Abstract
THE INTERPRETATION OF PREHISTORIC “FINDS.“ An interesting example of the light which can be thrown upon prehistoric objects of doubtful use by ethnographic data is given by Dr. Paul Rivet in the Cowipte vendu of the Liege meeting (1924) of the French Association for the Advancement of Science. Count Begouen found in the cave at Montesquieu-Avantes (Ariege) an object of stone of which the surfaces were pitted with holes, most of them pierced right through from side to side. The date was either Magdalenian or Neolithic, it was uncertain which. A second object similar in certain respects-the figure of a feline-was found in a Magdalenian stratum in the grotto of Isturitz (Basse Pyrenees). It is, like the object previously described, pierced with holes, five in number, and in addition it is engraved. Four of the engravings appear to represent stylised barbed harpoons. Dr. Rivet suggests a common purpose for these dissimilar objects. He compares them with certain objects of ivory in use among modern Eskimo and described by Culin in his study of the games of American Indians. These are used for a species of cup and ball game, not, however, purely for amusement. Eskimo children use these objects when the sun first reappears after the long winter, to hasten his complete return. The game is definitely magical. In the same way the piercing of the hole by a point of bone in the prehistoric specimens may have been a magical ceremony symbolic of the piercing of game and practised before a hunting expedition.
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Research Items. Nature 116, 830–832 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/116830a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/116830a0