THE WOOD AGE
Sta,—While revising the notes made during my sojourn among the primitive Natokoi of the Rio Pilcomayo nearly sixty years ago I am again reminded of the general failure of those interested in the Stone Age of man's evolution to realise that it must have been preceded by an age in which use was made of the more amenable material, wood. No- doubt in earlier (palaeoxylic) phases of this Wood Age, use was made 9f mere fragments and splinters while in later times these were ground and scraped into smooth-surfaced implements.
The Natokoi of the Pilcomayo, isolated as they were from outside' influences by being surrounded by hostile tribes, had remained practically in the Wood Age. Their weapons, bows, arrows, clubs, lances, and their implements, the equivalent of axes, hammers and piercing tools, were alike constructed of wood, The end of their Wood Age was, however' near at hand, for most of the men possessed a flat arrow-head, fashioned out of a bit of hoop-iron or flattened fencing wire, which could be detached
and used as a knife. At an earlier time there must have been a similar infiltration of stone implements, for occasionally a stone axe-head was found in the gizzard of a shot ostrich (rhea). There being no stone of any kind over vast areas of these South American plains, the ostrich had picked it up, just as vegetarian birds elsewhere ingest pebbles to aid the muscular gizzard in its work of grinding up the food.—Your
obedient servant, JoHN GRAHAM KERR.
Dalny Veed, Barley, Royston, Hens.
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