14 



PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



Fig. 2. — Reindeer, engraved on antler, §. From the Kesserloch, Schaffhausen (Heim). 



It is impossible to say to what use all these objects were put. 

 Some of them may have been handles for knives, while others 

 are mere fragments, and only vague guesses can be made as to 

 the nature of the original implements. It is highly probable, 

 however, that many of these works of art may have been 

 designed simply as such, for the pleasure and amusement of the 

 draughtsman and his fellows. A curious carved implement of 

 reindeer horn, figured by M. Dupont, is termed by him a " baton 

 du commandement," but is perhaps, as Professor Dawkins has 

 suggested, an instrument used for straightening arrows, like the 

 sculptured " arrow-straighteners " of the Eskimo. Besides these 

 objects, "whetstones" have now and again been met with in 

 Palaeolithic " finds," and these are supposed to have been used 

 for imparting the final smoothing and polishing to the horn and 

 bone implements, and for giving a sharp point to such as 

 required it. Pieces of iron -ore (red hematite and oligiste), 

 which occur now and again associated with Palaeolithic remains, 

 are supposed by some to have been used as pigments for painting 

 the body. Other traces of personal decoration are found in the 

 presence of shells and teeth of various wild animals, which have 



