A curious illustration of the possible confusion of evidence is shown by the discovery in 1884 of a large stone lance head of the Eskimo type, deeply imbedded in the tissues of a whale taken at the whaling station on Ballast Point, near the harbour of San Diego, California.[39] In the Museum of the University of Edinburgh is the skeleton of a whale, stranded in the ancient estuary of the Forth in a prehistoric age, when the ocean tides reached the site which had been elevated into dry land long ages before the Roman invaders of Caledonia made their way over it. Alongside of the buried whale lay a rude deerhorn implement of the old Caledonian whaler; and had the San Diego whale sunk in deep waters off the Pacific coast, it would have perpetuated a similar memorial of rudest savage life, in close proximity, doubtless, to evidences of modern civilisation. Such, though in less striking form, is the process of intermingling the arts of the American Stone age with products of modern skill and refinement, that is now in progress off the Lunenburg coast of Nova Scotia. The inroads of the sea have not, however, even now effaced all traces of the old arrow-makers of Bauchman’s Beach. Specimens of their handiwork may still be gathered along the shore. To this locality it is obvious that the inland tribes resorted from remote Indian villages for some of their most indispensable supplies. Implements of the same materials also occur at sites on the northern coast; but the larger number found there are made of quartzite, felsite, or of hard, slaty stone, such as occurs in the metamorphic rocks of the mountain ranges in the interior of the Province.
From what has thus been set forth, some general inferences of a comprehensive character are suggested. It is scarcely open to doubt that at a very early stage in the development of primitive mechanical art, the exceptional aptitude of skilled workmen was recognised and brought into use for the general benefit. Co-operation and some division of labour in the industrial arts, necessary to meet the universal demand for tools and weapons, appear also to have been recognised from a very remote period in the social life of the race. There were the quarriers for the flint, the obsidian, the shale, the pipestones, the favourite minerals, and the close-grained igneous rocks, adapted for the variety of implements in general use. There were also the traders by whom the raw material was transported to regions where it could only be procured by barter; as appears to be demonstrated by the repeated discovery, not only of flint and stone implements, alike in stray examples, and in well-furnished caches; but also of work-places, remote from any flint-producing formation, strewn with the chips, flakes, and imperfect or unfinished implements of the tool-makers. It thus becomes obvious that the men of the earliest Stone age transported suitable material for their simple arts from many remote localities, and purchased the services of the skilled workman with the produce of the chase, or whatever other equivalent they could offer in exchange. The further archæological search is extended, the evidence of social co-operation and systematised industry among the men of the Palæolithic era, as well as among those of later periods prior to the dawn of metallurgic skill, becomes more apparent. Nor is it less interesting to note that there was no more equality among the men of those primitive ages, than in later civilised stages of social progress. Diversities in capacity and consequent moral force asserted themselves in the skilled handicraftsmen of the Palæolithic dawn, much as they do in the most artificial states of modern society. As a natural concomitant to this, and an invaluable element of co-operation, the prized flint flakes appear to have furnished a primitive medium of exchange, more generally available as a currency of recognised value than any other substitute for coined money. The principles on which the wealth of nations and the whole social fabric of human society depend, were thus already in operation ages before the merchants of Tyre, or the traders of Massala, had learned to turn to account the mineral resources of the Cassiterides; or that vaguer and still more remote era before the ancient Atlantis had vanished from the ken of the civilised dwellers around the Mediterranean Sea.