Page:Excavations at the Kesslerloch.djvu/50

Rh may be seen as ornamentations on several of these implements (Plate V. figs. 19 and 22).

Nearly allied to these bone implements is another kind of lance-head (Plate IV. fig. 13), somewhat different from the foregoing. In every case both planes of the chisel-shaped bevel, and also more especially the sides, have a number of incisions varying from seventeen to eight, and all drawn parallel from left to right. In some cases the lines incised cross each other. There can be no doubt that the intention was simply first to give the implement more hold in the split portion of the javelin, and also to secure it firmly in the shaft when it was drawn out from the body of the animal struck. Another characteristic distinction consists in the furrows found both on the upper and the under side. In some specimens they are only slightly indicated, but in the majority they are very well marked. Their length naturally depends on the length of the implement. These furrows commence from $6⁄10$ of an inch to 1$3⁄4$ of an inch above the chisel-shaped bevel, and run on to the point, gradually decreasing in size. They vary from ⋅157 inch dec. to ⋅236 inch dec. in width, and from ⋅236 inch dec. to ⋅294 inch dec. in depth. As to the use of these furrows, there are different opinions; many people consider them to be channels for poison, while others think them merely passages for the blood to flow through. There are indeed savages at the present day who poison their arrows, so as to make them more deadly in their effect on the human or animal frame. But I do not believe that they eat the flesh of the animals killed in this manner; and as the cave-dwellers of the Kesslerloch, as already mentioned, seem to have fed upon every animal they killed, it seems to me better to consider these furrows as channels for the flow of blood from the animals struck, so that they might die more quickly. It is singular that these furrows and incisions are not to be seen on all the implements which we have called lance-heads. But for my part, it seems to me that we must consider these last-named bone implements as an improvement upon the earlier ones; and I believe that this view may be proved not merely by their better workmanship, but also from the fact that these implements, although certainly occurring together with those without furrows and incisions, were always found in the upper relic-bed, and never in the lower. We may from this conclude that in the later period of the occupation of the cave by man both kinds of lance-heads were used, while