Page:Excavations at the Kesslerloch.djvu/55

Rh own days, to make holes in the skins, so that a thread might be drawn through them, and thus several single skins might be sewn together. No great number of these tools were found; only three specimens in all. Still a larger number must have been made, and as they were easily broken when used, the broken ones were thrown aside as useless, and would be replaced with very little trouble.

As the operation of drawing thread by the hand alone through the holes made by the awls must have required both time and patience, it was natural that needles should have been called in to aid. They were found in tolerable abundance; but of the twelve specimens which came to light only four were perfect. They vary in length from more than 2$1⁄2$ inches to 1$3⁄4$ inch. At one end they run to a fine point, while the other end is somewhat flattened and rounded off, and is furnished with a neat round eye to receive the thread. The whole needle is well polished, and in general is as well finished as a steel needle. The eye is so fine and well made that it seems almost impossible to understand how it should have been made with such insufficient tools (Plate IX. figs. 64 and 65], and yet this was actually the case. I have convinced myself of it by repeated trials. I set to work to make one of these eyes by boring from both sides a needle which had been scraped into shape, and continued this manipulation till the perforations on both sides met. If bored only on one side there was a very great risk of breaking the flint point, besides which the diameter of the eye would have been much too large for the part to be perforated. When the needles of the Kesslerloch are closely examined it may be seen very distinctly that the cave-dwellers must have used the same method of boring their needles, for the eye is always the smallest in the middle. I have tried to sew with these bone needles, and was perfectly successful with common linen. I did not venture to try it with thicker material, and it seems to me impossible to do so without breaking the needles to pieces. Two needles found at a later period in the rubbish from the cave are very singular. They are added here by the kindness of Dr. Ferdinand Keller (Plate IX. figs. 62 and 63). In these two specimens the eye is oval, just like that of our larger sewing or darning needles. There can be no doubt but that they were used for thicker thread. They must have been much