BROKEN HARPOON.
From Kent’s Cave.
SINGLE
BARBED
HARPOON
(Bruniquel).
DOUBLE
BARBED
REINDEER
HARPOON
(La Madelaine).
DOUBLE BARBED
HARPOON.
Neolithic.
From Sutz,
Switzerland.
Observe the hole
for attaching
the line.
The Harpoon makes its appearance in the middle or (according to Osborne) early Magdalenian deposits. Its crudest form shows a short, straight piece of bone, deeply grooved on one face, the ridges and notches along one edge being the only indications of what later developed into the recurved barbed points of the typical Harpoon. These barbs or points, retroverted in such a manner as to hold their place in the flesh of the fish, do not suddenly appear like an inventive mutation, but very slowly evolve as their usefulness is demonstrated by practice.
The shaft is very rarely perforated at the base for the attachment of a line[67]; it is cylindrical (later flat) in form adapted to the capture of large fish in streams. The harpoons may possibly have been projected by means of the so-called propulseurs or dart throwers, which resemble the Eskimo and Australian implements of to-day.
Amidst the clash of opinion as to the exact use and method of use of these weapons, my conclusion, admittedly incapable of absolute proof, holds that the Palæolithic fisher owes to the hunter the inception of the chief weapon of his equipment, the Spear-Harpoon.