Fig. 109.—Flint Arrow-head, Laugerie Haute (1/1). (Lartet and Christy.)
Fig. 110.—Bone needle, La Madelaine (1/1). (Lartet and Christy.)
The broken bones show that the reindeer furnished the more usual food, and next to that the horse, and then the bison. And from the absence of the vertebræ and pelvic bones of the two latter animals, M. Lartet concludes that they were cut up where they were killed, and the meat stripped from the backbone and the pelvis. Their food was probably cooked by boiling, the number of round stones used for heating water and bearing marks of fire, like the “pot boilers” of some of the American Indians, being very considerable.
Among the stone implements flint flakes were incredibly numerous, and the number of chips scattered about as well as the blocks of flint from which they had been struck, proved that they had been made on the spot; most of these flakes were notched by use ([Fig. 106]). Instruments with the ends carefully rounded off ([Fig. 107]) were also abundant, and from their analogy with similar instruments used by the Eskimos, there can be but little doubt that they were intended for the preparation of skins (compare [Fig. 107] with [Fig. 124]). The ends of some were chipped to a point for insertion into a handle, while others rounded at both ends were probably used freely in the hand. In the cave of Moustier oval implements were met with, resembling those figured from the caverns of Kent’s Hole and Wookey ([Figs. 84] and [97]). The spear, javelin, and arrow-heads of flint presented two modes of attachment to the shaft, the base of some being squared off with a notch above for the ligature (as in [Fig. 108]), while in others ([Fig. 109]) it tapered off into a point intended for insertion. This latter form has been obtained also in Kent’s Hole.
The bone needles are carefully smoothed, and were pierced with a neatly-made eye ([Fig. 110]) by means of pointed flakes which were found along with them, and the use of which M. Lartet demonstrated by experiment. They had been sawn out of the compact metacarpals and tarsals of the reindeer[224] and the horse, and subsequently rounded on fragments of sandstone, the grooves of which fitted them. In this, therefore, we have not merely the evidence that the hunters were in the habit of sewing, but also we have vividly brought before us the very method by which their needles were manufactured. They were probably used for sewing skins together, the tendon of a reindeer forming the thread, as among the modern Eskimos.
Figs. 111, 112.—Harpoons of Antler, La Madelaine. (Lartet and Christy.)
Figs. 113, 114.—Arrow-heads, Gorge d’Enfer. (Broca.)