Weapons, Tools, Pottery; Origin of the Use of Fire, Clothing,
Ornaments; Early Artistic Efforts.
The Vedas show us Indra, armed with a wooden club, seizing a stone with
which to pierce Vritra, the genius of evil.[83] Does not this call up
a picture of the earliest days of man upon the earth? His first weapon
was doubtless a knotty branch torn from a tree as be hurried past,
or a stone picked up from amongst those lying at his feet. These were,
however, but feeble means with which to contend with formidable feline
and pachydermatous enemies. Man bad not their great physical strength;
he was not so fleet a runner as many of them; his nails and teeth
were useless to him, either for attack or defence; his smooth skin
was not enough protection even from the rigor of the climate. Such
inequality must very quickly have led to the defeat of man, had not
God given to him two marvellous instruments: the brain which conceives,
and the hand which executes. To brute force man opposed intelligence,
a glorious struggle in which he was sure to come off victorious, for in
the words of Victor Hugo, "Ceci devait tuer cela." The huge animals of
Quaternary times have disappeared for ever, whilst plan has survived,
victor over Nature herself. Even before his birth, an immutable decree
had ordained that nothing on the earth should check his development.
Man alone amongst the countless creatures around him knew anything
of the past, and he alone was able to predict the future. Even apes,
however great the intelligence that may be attributed to them, have
remained very much what they were from the first. In vain has one
generation succeeded another; they still obey the dictates of their
brutal instincts, as their ancestors did before them; and if apes
continue to propagate their species thousands of years hence they
will remain what we see them to be now. Dogs, too, will remain dogs,
elephants will continue to be elephants; beavers will make their dams
exactly like those of the present day, wasps will never learn to make
honey as bees do, and bees will never be able, like ants, to bring up
plant-lice to be their servants, or to enslave other families. Their
instincts are incapable of progress, and in their earliest efforts they
reach the limit assigned to them by the Eternal Wisdom. To man alone
has it been given to understand what has been done by his predecessors,
to walk more firmly in the path along which they groped, to pronounce
clearly the words they stammered. Without a doubt we descend from the
men who lived in the midst of primeval forests, or amongst stagnant
marshes, dwelling in caves, for the possession of which they often
bad to fight with the wild beasts around them. These men, however,
knew that one result achieved would lead to another, if similar
means were used; they saw that a pointed stone would inflict a deeper
wound than a blunt one on the animal they hunted, and therefore they
learnt to sharpen stones artificially; the skins of beasts, flung over
their shoulders, protected them from cold, and they learned to make
garments; seeds sprouted around them, and they learned to plant them;
they noticed the effect of heat upon metals, and tried to mix them;
wild animals wandered around them, and they learned to reduce them to
slavery. Every bit of knowledge won, and every progress made, became
the starting-point for fresh acquisitions, fresh advances, which
thenceforth remained forever the common heritage of the human race.
It was thus that experience early taught our remote ancestors that
rock chips more easily under the blows of a hammer when fresh from the
quarry; and everywhere men learnt to choose the stone best suited to
their purpose. For hatchets, wedges, and hammers, they used jade and
kindred substances, such as fibrolite, diorite, acrd basalt, which were
at the same time extremely durable, and very impervious to blows. For
spear- and arrow-heads, knives, saws, and all instruments requiring
sharp points and cutting edges, they employed quartz, jaspar, agate,
and obsidian, according to the situation of the worker; all these
materials, though extremely hard, being easily split into thin sharp
flakes. The blocks of stone were very methodically cut up; they were,
in fact, to use a very appropriate expression of M. Dupont's, scaled
(ECAILLES). We give drawings of a few of these implements (Figs. 18,
19, and 20), which illustrate the earliest efforts of lean, efforts
which may be looked upon as the starting-point of all those industries
which in the course of centuries have developed results which it is
impossible to contemplate without astonishment.
FIGURE 18
Scraper from the Delaware Valley.
