Page:Excavations at the Kesslerloch.djvu/45

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REINDEER-HORN IMPLEMENTS.
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in which case they certainly would have been found by us. On the other hand, we have found in the relic-bed about two hundred large rolled stones, the size of the hand, very hard, more or less pointed, all of which show tolerably decided 'hammering surfaces' and hollows, evidently arising from repeated blows on the bones which contained marrow, and very probably also on the hard flintstones; so that here in these pebbles we have the most primitive hammers. The well-known proverb, 'If men are silent the stones cry out,' finds here its most literal application.

Although the cave-dwellers were but badly provided with tools, yet on this very account their dexterity in manufacturing implements and ornaments was most remarkable. These, like the tools, show very little variety, and in fact are limited to what was most necessary. The material from which they manufactured their implements was almost exclusively reindeer-horn. No small number of horns were found in our cave heaped together with a still greater quantity of waste from the worked material. The idea of utilising the horns arose probably from their being the only large solid parts of the animal which could be worked up without very great labour. The first thing to be done was to separate the horns from the reindeer after it had been killed. Probably the skull of the animal was beaten to pieces by repeated blows with the rolled stones above mentioned, and then the horns could be separated from it, either entire or with some little portion of the frontal bone (Plate III. fig. 9). Next came the removal of the brow-antler, ending in a palm; this shoots off immediately above what is called the 'burr,' or rose-piece; then the first main offset or 'bez-antler' was taken off, and all this could be accomplished by merely striking off these branches which would have been in the way of working the horn properly. This manipulation was probably not effected without difficulty, as many fragments found in the cave seem to indicate, which have been again and again cut with flint knives in various directions. The stumps or pieces of the branches remaining on the horn were in general very short—hardly more than one or two inches long. Only a single perfect palm was found, while, on the other hand, the fragments were found by hundreds. As the chief offsets or 'tynes' of a strong antler could apparently be utilised probably as handles for flint implements, they were in general separated from the main antler somewhat more carefully, by making with a flint saw incisions on the opposite sides of the horn down to the porous part, and then breaking