was only in the late years of the Old Stone Age that man learned to put a tang on a point and so make it easier to fasten to a shaft. This advance may have been made in connection with the spear-thrower, but it seems more likely that the arrow brought forth this technological refinement. Only Solutrean man and the American Paleo-Indian made truly efficient points. (The Solutrean, after Burkitt, 1933; the Font Robert at right, after Burkitt, 1933—at left, after MacCurdy, 1924; the Aterian, after Plant, 1942.)
A laurel-leaf Solutrean point from France, ½ natural size. (After MacCurdy, 1924.)
A tool to make a tool. Such burins, with a transverse edge at the top, rather like that of a chisel, were used by the Magdalenians to shape bone implements and engrave designs upon them. (After Wilson, 1898.)
Following these Asiatics, a people whose culture was very similar to that of the Aurignacians appeared in Europe. They were the Magdalenians, and they carried on the general traits of the men of Aurignac and added to them (see illustration, [page 101]). They made better blades and burins. (Long, slim blades of the Aurignacian-Magdalenian type have been found in Mexico, and there are burins in Alaska and northern Asia.) The burins helped the Magdalenians to make new implements of bone such as needles, fishhooks, harpoons, and spear-throwers. Besides all this, they brought to perfection the arts of painting and sculpture which used to be too much credited to the Aurignacians (see illustrations, pages [110] and [114]). The magnificent polychromes of the Magdalenians in the Lascaux and Font-de-Gaume Caves in France and the Altamira Cave in Spain testify to the genius of this people. The customary dispute exists about their time of activity. One authority puts it from 11,500 to 8,500 years ago, and another from 70,000 to 25,000.[27] Radiocarbon indicates a probable range of 17,000 to 10,000 years ago.
