78 PREHISTORIC FISHING. 



saw, 1882), to which number Prince J. T. Lubomirski has contributed an 

 interesting article relating to the discovery of fishing-spear-heads on the banks 

 of the Uswiata River. The article, for a translation of which I am indebted to 

 Mr. Louis Solyom, of the Library of Congress, is illustrated with two repre- 

 sentations of harpoon-heads, of which Figs. 103 and 104 on the opposite page 

 are copies. It follows here in full : — 



" It is now generally known that prehistoric man selected the vicinity of 

 water for his place of abode. Water being one of the necessaries of life, and 

 the art of well-digging probably unknown, this choice followed as a natural 

 consequence. Nor do those miss the truth who assert that it was done with a 

 view to facilitate locomotion, the communication across large tracts of land being 

 then much impeded by swamps and vii'gin forests. Fishing, also, furnishing 

 palatable and healthy food, was another inducement to select such situations, 

 and that fish was duly appreciated as an article of diet is sufficiently proved by 

 the tish-remains discovered in places inhabited by prehistoric man. 



"But who can explain their mode of fishing ? Were fishing-nets known 

 and used ? It is often asserted that the discs of burned clay which are frequently 

 found served as weights for nets. Yet net-fishing was probably not the first 

 method resorted to by primitive man. Those who have observed how fish are 

 caught during spring, when they enter shallow waters to deposit their spawn, 

 probably will accept the conclusion that spearing, which is considered a barbar- 

 ous mode at present, though still practised, was probabl}^ the first attempt at 

 fishing made by prehistoric man. It was during the pairing-season of fish, in 

 shallow waters, that he had the first opportunity for observing them closely, and 

 the first chance to get possession of them, until he discovered that they could be 

 caught all the year round in lakes and rivers. In winter, for instance, they 

 could be captured by means of baskets let down through openings cut in the ice, 

 the fish crowding near these apertures, impelled by the necessity of breathing- 

 fresh air. According to Herodotus, this method was practised by the people 

 who occupied pile-dwellings in Lake Prasias. 



" Nevertheless, it is most probable that the first fishing-implement was a 

 spear similar to that used at the present time, and hence spear-heads are found 

 in all prehistoric localities where fish formed an important food-article. 



" Jiladsen has published in his work 'Antiquites Prehistoriques du Dane- 

 mark ' designs of spear-heads found in that country ('Age de la Pierre,' Plate 

 40, Figs. 6, 7, and 8), which he calls bone arrow-heads, yet erroneously, con- 

 sidering that some of them reach a length of fifteen centimeters, a size not only 

 unnecessary, but even inconvenient for arrow-heads. We therefore incline 

 without hesitation to the opinion of Oscar Montelius, expressed in the 'Antiqui- 

 tes Suedoises' (Vol. I, p. 14, No. 53), where he gives representations of bone 



