The Swastika, the Earliest Known Symbol, and Its Migration / With Observations on the Migration of Certain Industries in Prehistoric Times

by Thomas Wilson

The existence of spindle-whorls in distant and widely separated countries affords a certain amount of presumptive evidence of migrations of peoples from one country to another, or of contact or communication between them. If the people did not themselves migrate and settle the new country, taking the spindle-whorls and other objects with them, then the spindle-whorl itself, or the knowledge of how to make and use it, must in some other way have gotten over to the new country.

This argument of migration, contact, or communication does not rest solely on the similarity of the whorls in the distant countries, but equally on the fact of spinning thread from the fiber; and this argument is reenforced by the similarity of the operation and of the tool or machine with which it was done. It has been said elsewhere that the probability of communication between widely separated peoples by migration or contact depended for its value as evidence, in some degree, upon the correspondence or similarity of the object considered, and that this value increased with the number of items of correspondence, the closeness of similarity, the extent of the occurrence, and the difficulty of its performance. So we pass to the similarity in size, appearance, mode of manufacture, and, finally, the use of the whorls of the two continents.

EUROPE.

Switzerland—Lake dwellings.—Figs. [345] and [346] show stone spindle-whorls from prehistoric Swiss lake dwellings. These are in the U. S. National Museum, and with them are dozens of others of the same kind and style from all other parts of Europe. [Fig. 347] shows a stone spindle-whorl from Lund, Sweden. It is in the U. S. National Museum and was contributed by Professor Jillson. Figs. [348], [349], and [350] represent terra-cotta spindle-whorls from the Swiss lakes. These specimens were selected to show the different patterns, to illustrate their unlikeness instead of their likeness, to give an understanding of the various kinds of whorls rather than that they were all one kind, a fad which should be kept in mind during this argument.

Figs. 345 and 346.
STONE SPINDLE-WHORLS.
Neolithic. Swiss lake dwellings. U. S. National Museum.

Fig. 347. STONE SPINDLE-WHORL. Neolithic. Lund, Sweden. Cat. No. 5281, U. S. N. M.		Fig. 348. TERRA-COTTA SPINDLE-WHORL. Neolithic or Bronze Age. Swiss lake dwellings. Cat. No. 100642, U. S. N. M.