HARPOON-HEADS. 83 



of his illustrations, showing a dart of elk-bone* with flint-splinters set closely 

 together and disposed in two rows. I present this figure simply with a view to 

 show the appearance of a bone-and-flint dart somewhat differing in type from 

 those described by Professor Nilsson. 



Stone points, we may assume, were also used as armatures for harpoons in 

 neolithic times ; but Professor Nilsson's suggestion that some may have been 

 inserted in sockets of bone or wood, and thus connected with the shaft, is not 

 supported by any evidence, provided my opinion that no such sockets have been 

 discovered is correct. Those of wood, of course, could not have resisted decay ; 

 while sockets of bone or horn, if they had been used, would be still in existence, 

 like the much older horn and bone objects of the reindeer-period. 



Fig. 110. — Scanian flint point set in wooden socket. 



jM^ilsson figures (Plate X, Fig. 203) a well-chipped flint i)oint found in the 

 earth near the sea-shore of the Sound of Lomma, in Scania, which he considers 

 as a harpoon-head. "A joerson who had long resided in Greenland," he says, 

 "recognized it at once as such; and in order to show me the way in which the 

 stone point had been fastened to the harpoon, and the harpoon to the shaft, he 

 provided it with a piece of wood as represented in the sketch, Plate III, Fig. 49 

 (here Fig. 110). At the lower end of this piece of wood is an indentation into 

 which the shaft of the harpoon enters. Below is the loop by which the harpoon 

 is attached to the shaft as well as the strap, to the end of which a bladder is 

 tied."-}- He designates various other European flint points figured by him as 

 harpoon-heads used in this manner; but he is not very positive in his state- 

 ments, and finally expresses his own doubts in the following remark : — " It 



* The European elk corresponds to the American moose, 

 ■j- Nilsson : Primitive Inhabitants ; p. 29. 



