ARTS AND HANDICRAFTS 



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were turned to all kinds of uses (Fig. 149) handles were made 

 from them for the polished stone axes, and also hammers, har- 

 poons and hooks. To this period also belong bows of wonderfully 

 beautiful workmanship, whose preservation is due to the lake 

 mud beneath the pile-built dwellings. And even after the first 

 metal, copper, was gradually introduced into Europe, and later 

 on bronze followed, it would be foolish to assume that the 

 old stone, bone and wooden tools suddenly disappeared. They 

 did not only remain in use for a long time, but they also left 

 their mark on the early metal tools. Like the polished stone 

 hatchets and axes which were first merely tied to their handles, 

 and only later pierced, so the metallic tools of the Copper and 

 Bronze Ages were first copied from those in which the head 

 was only held in a cleft stick ; later they were furnished with 



FIG. 149. Stag's horn arrow-head, harpoon and hook from the pile-dwellings at 

 Font (reduced). (Homes.) 



ties which fixed them to the shafts, and lastly holes were 

 drilled in them into which the handles were inserted, as in the 

 axes and hatchets of to-day (Fig. 155). It is obvious from the 

 remarkably beautiful and numerous specimens belonging to 

 this period that the art of working in metals introduced from 

 Asia and the shore of the Mediterranean made it possible to 

 fashion other implements besides axes and hatchets, such as 

 chisels, awls, pincers and saws, of a durable quality and perfect 

 finish ; to say nothing of the agricultural implements and 

 ornaments of metal which will be dealt with later. 



How metals were first obtained is an obscure question 

 which has not even now been settled. Where copper appeared 

 in nearly pure metallic state, as in the neighbourhood of the 

 great North American lakes, the sight of the shining metals 



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