NO PALAOLITHIC HOOK 31 
distinct from Gorges) or of anything resembling Hooks proper— 
vtz. hooks made out of one piece, recurved, and with sharpened 
ends—being used by the Old Stone Man. 
De Mortillet, it is true, writing in 1867,! states that “‘ hooks 
belonging to the reindeer epoch have been found in the Caves 
of Dordogne. Along with those of the simple form (the 
gorges) others were met with of much more perfect shape.” 
In his later work (of. cit.) of 1890 he contents himself with 
claiming the existence of a hook, but of very primitive type, 
“a small piece of bone tapered at either end ’’—in fact, nothing 
more than the Gorge.? 
S. Reinach, again, instances ‘‘ three fish-hooks,’”’ but whittles 
them away till they become “two sharp points more in the 
nature of a gorge.’”’3 Osborne, commenting on the numerous 
pigmy flints discovered in the Tardenoisian débris, writes 
that ‘it would appear that a large number of these were 
adapted for insertion in small harpoons, or that those of the 
grooved form might even have been used as fish-hooks.”’ 4 
With the opinion of Christy (co-explorer with Lartet of La 
Madelaine) that those pointed bone rods or gorges ‘‘ may have 
formed part of fish-hooks, having been tied to other bones or 
sticks obliquely,’’5 the evidence in favour of the Hook 
practically finishes. 
The case, I venture to maintain, breaks down. And this, 
too, in spite of the view expressed and the evidence adduced by 
so eminent an authority as Abbé H. Breuil, and in spite of the 
gravure de Fontarnaud figurant un poisson mordant (t\—the 
1 Les Origines de la Péche et de la Navigation, Paris, 
2 An excellent monograph, with hundreds of illustrations, by E. Krause 
{ Vorgeschichtliche Fischereigerate und Neuere Vergleichsstiiche’’) contained in 
the magazine, Zeitschrift fur Fischeret, xi. Band 3/4 Heft (Berlin, 1904), p. 208, 
states that hooks of the Stone Age are numerous, but unfortunately he does not 
discriminate between the Oldand New Stone Ages. Palzolithic finds mention 
but once in his 176 pages. 
3 Types de la Madelaine, p. 222, fig. 78. 
‘ H. J. Osborne, The Men of the Stone Age (1915), p. 465. 
5 Reliquie Agquitanice (London, 1875), ii. p. 58. Christy’s solitary 
buttress for his opinion is a reference to ‘‘a Nootka Sound fishing imple- 
ment,” which is identical (according to Rau, fig. 9) with a hook described in 
Mr. J. G. Swan’s The Indians of Cape Flattery, as used by the Makahs solely 
(and successfully) for the halibut, because ‘its mouth is vertical, instead of 
horizontal, like most fish.” The absence of halibut from débris or repre- 
sentations scarcely strengthens Christy's opinion. 
