380 ARCHEOLOGY. 



nating animal. Though we cannot precisely decide as to what 

 instruments fitted into these antlers or parts of antlers, it is, how- 

 ever, quite certain that they served as handles for tools of various 

 forms. Ten buckhorn handles, four inches in average length, and 

 cut at both ends, have those cylindrical or conical cavities which, 

 according to the objects discovered, may have held either punches 

 or poignards. Some others of various forms, like a raven's beak, or 

 curved naturally, also bear positive marks of having been used as 

 handles. Sixty pieces, having the form of the foregoing, but without 

 the hollow imprint of instruments, must be looked upon as unfinished 

 articles kept in reserve for daily-occurring emergencies, according 

 to a custom still observed by the inhabitants of that neighborhood. 



Of fifty-one handles intended to receive stone chisels, twenty are 

 perfect, sixteen have been formerly broken, and fifteen were never 

 finished. 



The buckhorn, which plays so considerable a part in the discov- 

 eries at Concise, has been especially used for axe handles. The last 

 research ther^e brought to light above two hundred, including sixty 

 fragments, some of which, to be sure, may have belonged to the same 

 article. Of that number, sixty-two are perfect, and fofty-eight, not 

 reckoning the small fragments, have been more or less so injured as 

 to be useless. These handles are of three different forms. The great 

 majority of them are made with pieces of buckhorn of an almost cyl- 

 indrical shape, those of the second kind have on one side a promi- 

 nence which serve as a rest for the hand, and the others, only eight 

 in number, are bifurcated in facets on the part which enters into the 

 handle in such wise as to enable the adjustment to be strengthened 

 by means of a wedge. Twenty antlers, some of which have served as 

 handles, are worn at the point into the form of chisels. Several 

 pieces, also, have been cut into the form of elongated wedges. 



A buckhorn and four canons or tibia sawed or split lengthwise, 

 sharpened to very keen points may have served as weapons of war 

 or as instruments of peaceful use. One hundred and one hone punches 

 of from one inch to four inches in length, have rounded, oval, or 

 square points. Four show the wear produced by the thread round 

 the punch; six were arranged in the mud brought up by the dredge 

 in the form of the teeth in a comb, but there was no trace of ligature 

 which would warrant the assertion that that arrangement was not 

 merely accidental. Thirty of the punches were made from the rib 

 bones of different animals, and forty exhibited, on the end opposite 

 to the point, a roughness which would have hurt the hand had 

 not the instrument been inserted into a handle. The small dimen- 

 sions, also, of some of them would have made it almost impossible to 

 use them without handles. The same remark applies to the hone 

 chisels^ some of which are pointed at both ends; their length varies 

 from one inch to five inches, and their cutting edge or point is from 

 a line to eight lines in breadth. The chisels discovered during the 

 last dredging were forty-six in number. Four teeth of the wild boar 

 are sharpened into the form of a knife, or a miniature bill-hook. 



Bone and buckhorn were also used in the manufacture of a variety 



