Thus far the results accord with other investigations; but in the course of his operations Mr. Cushing also noted this fact, that the grooves produced by the flaking of the flint or obsidian all turned in one direction. This proved to be due to the constant use of his right hand. When the direction of pressure by the bone or stick was reversed, the result was apparent in the opposite direction of the grooves. So far as his observations then extended, he occasionally found an arrow-head or other primitive stone implement with the flake grooves running from left to right, showing, as he believed, the manipulation of a left-handed workman; but, from the rarity of their occurrence, it might be concluded that, as a rule, prehistoric man was right-handed. When Mr. Cushing reported the results of those investigations into the arts of the Stone Age, at a meeting of the Anthropological Society of Washington in May 1879, Professor Mason confirmed from his own observation the occurrence of flint implements indicating by the reversed direction of the bevelling that they were produced by left-handed workmen. Mr. Cushing further notes that “arrow-making is accompanied by great fatigue and profuse perspiration. It has a prostrating effect upon the nervous system, which shows itself again in the direction of fracture. The first fruits of the workman’s labour, while still fresh and vigorous, can be distinguished from the implements produced after he had become exhausted at his task; and it is thus noteworthy that on an unimpressible substance like flint even the moods and passions of long-forgotten centuries may be found thus traced and recorded.”
In an ingenious brochure by Mr. Charles Reade, styled “The Coming Man,” specially aiming at the development in the rising generation of the use of the left hand, so that the man of the future shall be ambidextrous or “either-handed,” he remarks: “There certainly is amongst mankind a vast weight of opinion against my position that man is by nature as either-handed as an ape; and that custom should follow nature. The majority believe the left arm and hand inferior to the right in three things: power, dexterity, and dignity. Nor is this notion either old-fashioned or new-fangled. It is many thousand years old; and comes down by unbroken descent to the present day.” The writer then goes on to affirm: “It has never existed amongst rank barbarians; it is not indicated in the genuine flint instruments; but only in those which modern dexterity plants in old strata, to delight and defraud antiquarians; and the few primitive barbarians that now remain, living relics of the Stone Age, use both arms indifferently.” The conclusions here assumed as established by evidence derived from the study of “the genuine flint instruments” imply, I presume, that they do embody indications of right and left-hand manipulation in nearly equal proportions; whereas the forgeries of the modern “Flint Jack” all betray evidence of right-handed manufacture, and of consequent modernness. This, however, must have been set forth as a mere surmise; for, as now appears, it is in conflict with the results of careful investigations directed to the products of the primitive flint workers. The opinion adopted by Mr. Cushing, after repeated observation and tentative experiment, is that primitive man was, as a rule, right-handed. The evidence adduced is insufficient for an absolute determination of the question; but any strongly-marked examples of the left-handed workman’s art thus far observed among palæolithic flint implements appear to be exceptional. No higher authority than Dr. John Evans can be appealed to in reference to the manipulations of the primitive flint-worker, and, in writing to me on the subject, he remarks: “I think that there is some evidence of the flint-workers of old having been right-handed; the particular twist, both in some palæolithic implements, as in one in my own possession from Hoxne, and in some American rifled arrow-heads, being due to the manner of chipping, and being most in accordance with their being held in the left hand and chipped with the right.” In the detailed description, given in his Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain, of the example from Hoxne above referred to, Dr. John Evans remarks: “It presents the peculiarity, which is by no means uncommon in ovate implements, of having the side edges not in one plane, but forming a sort of ogee curve. In this instance the blade is twisted to such an extent that a line drawn through the two edges near the point is at an angle of at least 45° to a line through the edges at the broadest part of the implement. I think,” he adds, “that this twisting of the edges was not in this case intended to serve any particular purpose, but was rather the accidental result of the method pursued in chipping the flint into its present form.”[2] A similar curvature is seen in a long-pointed implement from Reculver, in the collection of Mr. J. Brent, F.S.A., and again in another large example of this class, from Hoxne in Suffolk, presented to the Society of Antiquaries of London upwards of eighty years ago. This, as Dr. Evans notes, exhibits the same peculiarity of the twisting of the edges so markedly, and indeed so closely resembles the specimen in his own collection, that they might have been made by the same hand. Of another example, from Santon Downham, near Hetford, Suffolk, almond-shaped, and with dendritic markings in evidence of its palæolithic date, Dr. Evans remarks: “It is fairly symmetrical in contour with an edge all round, which is somewhat blunted at the base. This edge, however, is not in one plane, but considerably curved, so that when seen sideways it forms an ogee curve;” and he adds: “I have other implements of the same, and of more pointed forms, with similarly curved edges, both from France and other parts of England, but whether this curvature was intentional it is impossible to say. In some cases it is so marked that it can hardly be the result of accident; and the curve is, so far as I have observed, almost without exception
, and not
. If not intentional, the form may be the result of all the blows by which the implement was finally chipped out having been given on the one face on one side, and on the opposite on the other.”[3] In other words, the implement-maker worked throughout with the flaker in the same hand; and that hand, with very rare exceptions, appears to have been the right hand. The evidence thus far adduced manifestly points to the predominance of right-handed men among the palæolithic flint-workers. For if the flint-arrow maker, working apart, and with no motive, therefore, suggested by the necessity of accommodating himself to a neighbouring workman, has habitually used the right hand from remote palæolithic times, it only remains to determine the origin of a practice too nearly invariable to have been the result of accident. This, however, has long eluded research; or thus far, at least, has been ascribed to very different causes. But to any who regards the special inquiry now under review as one worthy of further consideration, the class of implements referred to offers a trustworthy source of evidence whereby to arrive at a relative estimate of the prevalent use of one or the other hand among uncultured races of men, alike in ancient and modern times.
[2] Ancient Stone Implements, p. 520.
[3] Ancient Stone Implements, p. 501.
Dr. Evans has figured and described what he believes to have been the flaking tools or fabricators in earliest use among the flint-workers for chipping out arrow-heads and other small implements. They are fashioned of the same material; and some of them are carefully wrought into a form best adapted for being held in the hand of the workman. Specimens of the bone arrow-flakers in use by the Eskimo workers in flint are also familiar to us. Different forms of those instruments are engraved among the illustrations to The Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments of Great Britain, from specimens in the Blackmore Museum and the Christy Collection;[4] and Dr. Evans describes the mode of using them as witnessed by Sir Edward Belcher among the Eskimo of Cape Lisburne, but without reference to the point now alluded to. Dr. John Rae, who, like myself, is inveterately left-handed, informs me that, without having taken particular notice of Indian or Eskimo practice in the use of one or the other hand, he observed that some among them were markedly ambidextrous. But, he adds, “from a curious story told me by an Eskimo about a bear throwing a large piece of ice at the head of a walrus, and telling me as a noteworthy fact that he threw it with the left forepaw, as if it were something unusual, it would seem to indicate that left-handedness was not very common among the Eskimos.” It shows, at any rate, that the Eskimo noted the use of the left paw as something diverse from the normal practice. But if the deductions based on the experimental working in flint are well founded, the test supplied by the direction of the flaking grooves of obsidian, chert, or flint implements will be equally available for determining the prevalent use of one or other hand by the Eskimo and other modern savage races, as among those of the Palæolithic and Neolithic Periods.
[4] Ancient Stone Implements, figs. 8, 9, 10.