PALEOLITHIC RACES 23 



necessary, and the question arises whether any accessory appara- 

 tus was used, such as the bow drill, so common among many 

 primitive people at the present day. The Eskimo use an ivory 

 bow drill, and if a similar implement had been known to the 

 Magdalenian men we might expect to find examples preserved 

 in the cave deposits ; none, however, have so far been met with. 

 The bow is not the essential part of the bow drill, but merely 

 a mechanical refinement, ensuring that the bow string is main- 

 tained in uniform tension. The string, twisted round the borer, 

 may be employed alone, its ends being held one in each hand 

 and pulled alternately in opposite directions. This simple 

 method of obtaining rotation, still in use among various wild 

 tribes, was possibly first introduced by the Magdalenians ; the 

 addition of the bow would then have followed later. 



Domestic utensils are not numerous. A shallow bowl, made 

 out of a fine close-grained sandstone, was found in the cave of 

 La Mouthe, Dordogne ; it is produced at one side into a kind 

 of shelf, which affords a handle, and the base is engraved with 

 a rough sketch of a wild goat. It has been interpreted as a 

 lamp, and it is certainly not unlike some of the stone lamps 

 used by the Eskimo to warm their winter houses. These lamps 

 give no smoke when carefully tended, and this suggests the 

 question whether they may not have been used to illuminate 

 the dark recesses of those caves which are adorned by mural 

 paintings. 



Personal ornaments have been found in great variety. In 

 addition to the teeth of bear, horse, and reindeer, sea-shells, 

 and even fossils, all perforated for suspension, we encounter 

 pendants of various forms carved out of bone or ivory, some 

 of which are of especial interest on account of their precise 

 resemblance to similar ornaments in use among the Eskimo, who 

 attach them to needle-cases, housewife bags, and sometimes as 

 tassels to their dress. Long, thin bone or ivory rods also occur, 

 very carefully shaped and bearing incised designs ; they closely 

 resemble in form and ornament the hairpins still in use among 

 the Eskimo. A small broken ornament with little pit-like mark- 

 ings found in the Magdalenian of Kulna, 1 Moravia, recalls some 

 objects of unknown use which the Eskimo women carry attached 

 to their " housewives." 



The art of the period is most fully expressed in sculpture 



1 J. Knies, Casopis muzejniho Sfiolkn v Olomuci, taf. xiv. 



