San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1926-01-03

The bear had dropped in about dusk the other
night, just as they finishing dinner. The re-
sulting exercise and excitement had given them all
indigestion and bad night, but that was not what
they were complaining about. They had hurled
their entire supply of assegais, short javens made
of mammoth tusk ivory, into the brute and it had
walked off into the darkness carrying them all away
in its hide. This was misfortune that would take
many days of toll to replace. Perhaps the tribe SYM
pathized and perhaps it laughed and called them
stupid for not being able to follow the tracks and
blood in the morning.
If we could look back there we would probably
see, sitting before fire. cripple, with one foot in
the grave, or to be more exact, the foot had gone
into the mouth of lion. This man is useless in war
and the chase yet he is well clothed and fed and so
are his wife and children, and he has the protection
ofthe chief and all the big hunters for he genius
He can take piece of flint and mold it to cutting
edge for the blade of knife into the aurel-leaf
shape used for spear heads or to fine point for
boring instrument or. most difficult of all, into the
teeth of saw.
How did this ancient artisan cut his flint when
there was nothing harder at hand to chip it with?
He did not cut it at all. He heated the stone in
the fire and touched it dety with the corner OF wet
piece of soft hide, which caused small chip OF the
flint to fly off with sharp snap. With skill and luck
he could slowly shape the stubborn rock into the
shape he chose. Just as the job was almost done
one last touch of the wet leather liable to crack
the stone in two and all his fine work go for nothing.
Many more of such failures have been unearthed
than even the thousands of finished implements:
All these stone tools man needed In his business
of hunting and fighting, but nobody has given sat.
isfactory explanation of the disks which he ground
out of softer stone. These are from five to seven
inches in diameter and over an inch thick. Some
have hole bored through the centre. 1t has been
suggested that they the Palaeolithic ancestor
Of the modern quot.
Under the eye of the crippled genius who is work
ing the flints is the community haf-wlt too cow
ardlv to fight and too stupid to hunt He can, how
ever push small stone back and forth on top of a
big until the little stone is worn fiat on one slde
and then with the same patience he can turn 1t over
and atten the other. When this is done he can rub
the edge down to circular scratch, which the flint
maker has marked for him. Here, then, is the QUOT
all but the hole, which must be bored by some high
grade mechanic who can be trusted not to bear down
too hard and break the flint tip out of the bone
handle of the drill.
These stone doughnuts may not have been quoits
at all, but part of these very drills They may have
been slipped down over bone handles of the drills
to give nicely balanced momentum and weight as
the drillers whrled them in their hands. Nearby
some ancient sculptor is carving human face on a
suitably shaped piece Of mammoth bone. One such
relic has been found at the very bottom of the Pred
most deposit and is thought to be the oldest human
sculpture in the world.
more less daintily clumsy attempts at manufac-
turing needles and buckles and of course the flaming
youth of the day along and did for them, just
to-day he jumps out of his car and changes tire
for her. There never any reason for girl to be
good looking and a good mechanic too AS her
skulls prove, woman 80, 900 years ago was already
specializing on good looks
We can imagine Mrs. Caveman nudging the hairy
ribs of her husband who is absorbed in the skilled
labor of fitting the ivory head of his pet tomahawk
to brand new bone handle. She points and the