Page:Prehistoric Britain.djvu/125

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NEOLITHIC CIVILIZATION
117

from the former only in being smaller and having no perforation. A mere glance at these bone implements, especially the harpoons, shows their striking similarity to those from Mas-d'Azil and other Azilian stations on the Continent. No archæologist can fail to be astonished at so remarkable a coincidence as that a group of human relics, from such widely distant localities as Oban and France, should be so similar. The harpoons agree not only in the material of which they were made, but also in the shape of the stem, the method of cutting the barbs, and the occasional presence of an aperture on the butt-end.

Similar remains, including a few harpoons, were subsequently found in a shelter situated at the base of a steep rock called Druimvargie, overlooking a marsh in which, some years ago, the remains of a supposed lake-dwelling were dug up. As the lowest portion of this marsh is only a few feet above high-water mark, it would have been an inland bay when the sea stood so high as to wash the entrance to the MacArthur cave, so that the two stations would then have been on opposite sides of a small bay, probably frequented by the same body of hunters. Fig. 23 shows a selection of the worked objects found at Druimvargie from which their similarity to those from the MacArthur cave will be at once seen.

Another locality which has yielded the same class of industrial remains is a shell-heap called Caisteal-nan-Gillean in the island of