DEVELOPMENT OF PRIMAL SHAPIWU aKTS. 50 ( .) 



of specialized shapes unci uses, and especially to the production of 

 Implements with sharp points or cutting edges. 



The natural tendency of the pecking blow is to blunt and destroy 

 all edges, and the process would have to be diverted from its natural 

 channels by .strong forces to make it produce anything like an edged 

 tool; the conception of such a use would have to be acquired by famili- 

 arity with edged tools of other classes and materials. The celt, gouge, 

 and grooved ax are the principal implements made by pecking and 

 grinding in common use among savage peoples. These can not be 

 primal forms, as they represent ripened conceptions, specialized tech- 

 nique, skillful manipulation, and highly differentiated uses and methods 

 of employment. They are practically without ancestry in their own 

 lino. Altogether there seems to be little or no art produced by the 

 pecking and grinding processes that could be safely assigned to primal 

 times, save such adventitious shaping as comes from use. An examina- 

 tion of pecked tools reveals the fact that in very many cases the process 

 supplements that of flaking, and it is not impossible that it was first 

 brought into notice and use as a means of getting rid of irregularities 

 and excrescences commonly resulting from imperfect fracture. Peck- 

 ing w r ould inevitably be suggested in the progress of flaking operations, 

 first, by the effect on the hammer stone, which is modified and special- 

 ized by repeated contact with the stone flaked; second, by repeated 

 efforts to remove flakes where the stone happens to be especially 

 refractory. The repeated blows bruise the stone, modifying its shape, 

 and suggesting the possibility of shaping by this means. The abrad- 

 ing processes might also be suggested in similar ways, and especially 

 by the use of flaked tools in operations which modified and polished 

 their edges. 



Both the pecking and rubbing processes are especially adapted to 

 elaboration and finish, and are poorly qualified to deal with shapes not 

 already approximate. They did not attain their highest usefulness 

 until superstition and aesthetics became factors in art, encouraging- 

 elaboration of form and delicacy of finish. 



The accompanying diagram expresses in the most general way my 

 conceptions of the probable relationships of the four shaping pro- 

 cesses to the stages of culture progress. The accumulation of addi- 

 tional data will in time enable us to express these relations more fully 

 and with more certainty, but the task is beset with difficulties, for the 

 reason, mainly, that the origin and progress of these arts are not uni- 

 form among all peoples. The genetic columns can at best but express 

 generalizations, and are largely hypothetical. 



The column representing the development of fracturing arts, so far 

 as it relates to the earliest times, is based on the observations and 

 inferences already presented. The flaking act was a primal act, and 

 the dotted line descending into the pre-human stage indicates this. On 



