[Illustration: FIG. 26-30.—Fish-spears and Harpoons.]
of Neuchâtel. They present interesting analogies to the most familiar types of bone or ivory fish-spears of the French and English post-glacial era, of which Figs. 29, 30 are examples from the Dordogne Caves. Fig. 31, though worn and fractured, illustrates a form of the cave harpoon-blade, barbed only on one side. It is from Kent’s Cavern, where other, though less perfect, examples have been found. One of these, figured by Mr. Evans,[44] is specially noticeable for its curved form. Similar implements have repeatedly occurred in the cave-deposits, as in those of the Dordogne, and at Bruniquel, where also serrated flints or saws were found in unusual abundance. Fig. 36, from the cave of La Madelaine, is a good example of the unilateral fish-spear, much superior in workmanship to the similar implement of the modern Fuegian, shown in Fig. 33, and well adapted to the wants of a river-fisherman. But the form of the Kent’s Cavern type rather suggests that it was one of the blades of a large two-pronged, or three-pronged spear, similar to examples still in use among the Esquimaux:
[Illustration: FIG. 31.—Harpoon, Kent’s Cavern.]
[Illustration: FIG. 32.—Bone Spear-head, Dordogne Caves.]
[Illustration: FIG. 33.—Fuegian Harpoon.]
of which one, now in the museum of the University of Toronto, shown in Fig. 26, illustrates the probable design of the curved blades. In the caves of the Dordogne and Garonne valleys repeated discoveries of bone needles, in association with the barbed fish-spear, have been noted. They are objects of delicate manipulation, the value of which is proved by the occurrence of examples accidentally broken, and drilled with a new eye. The caves of the Dordogne pertained, even in the remote era of the mammoth or reindeer periods, to a race of inland hunters and fishermen to whom such a harpoon would have been cumbrous, if not wholly unsuited to their requirements. But the Kent’s Hole Troglodyte had probably more formidable prey to encounter, and so adapted the implements of the chase to his special requirements. Of the bilateral barbed fish-spear, a good, though imperfect example is shown, the natural size, in Fig. 32, from Laugerie Basse, in the Dordogne. Another, Fig. 34, was found imbedded in the red cave-earth of Kent’s Cavern, underneath a bed of black earth, containing flint-flakes and bones of extinct mammals, over which the stalagmitic flooring had accumulated to a thickness of a foot and a half. Similar implements have been recovered from other Dordogne Caves. Fig. 35, from La Madelaine, is a variation of the latter type, in which the barbs are disposed alternately on either side.