Page:Excavations at the Kesslerloch.djvu/51

Rh in the earlier ages only those without furrows and notches were employed. It is in general very difficult to say what each implement was formerly used for, and still more difficult to do this from any individual portion. It is well to form one's opinion from the accounts given of savages living at the present day. Unfortunately these accounts are often not sufficiently exact, or they go into too few details, or they do not give such particulars as would be of interest to archæology and the study of prehistoric man.

On some specimens of this second kind of spear-heads we find certain ornamentations, which, together with what has been already mentioned, indicate an essential advance, and probably also a later origin. This ornamentation, which is again found on the upper side, consists generally of two lines running parallel, and extends from the furrow to the chisel-formed plane. From each of these lines there are drawn, sometimes inwards and sometimes outwards, a number of smaller diagonal and parallel lines as an ornament of the whole thing.

Amongst the group of lance-heads there are six specimens which have but very little of the point left, and which have entirely lost the opposite end (Plate VII. fig. 30). These fragments are all slightly curved, and very singularly are all ornamented in the same way. The ornamentation consists of two parallel lines on the upper side about ⋅118 inch dec. apart, the space between which is filled up with diagonal parallel strokes. Many of the implements of the Indians of the present day are strikingly similar in their ornamentation, and we are involuntarily led to ask: Is it possible that these Indians and the cave-dwellers of the Kesslerloch can be the descendants of one and the same race, and has this art of drawing been transmitted from this race to all the others, or is it an original invention of different races? I most certainly am of opinion that the human race sprang not from one original pair only, but from several, and consequently I believe that a transmission of this art is in this particular case not to be thought of. This may sound somewhat paradoxical, and against the facts which have been already mentioned. But we know of similar cases even in historic times; as, for instance, the telescope was invented at the same time by a Dutchman and an Italian. As a general rule it may with safety be assumed that different races of men are more or less compelled by similar circumstances and influences to make use of similar means. Our