ARTS AND HANDICRAFTS 



321 



other materials if they appeared serviceable. Boar's tusks 

 were made into knives, the jaws of cave bears with the 

 incisor teeth attached were used to open marrow bones, the 

 brow antlers of reindeers were ground into small daggers, 

 the shin bones of small animals into awls, and pieces 

 were cut out of the shoulder blades so as to form needles 

 (Figs. 145 and 146). The tools which were fashioned and 

 used at this period were, however, invariably of a very primi- 



FIG. 145. Shoulder blade of reindeer with the 

 needles which had been carved out of it. 

 (Homes.) 



FIG. 146. Lance-head 

 from reindeer horn. 

 (Homes.) 



tive and simple character. It was very different when the 

 neolithic period of the Stone Age began. Man did not then 

 confine himself to tools made from flint, but chose other kinds 

 of stone, whose hardness rendered them similarly suitable. He 

 learnt, moreover, not only to polish them into shape, but also to 

 drill a hole in them into which a handle could be fastened 

 (Figs. 147, 148). At an even earlier period than this flints 

 had been thrown up by the sea in certain places, such as Brest, 

 in which a hole had been left by the falling out of a belemnite. 



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