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Fig. 26.—1. Bone Arrow-point for Poison; 2. Iron Arrow-head for Poison. (S. America.)

Fig. 27.—Wilde’s Dagger.

Fig. 28.—Hollow Bone for Poison.

Fig. 29.—Bone Knife.

Fig. 30.—Bone Arrow-Point armed with Flint Flakes.

Fig. 31.

‘AGES’ BEFORE THE ‘STONE AGE.’

While bone was extensively used by primitive Man, horn was the succedaneum in places where it was plentiful. The Swiss lake-dwellings have yielded stag’s horn and wooden hafts or helves, with bored holes and sockets; borers, awls or drills; mullers, rubbers, and various other instruments. The caverns of the Reindeer period in the south of France are not less rich. Stag-horn axes are common in Scandinavia, and one preserved by the Stockholm Museum bears the spirited outline of a deer. Beads, buttons, and other ornaments are found in England. This material, when taken from the old stag, is of greater density than osseous matter and of almost stony hardness, as the cancellated structure contains carbonate of lime; moreover it was easily worked by fire and steam.