VI. On the Use of the Deer-Horn Pick in the Mining Operations of the Ancients

Abstract

Implements fashioned from the antler of the red deer have long been known to have formed part of the tools with which primitive man and his successors in much more recent times carried on the varied industries that claimed his care and skill, enabling him to turn to good account the many products of soil and chase which thoughtful Nature had placed at his disposal. Almost every part of the antler was utilized; the tines being removed in order to form gouges, punches, hand levers, and piercing instruments, while the beam, when deprived of its tines, was cut up into sections from which adzes and such-like cutting implements wrere formed, or hammers were devised. A useful instrument which served as a rake, or scraper, was made from the branching points at the cup; while a clever combination of beam and tines produced a tool which served the double purpose of pick (or lever) and rake (or scraper). Much ingenuity was shown in devising and considerable skill in forming such implements, but in no case is this more evident than in that of the deer-horn pick. Generally speaking, the pick was formed from an antler by severing the cup end and removing the bez and the trez tines, thus leaving the beam to form the haft and the brow tine to form the pick (fig. 1), while the burr remained in position in order to give strength to the weakest part, the angle of intersection between the handle and the “blade”, and to add weight to the blow. The “false brow”, or undeveloped bez, was sometimes left in place (plate XVI, no. 1), but this was rather the exception than the rule. The upper portion of the beam or the longest point beyond the “cup” was often left in position to form an elongation of the shaft which assisted greatly in directing the blow, while it added very materially to the leverage of the pick. Fig. 1 offers a very good example of a double-handed pick with an elongated shaft, and with blunted point and stem worn smooth by usage.