It seems in the highest degree improbable, if not impossible, that so excellent a drawing as this should have been cut on the cylindrical piece of antler by an engraver who never saw the flat or rolled-off impress of his design. One is driven to the conclusion that he must, as he worked on the bone, have taken an impress of the growing picture from time to time, using probably animal fat and charcoal as an "ink" and printing on to a piece of prepared skin or on to a birch-bark cloth. How otherwise could he have made his engraving so truly that when, ages afterwards, we print it off the cylinder, we are astonished and delighted by its perfection of design and execution? If this be once admitted–namely, that the artist tested and checked his work by printing it off as he proceeded with it–we gain what appears to me to be the probable solution of the question which has been largely debated, "For what were these carved cylinders or rods used?" Those which are simple cylindrical rods, such as the present one, must be distinguished from others which have one or more circular holes bored in them and others which are curiously bent at an angle. Such specimens are often carved with small unimportant ornament, not requiring development or printing. They as well as the present class have been spoken of as "wands of authority" and "sceptres"; some are considered to be arrow straighteners; others have been supposed to be "divining rods" or "rods of witchcraft"; whilst one of those discovered by M. Piette (others similar to it are known) has been regarded as a "lance thrower" or "propulsor" (such as modern primitive races use), having a notch at one end upon which the lance to be thrown is made to rest. The latest suggestion as to these notch-and-hook-bearing rods, is that they are large crochet hooks used in making nets. It has also been suggested that some of these carved rods were used as "fasteners" of the skins used as clothing.
I venture to suggest that the elaborately carved cylinder which we are considering and others bearing similar carvings, which only show up when a printing of them is taken, were used by the men who made them for this very same "printing" as an end in itself. The picture could be thus impressed on skins, birch bark, and other material. This race was thoroughly familiar with the use of paint formed by mixing grease with charcoal (to produce black), red ochre (to produce red), yellow ochre (to produce yellow), and some preparation of limestone or chalk (to produce white). Coloured pictures representing animals of the chase, coloured with red, yellow, white, and black and outlined by engraving, have been discovered on the rock walls of the caves used by them. Such pictures are found of relatively early as well as of late date within the post-Glacial Palæolithic period (see Chapter III). The rock picture of a single animal is usually from two to five feet long. People who could make those coloured designs and who could draw and compose so admirably as the author of the "Three Red Deer" would have desired to "roll off" and to possess printings of their favourite representations of animal life, whilst we must admit that their skill and ingenuity was assuredly equal to the task of so printing them. If this carving of the "Three Red Deer" were never printed it could not have been executed in the first place, nor seen and admired when completed. If even only half a dozen or a dozen impressions were taken from it for ornamenting the skins or other material used by a chief, or a wizard, or a woman, its production becomes intelligible. It is true that there is nothing known as to the use of such printing from a cylinder among existing primitive people, but it is known in very early times (4500 B.C.), since cylindrical seals were used by the Babylonians. Elaborately grooved blocks used for printing on cloth are known from Fiji and Samoa, and the mere practice of printing on to a flat surface is common enough among savage races in regard to the human hand, impressions or prints of which obtained by the use of a greasy pigment are found upon rocks or stones. Sometimes prints of the hand or fingers are taken in clay.