[Illustration: FIG. 129. Mousterian 'points' and scrapers from various parts of Europe, as interpreted by de Mortillet. In some cases both sides of the implement are shown; all are one-quarter actual size except 101, which is one-half actual size. 100--De Mortillet's theory of the manner of using the Mousterian 'point,' which was held in the hand and not shafted. 101--Mousterian point from Suffolk, England. 102--Mousterian point from Umbria, Italy. 103, 104--A single flake point from the Crimea, in southern Russia. 105, 106--A long, narrow Mousterian point from Oise, France. 107--A curved-in scraper, or _grattoir_, from Dordogne, France; perhaps an implement for dressing a wooden spear or lance. 108--Bone splinter, broken for the marrow, but not shaped.] In consequence, the coup de poing, fashioned from the core of the nodule, begins to play a very secondary rôle and occurs but rarely in the Mousterian levels. Even at St. Acheul, the very centre of its former reign, we begin to find decadent forms and poor workmanship, which make it difficult to recognize that these are the successors of the finely retouched Acheulean coups de poing. While the coups de poing at the type station of Le Moustier continue to retain the old Acheulean patterns--the oval, the heart-shaped, the sharp-pointed--they are all of smaller size and rather coarsely retouched. Thus, after thousands of years of development and employment, the coup de poing falls into a period of degeneration and of final disuse. The history of this. implement, which we have traced from its Pre-Chellean prototypes, presents a most interesting analogy with the course of evolution observed in so many animal and plant forms. It passes through many stages of improvement and reaches a climax of perfection and adaptation; it then comes into competition with another form evolving on a fundamentally different and superior plan and disappears in the struggle for existence through the greater usefulness of the replacing type. SUCCESSIVE STAGES IN THE MOUSTERIAN INDUSTRY The succession of industrial stages is best shown along the Vézère. The oldest Mousterian industry is that of Combe-Capelle with its heart-shaped, roughly fashioned coups de poing, entirely lacking, however, any evidence of a surface prepared for the grasp of the hand. In the valley of the Somme Commont(74) has observed the three following stages in the advance of the Mousterian industry: 3. A late Mousterian culture which lies on the upper layers near the top of the same gravel deposit and which shows entirely new technical elements. The old coup-de-poing culture is no longer valued, and all the implements found here are of flakes worked only on one side and with an extraordinarily fine retouch. 2. A middle Mousterian horizon which lies in the lower layers of a gravel deposit, belonging to the 'newer loess,' and which contains only _one_ small coup de poing.