304 GENERAL VIEWS ON ARCHAEOLOGY. 



horns, which have been cut off and broken. It was naturally the 

 refuse only which was thrown away, and so the pieces that were 

 wrought and finished are missing. Nevertheless this refuse shows 

 positively enough that well ground chisels of silex were used,' and that 

 they were managed with skill. 



Carved bones have also been met with in the Kjoekkenmoedding . 

 They were made into awls, chisels, and even a sort of comb very 

 neatly fashioned, which appears to have been used in the manufacture 

 of thongs from sinews. 



A circumstance worthy of notice is, that all the solid bones, not hol- 

 low, of quadrupeds, are entire, whilst those which are hollow are found, 

 almost without exception, broken, showing frequently the mark of the 

 blow by which they were opened. The primitive people were evi- 

 dently fond of marrow, which they extracted wherever they found it, 

 either to eat it, or to employ it with brains in the preparation of skins, 

 as is done by the savages of North America. 1 The hollow bones (os 

 metacarpi and metatarsi) of ruminating animals, such as the deer and 

 roe-buck, presenting a longitudinal partition, which separates more or 

 less the marrow into two parts, have always been split transversely to 

 this partition in the direction of their length. Thereby the two compart- 

 ments of the marrow were laid open at one blow, and its immediate 

 extraction was thus rendered easy. The same process is still in vogue 

 among the Laplanders and the Greenlanders, with whom the marrow, 

 still warm from the natural heat of the animal, is considered the great- 

 est delicacy and a dish of honor, which they offer to strangers and to 

 the employes of the government. The dexterity with which these 

 people thus open the bones of the reindeer, is said to be surprising. 

 It is to be noticed, however, that they split the hollow bones of the 

 reindeer longitudinally, and parallel to the middle partition, which is 

 very thin in this species. 



Another circumstance affords its testimony to the practical sense of 

 the primitive people of Denmark. It is that, for the fabrication of 

 instruments and objects of bone, they have been clever enough to select 

 and to profit by that portion of the skeleton of the animal whose struc- 

 ture offers the greatest density and strength, namely: that on the 

 inner side of the radius. 



II. PEAT-BOGS. 



The Kjoekkenmoedding have furnished valuable data for the study of 

 the ancient fauna of Denmark ; but we have seen that they present 

 very few resources for the study of the ancient flora of this country. 

 What they are, however, in regard to the animal kingdom, the peat-bogs 

 are to the vegetable kingdom. Mr. Steenstrup has made these the object 



1 Hearne. Voyage du Fort du Prince de Galles a l'otean Nord en 1769, 1772. Paris, 

 vol. VII, p. 343. " The Indians prepare the skins with a lye made of brains and marrow." 



