Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/265

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CHAP. VII.]
RELATION TO THE ESKIMOS.
237

the dwellers within the Arctic circle and the inhabitants of the European caves. The stone spear and arrow heads are the same in both. The barbed fowling and
Fig. 90.
Eskimo Spear.
fishing spears also have their heads attached to the shafts in the same manner among both peoples, and are of the same form, as may be seen by a comparison of Fig. 90 with Figs. 65, 66. The only difference to be observed is that they are free from the deep grooves which characterise most of those from the late Pleistocene caverns. Some, however, of the latter are without this ornament. The same identity of forms runs through their bundles of charms or amulets, composed of perforated and variously cut teeth, bones, and antlers, the marrow spoons, and the daggers of reindeer antler.

Certain implements found in the refuse-heaps of Belgium, France, and Switzerland, and the caverns, formed of reindeer antler, and perforated by one or more holes, and very generally ornamented, are known under the somewhat fanciful name of "bâtons de commandement." If those with one hole (Fig. 91) be compared with with the peculiar instrument used by the Eskimos for straightening arrows (Fig. 92), it will be seen that they are of the same type, and probably intended for the same purpose. The hole in those from the caverns is generally round, while that in those of the Eskimos is generally square; it is, however, round in one of the specimens in the British Museum. It must