Night Is Before the Dawn 13 



existed in what is known as the Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age. 

 The inhabitants of the other lands bordering the North Sea who 

 indulged in whaling seem to have been of somewhat later date and 

 of Neolithic, or Late Stone Age cultures. These are the so-called 

 Brock and Wheelhouse Builders of Scotland and the isles and the 

 Stone Age peoples who dwelt along the fjords of the Norwegian 

 coast and who left us those pictures that speak so eloquently of their 

 activities. 



All these peoples used whale products from the earliest times, and 

 it seems from the evidence that they actually went after the whales 

 upon the sea. This is really a very astonishing thing to contemplate, 

 more especially when we consider that they had only, at best, skin 

 boats in which to do this. At the same time it becomes somewhat less 

 amazing when we find that the Eskimos today go whaling in their 

 "umiaks." These are tiny, narrow canoes made of the hides of the 

 bearded seal, and it is probable that the neolithic boats were made of 

 similar material, for there is much evidence of sealing activities by 

 these people. The Eskimos of Alaska now hunt the largest whales — 

 the arctic right whales — with iron harpoons and small explosive 

 bomb-guns, but in other areas they still employ bone harpoons and 

 confine their attentions to the smaller species. They also use floats 

 made of inflated seal skins carefully sewn so as to be airtight, just 

 as the neolithic hunters on the shores of the Hebrides did thousands 

 of years ago. These prevent the whales from sounding and without 

 them it would be virtually impossible, using skin canoes, bone har- 

 poons, and lines made of hide, to land even a porpoise. 



It is only logical to suppose, however, that before men went fish- 

 ing in the sea, they learned about the animals that lived therein from 

 dead specimens which they found washed up on the beaches. 

 Stranded whales are even today fairly numerous around the coasts 

 of Europe despite the great reduction in their numbers compared to 

 ancient times, due to centuries of whaling. Official records of those 

 stranded on the coasts of the British Isles have been kept for a num- 

 ber of years. During the period from 191 3 to 1926 no less than four 

 hundred and seven were reported. Of these, one hundred and sev- 

 enty-eight were common porpoises, but seventeen other species were 

 also represented and there was an average of four rorquals beached 

 every year, most of them concentrated at the northern tip of Scot- 



