Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

ART AND TACKLE, OLD STONE MEN 17demonstrate not only the high point of excellence to whichthe art of the Troglodytes had attained, but also, from theabsence of perspective and of decorative as compared withpictorial composition, indicate how long is probably theinterval and how far is the separation between them and theMen of the NeoUthic Age.Not only in the character of their Art, which if morespecialised insubjects was superior in representative quality,but also in the substance and in the method of fashioning theirfishing and hunting implements, the separation between theOld Stone and the New Stone Man is very marked.The former for their stone implements almost alwaysused flint. They worked it to shape merely by flaking orchipping. The latter employed also diorite, quartzite, etc.,and in addition to flaking fashioned them by grinding andpolishing. 1It must, I fear, be acknowledged that the caches of theNew Stone Age fail to give us the help expected towardssettling what was the first implement employed. It is truethat they jdeld hooks, nets, net-sinkers, which may have beenmerely developments of Troglodyte tackle, but, judging fromthe absence of any surviving Palaeolithic example, were moreprobably new inventions.But neither these nor the implements ofsucceeding Agesfurnish us with evidence sufficient to decide the tackle firstemployed by the earUest fisherman, or even by the Old StoneMan, for, as Cartailhac truly warns us, " Ce n'est pas, commeon I'a dit a tort, le debut de I'art que nous decouvrons. L'artde I'age du renne est beaucoup trop ancien." 2And here it may well be objected, if the New Stone Agedoes not disclose any priority of implement, why furtherpursue what thus must be the insoluble ? Why, indeed,especially if it be true that their tackle with some additional1 The Neolithic stage, some hold, is characterised by the presence of polishedstone implements and in particular the stone axe, which, judging from itsperforation, so as to be more effectually fastened to a wooden handle, wasprobably used rather for wood than conflict. T. Peisker, Cambridge MedicevalHistory, 191 1, vol. i., has much of interest on the domestication of this period.' Les Peintures prihistoriques de la Caverne d'Altamira, Annales du MusceGuimet, Paris, 1904, tome xv. p. 131.