The Use of Bone Implements in the Old Palaeolithic Period

Abstract

T was Boucher de Perthes and some of his precursors who originated the idea of an age of worked stone : previously the only stone implements recognized as such were polished axes, arrowheads and a few particularly well-made flint knives. On the other hand it is generally agreed that, besides worked stone, which as a rule is all that has survived, fossil man must have used wood for many of his weapons and implements ; though with the exception of a pointed stake from Clacton (preserved in peat with remains of Elephas antiquus) nothing made of this material is known until we come to the neolithic piledwellings. Mainly as the result of the excavations of Lartet and Christy in the Dordogne (1863) it was learnt that hard animal substances such as bone, ivory and deer's horn, which were preserved by the limestone matrix of caves and rock-shelters had also played a large part in the industrial activities of man. This already advanced industry must have been far removed in time from the first utilization of bone, for it shows a technique that is highly developed—a technique in which the splitting of bone is first associated with and then superseded by sawing with gravers and smoothing with scrapers. There can be no doubt therefore that the stilettos, spear-heads, etc., of the Later Palaeolithic period must have had more ancient prototypes of worked bone. In fact the only Middle Palaeolithic examples known today of bone-working by means of attrition and scraping are few in number—rib-bones sharpened by rubbing, occasional awls similarly sharpened—and the two large spear-points from the Upper Mousterian of Castillo (Spain) and La Quina (Charente, France).