HARPOON-HEADS. 



19 



cut perforation. It is the only object of this special form figured in " Reliquiae 

 Aquitanicse."* I place alongside of it Fig. 18, representing a specimen found 





to >"> 



Fio. 17.— La Madelaine. Fio. 18.— Laugerie Basse. 



Figs. 17 aud 18. — Harpoon-heads of reindeer-horn. 



by M. Elie Massenat at Laugerie Basse.f Its lower extremity tapers to a point, 

 and there is a perforation at some distance from it. The design is not sufficiently 

 characteristic to show whether the object has a flatfish or rounded form. 



There can be no doubt that many of the jjoints of reindeer-horn found in 

 the French caves were the armatures of hunting-spears, if not of arrows, which 

 fact, if it needed verification, is proved by the discovery, at the station of Les 

 Eyzies, of a bone in which a broken barbed dart-head still remains fixed.J It 

 would be impossible to decide at this time which of the armatures provided with 

 barbs served as the heads of hunting-spears or of harpoons. Possibly the cave- 

 men were not very choice in the selection, and used them as the occasion required, 

 though it is quite probable that, in spearing fish, they preferred shafts purposely 

 provided with heads having unilateral barbs, which, of course, penetrated with 

 greater ease. Dr. Broca is very strict in his definition of the harpoons used by 



*Fig. 57, I, p. 160. 



t Materiaux pour I'Histoire Primitive et Naturclle do I'Homme; Vol. V, 18C0, Plate 20. 



J Figured in Figuier's " Primitive Man," p. 100. 



