DESCRIPTIONS OF THE PLATES BONE IMPLEMENTS, ETC. [B. XIX. XX.] 147 



Eig. 5. This most interesting of the carvings from Laugerie Basse is a Poniard, 

 cut out of the beam of a Reindeer's horn the handle being shaped as a Rein- 

 deer* out of the lower portion, and the rest of the beam reduced, chiefly by 

 longitudinal sawings, to a tapering blade, rough, and irregularly subtriangular 

 in section. 



The workman, or artist as he deserves to be called, has here shown consider- 

 able cleverness in adapting the animal form, without unnecessary violence, to 

 the mode of handling usual with such a weapon as we have before us. The 

 hind legs are stretched out towards the blade ; but they are not carved in detail. 

 The front legs, with disproportionately short forearm, are bent without effort 

 under the stomach ; and the long shanks form part of the slightly concave 

 lower edge of the handle. The head, bearing branched antlers, has its muzzle 

 so raised that the horns rest smoothly on the sides of the shoulders, so as not 

 to interfere with the use of the handle by a very small hand (smaller than ordi- 

 nary in the existing races of Central Europe), with the palm fitting into the 

 concavity formed by the neck, back, and croup of the animal. 



The attitude given to the head did not allow of the projecting brow-tynes 

 being expressed ; these are wanting, therefore, as a specific feature ; nevertheless 

 the short ears and thick neck are characters pointing to the Reindeer. More- 

 over the artist has left a thin ragged protuberance underneath the neck, which 

 aptly resembles the tuft of hair commonly met with at this spot in the male 

 Reindeer and never present in the Red Deer. 



Perhaps this Poniard was never quite completed by the native artist, who 

 seems to have been capable of giving greater finish to his work, had he been so 

 minded. It is far more perfect, however, at all events in the handle, than the 

 Poniard figured in B. Plates III. & IV., with which it may be compared for the 

 relation of the parts of the carved animal to the burr and tynes left untouched 

 in the other implement, the croup of the carved Deer corresponding with the 

 root of the bez-antler. 

 Erom Laugerie Basse. 



The handles of three similar poniards have been discovered by M. Peccadeau de 

 1'Isle at the Montastruc cave, near Bruniquel, on the left bank of the Aveyron, 

 Dordogne. Two of them, representing the Reindeer, are carved in Mammoth- 

 ivory ; the third, in form of the Mammoth, is in Reindeer-horn. These are figured 

 in the ' Revue Arche"ologique,' vol. xvii. (1868), p. 218, and in the ' Mate"riaux 

 pour 1'Histoire primitive et philosophique de l'Homme,' vol. iv. (1868), pp. 96, 97. 



* See ' Cavernes du Perigord,' supra cit. p. 31. 



