Perforated rod
A perforated rod (recently also cult rod ) is an object made of reindeer antlers , red deer antlers or mammoth ivory that was common in the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic times and was found in Western, Central and Eastern Europe. The function is controversial. Most of these objects come from the Magdalenian region of southern France .
Material, workmanship and decor
Perforated rods usually consist of reindeer or red deer dropping rods , less often of the ivory of the woolly mammoth . The ejector bars were cut proximally and distally from the fork of two rungs and drilled through in the area of the fork. The surface is often smoothed and often decorated with geometric or figurative incised lines. Due to the sometimes complex pictorial representations, perforated rods are important objects of the Upper Palaeolithic small art . The technique of engraving is also known at the same time in the form of petroglyphs on rock faces.
The first, mostly undecorated, perforated bars were made in the Aurignacia . These include the perforated rods made of mammoth ivory from the Vogelherd cave and from the Geißenklösterle .
There are undecorated perforated rods from Gravettien , for example from the eyeglass cave and the hollow rock near Blaubeuren , but also with the first superficial incised decorations. The decor consists of simple geometric patterns such as lines, crosses or zigzag bands. Only from the “Proto Magdalenian ” in southern France did figurative motifs appear on the perforated rods. One example is the perforated rod made of Laugerie-Haute with the representation of two mammoths facing each other .
In the early Magdalenian period, the perforated bars were usually decorated with rough animal heads, but also with simple linear decorations. From this a natural and increasingly complex type of ornament developed in the period that followed. A famous example of this is the phallus depiction on the perforated rod from the Gorge d'Enfer or the fragment of a perforated rod from the Isturitz cave , which shows a bison head as a bas-relief. The latter can be associated with a representation in the cave of Niaux and thus belongs to Art Style IV, according to André Leroi-Gourhan .
Horses, fish and various hook marks are most frequently depicted, and more rarely human figures. One such object was discovered in Saint Marcel (Indre). It shows a male person being cut in half by the drilled hole in the central area. André Leroi-Gourhan emphasizes that a large part of the perforated rods were decorated with male motifs and that the perforated rods themselves often have the shape of a phallus.
In addition to the spear thrower , the perforated rod is one of the typical Magdalenian device forms. A perforated rod made of mammoth bone was also found at Clovis Station Murray Springs in Arizona .
In the Mesolithic there are a number of perforated rods made from red deer antler.
Possible usage
The purpose of the perforated bars is still unclear today. While the first assumptions favored a purely decorative command baton, more recent research is based on a tool. The function as a straightener for spears or arrows comes into question here, in order to use leverage to produce straight shafts from curved antlers or wood using fire and steam. Perforated bars were also possibly used to make belts more elastic with the help of oil. Other theories concern the use of the perforated rods as tent pegs for early dwellings or as a forerunner of the two-part primer.
Perforated bars could also have served as mouth gags to calm stubborn animals. A string ran through the hole and through the animal's mouth. When pulled, the cord becomes narrow and causes pain to the animal. Such gags are still used today. There are a few arguments in favor of this interpretation: the size and shape of the Paleolithic perforated rods correspond to the modern ones. There are also broken perforated channels at the points where they would be expected with appropriate use. There are particularly many horse and reindeer drawings on the finds, mostly only the head of the animals. Some of these depictions show ornaments on the mouth, which can definitely be interpreted as mouth gags. Presumably, hemp, raffia, animal tendon, leather or fur straps were used as loops in the Magdalenian period. If this interpretation is correct, the hole rod would be the first evidence of animal husbandry .
In research, the perforated rod is interpreted, among other things, as a modified form of the spear thrower. This would mean that the first spear throwers in the form of perforated rods were already in use in the Aurignacia. The Eskimo people also use perforated devices to extend the throwing distance, but after experiments the prehistoric perforated rods appear to have been better suited for hunting due to their material and shape.
See also
Web links
literature
- Nicholas J. Conard (Ed.): Ice Age. Arts and Culture. Ostfildern 2009.
- Franz Eppel : Find and Interpretation. A European prehistory. Vienna / Munich. 1958.
- Franz Eppel : Function and interpretation of the perforated rods from the Magdalenian. In: Prehistorische Zeitschrift 36, 1958. pp. 220–223.
- Joachim Hahn : Recognizing and determining stone and bone artifacts. Tübingen 1991
- André Leroi-Gourhan : Prehistoric Art. Breisgau. 1971.
- Jacob Ozols: On the question of the paleolithic perforated rods. In: Cologne yearbook for prehistory and early history. 14th volume. Berlin 1974. pp. 9-16.
- Gustav Riek : The ice age hunter station at Vogelherd. Tübingen 1934.
- Leon Underwood: Le baton de commandement. In: Man 65, 1965. pp. 140-143. ( jstor )
Individual evidence
- ↑ G. Bosinski et al. D. Evers: Hunting in the Ice Age. Schr. Jagd- u. Natural demus. Brüggen Castle 2, Cologne 1979
- ↑ Riek 1934, p. Panel XXXI
- ↑ Conard 2009, p. 121
- ↑ Hahn 1991, p. 295
- ↑ Conard 2009, p. 297
- ↑ Leroi-Gourhan 1971, p. 74
- ↑ Leroi-Gourhan 1971, p. 71
- ↑ Leroi-Gourhan 1971, p. 449
- ↑ Bernhard Gramsch: Two new mesolithic deer antler perforated rods with decorations from the Potsdam district. Publ. Mus. Original u. Mornings Potsdam 12, 1979, pp. 39-50
- ^ Hugo Obermaier : command staffs . In: Max Ebert (Ed.) Reallexikon der Vorgeschichte, Vol. 7, Berlin 1926, pp. 15-16
- ↑ Riek 1934, p. 66
- ↑ Hahn 1991, p. 294
- ↑ Eppel 1958, 220
- ↑ Eppel 1958, 221-223
- ↑ Underwood 1965, p. 140