Part 10 (1/2)

It must certainly be the case that the human race possesses to a very high degree the taste for personal ornament, since objects used for adornment are found in the most remote ages of mankind and in every country. There can be no doubt that the men and women who lived in the reindeer epoch sacrificed to the graces. In the midst of their precarious mode of life, the idea entered into their minds of manufacturing necklaces, bracelets, and pendants, either with sh.e.l.ls which they bored through the middle so as to be able to string them as beads, or with the teeth of various animals which they pierced with holes with the same intention, as represented in fig. 44.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 44.--The Canine Tooth of a Wolf, bored so as to be used as an ornament.]

The h.o.r.n.y portion of the ear of the horse or ox (fig. 45), was likewise used for the same purpose, that is, as an object of adornment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 45.--Ornament made of the bony part of a Horse's Ear.]

It becomes a question whether man at this epoch had any belief in a future life, and practised anything which bore a resemblance to religious wors.h.i.+p. The existence, round the fire-hearths of the burial-caverns in Belgium, of large fossil elephant (mammoth's) bones--a fact which has been pointed out by M. edouard Dupont--gives us some reason for answering this question in the affirmative. According to M.

Morlot, the practice of placing bones round caverns still survives, as a religious idea, among the Indians. We may, therefore, appeal to this discovery as a hint in favour of the existence of some religious feeling among the men who lived during the reindeer epoch.

In the tombs of this epoch are found the weapons and knives which men carried during their lifetime, and sometimes even a supply of the flesh of animals used for food. This custom of placing near the body of the dead provisions for the journey to be taken _post mortem_ is, as remarked in reference to the preceding period, the proof of a belief in another life.

Certain religious, or rather superst.i.tious, ideas may have been attached to some glittering stones and bright fragments of ore which have been picked up in several settlements of these primitive tribes. M. de Vibraye found at Bourdeilles (Charente), two nodules of hydrated oxide of iron mixed with _debris_ of all kinds; and at the settlement of Laugerie-Ba.s.se (Dordogne), in the middle of the hearth, a small ma.s.s of copper covered with a layer of green carbonate. In other spots there have been met with pieces of jet, violet fluor, &c., pierced through the middle, doubtless to enable them to be suspended to the neck and ears.

The greater part of these objects may possibly be looked upon as amulets, that is, symbols of some religious beliefs entertained by man during the reindeer epoch.

The social instinct of man, the feeling which compels him to form an alliance with his fellow-man, had already manifested itself at this early period. Communication was established between localities at some considerable distance from one another. Thus it was that the inhabitants of the banks of the Lesse in Belgium travelled as far as that part of France which is now called Champagne, in order to seek the flints which they could not find in their own districts, although they were indispensable to them in order to manufacture their weapons and implements. They likewise brought back fossil sh.e.l.ls, of which they made fantastical necklaces. This distant intercourse cannot be called in question, for certain evidences of it can be adduced. M. edouard Dupont found in the cave of Chaleux, near Dinant (Belgium), fifty-four of these sh.e.l.ls, which are not found naturally anywhere else than in Champagne.

Here, therefore, we have the rudiments of commerce, that is, of the importation and exchange of commodities which form its earliest manifestations in all nations of the world.

Again, it may be stated that there existed at this epoch real manufactories of weapons and utensils, the productions of which were distributed around the neighbouring country according to the particular requirements of each family. The cave of Chaleux, which was mentioned above, seems to have been one of these places of manufacture; for from the 8th to the 30th of May, during twenty-two days only, there were collected at this spot nearly 20,000 flints chipped into hatchets, daggers, knives, sc.r.a.pers, scratchers, &c.

Workshops of this kind were established in the settlements of Laugerie-Ba.s.se and Laugerie-Haute in Perigord. The first was to all appearance a special manufactory for spear-heads, some specimens of which have been found by MM. Lartet and Christy of an extremely remarkable nature; exact representations of them are delineated in fig.

46. In the second were fabricated weapons and implements of reindeers'

horn, if we may judge by the large quant.i.ty of remains of the antlers of those animals, which were met with by these _savants_, almost all of which bear the marks of sawing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 46.--Spear-head found in the Cave of Laugerie-Ba.s.se (Perigord).]

It is not, however, probable that the objects thus manufactured were exported to any great distance, as was subsequently the case, that is, in the polished stone epoch. How would it be possible to cross great rivers, and to pa.s.s through wide tracts overgrown with thick forests, in order to convey far and wide these industrial products; at a time, too, when no means of communication existed between one country and another?

But it is none the less curious to be able to verify the existence of a rudimentary commerce exercised at so remote an epoch.

The weapons, utensils and implements which were used by man during the reindeer epoch testify to a decided progress having been made beyond those of the preceding period. The implements are made of flint, bone, or horn; but the latter kind are much the most numerous, chiefly in the primitive settlements in the centre and south of France. Those of Perigord are especially remarkable for the abundance of instruments made of reindeers' bones.

The great diversity of type in the wrought flints furnishes a very evident proof of the long duration of the historical epoch we are considering. In the series of these instruments we can trace all the phases of improvement in workmans.h.i.+p, beginning with the rough shape of the hatchets found in the _diluvium_ at Abbeville, and culminating in those elegant spear-heads which are but little inferior to any production of later times.

We here give representations (fig. 47, 48, 49, 50), of the most curious specimens of the stone and flint weapons of the reindeer epoch. Knives and other small instruments, such as sc.r.a.pers, piercers, borers, &c., form the great majority; hatchets are comparatively rare. Instruments are also met with which might be used for a double purpose, for instance, borers and also piercers. There are also round stones which must have been used as hammers; it may, at least, be noticed that they have received repeated blows.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 47.--Worked Flint from Perigord (Knife).]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 48.--Worked Flint from Perigord (Hatchet).]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 49.--Chipped Flint from Perigord (Knife).]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 50.--Chipped Flint from Perigord (Sc.r.a.per).]

Sir J. Lubbock is of opinion that some of these stones were employed in heating water, after they had been made red-hot in the fire. According to the above-named author, this plan of procuring hot water is still adopted among certain savage tribes who are still ignorant of the art of pottery, and possess nothing but wooden vessels, which cannot be placed over a fire.[8]

We must also mention the polishers formed of sandstone or some other material with a rough surface. They could only be used for polis.h.i.+ng bone and horn, as the reindeer epoch does not admit of instruments of polished stone.