The Pecos notebook
The sharp edge guides us to the possibility of it being some form of cutting tool. Cutting tools were needed by early man of the shelter, for several task. Could the mysterious bone tool have accomplished one of these? Among the artifacts were many items that had been cut with a knife. Bones to make beads, wood to make a number of items. There were wood shafts for hunting, fire kits, pegs to hold skins as they dried, the list holds many sawed wood tools. But could this bone have survived the rigors of sawing wood? Stone tools had serrated edges, the result of their secondary chipping and they worked well as knives and saws. Skins were recovered that had been cut, could this bone have been of use here? While the working edge of the bone is sharp it is not that sharp. The skins would have required a bit more edge to do the job, again the stones would have been more practical. Weavings were one of the more common artifacts at the site, but weavings would not have been subject to cutting. Still the weavings did supply the clue needed. A number of bundles of grass blades, each bound and tied with a similar blade were recovered throughout the site. It was obvious that these had been the source of raw material to make weavings. As needed, a blade could have been removed and applied to the new weaving. Where the weavings did not require cutting, the individual blades of grass did. They could have been acquired by pulling the grass from the ground, still the blade would need trimming. They could have been severed by using the separated edge of a stone tool, but this would have left frayed and nasty looking ends. Or they could have cut with a tool that would some day be common among modern man during historical times. They could have been cut with a sickle. We can see that the bone had been held in the hand, in a position that would have positioned it flat or level, to the surface. By holding the grass with the free hand, a sweeping swing with the new tool could have cut the grass with a clean edge. As stated above, it will never be possible to claim absolute knowledge of many of the actions of early man. It is only his artifacts that allow us to even guess at how he lived his life in a shelter some ten thousand years in the past. Only if we can place ourself, modern man, in the steps he left in time can we hope to gain knowledge of his and our history. What we have in this bit of bone may be just one small bit of evidence of the new man human, This tool is only one of several sparks that make man human unique and suggest our place in the creations of early man. Many sparks of genius were in evidence at the site. Our only dvantage as man, of this distant time, is our ability to contemplate as man of the twentieth century can. All that aside, just think, this may be the first sickle made by man, at least in the new world. |