FIGURE 19
Implement from the Delaware Valley.
The host ancient tools which have come down to us were clumsy and
heavy, cut on both sides and pointed (Fig. 20). They may vary in
material, in size, and in finish, but they can always be easily
recognized.[84] Were they man's only weapons? We hesitate to believe
it, and the careful researches of M. d'Acy add to our incredulity.[85]
He tells us that at Saint-Acheul, which was the very cradle of these
strange discoveries, the almond shape is found mixed with the pointed
amongst the Moustier flints, so that what is true in one place is not
in another, and any general conclusion would certainly be premature.
FIGURE 20
Worked flints from the Lafaye and Plantade shelters (Tarn-et-Garonne).
It would take us a long time to enumerate the countries where tools
of the Chelleen[86] type have been found. They are met with in the
valleys of the rivers of France, now imbedded in the flinty alluvium,
now strewn upon the surface of the soil. Though rare in Germany,
they are found in abundance in the southeast of England, and it is
to this period that must be assigned the discoveries at Hoxne, and in
the basins of the Thames, the Ouse, and the Avon. Similar discoveries
have been frequent in Italy, Spain, Algeria, and Hindostan. Dr. Abbott
speaks of the finding of such implements in the glacial alluvium of
the Delaware (Figs. 18 and 19), Miss Babitt in the alluvial deposits of
the Mississippi, Mr. Haynes in New Hampshire, Mr. Holmes in Colombia,
and other explorers in the basin of the Bridget and at Guanajuato
in Mexico. Everywhere these implements are identical in shape and
in mode of construction, and very often they are associated with the
bones of animals of extinct species.
Sometimes these Chelleen tools (the French call them COUPS DE POING)
have retained at the base a projection to enable the user to grasp
them better; these certainly never had handles, but it will not do
to draw any general conclusions froth that fact; and an examination
of the collection of M. d'Acy, the most complete we have of relics
of the Chelleen period, proves on the contrary that certain tools
could not have been used unless they had been fixed into handles.
In the following epoch, to which has been given the name of
Mousterien, from the Moustier Cave (Dordogne), we already meet with
more varied forms, including scrapers, saws, knife-blades, and spear-
or arrow-heads, with the special characteristic of being cut on one
side only. These implements are found not only in the alluvium as
are the Chelleen COUPS DE POING, but also in the cave or rock-shelter
deposits. Amongst the mammalian remains with which they are associated
are those of the mammoth, the RHINOCEROS TICHORHINUS, the elk, the
horse, the aurochs, the cave-lion, the cave-hyena, and the cave-bear,
remarkable for the constancy of their characteristics. The ELEPHAS
ANTIQUUS and the RHINOCEROS MERCKII that belonged to the preceding
period have now completely passed away, and the reindeer, now appearing
for the first time, are still far from numerous.
In the Solutreen period, so named after the celebrated Lake Station
of Solutre, we find stalked arrow-heads with lateral notches,[87]
flint-heads of the form of laurel leaves, which are remarkable for
their regularity of shape and delicacy of finish; as compared with
those of previous periods, the forms are much more delicate and
elegant. Many of the caves of the south of France belong to this
period. It is difficult to mention them all, and even more difficult
to make out a complete list of contemporary mammalia; the deposits
generally actually touch those of another period, and the separation
of the objects in them has not always been made with all the care that
could be wished. At Solutre, remains of the horse predominate; whilst
in other places those of the reindeer are met with in considerable
quantities, and with them are found the bones of the cave-bear, the
wild cat (a creature considerably larger than the tigers of the present
day), and of the mammoth, which lived on in Europe many centuries.
Lastly to the Madeleine period, so named after the Madeleine
Cave (Dordogne), and considered one of the most important of the
cave epochs, belong tools and weapons of all manner of shapes and
materials, including bone, born, and reindeer antlers; from this
time also date barbed arrows and harpoons, batons of office, telling
of social organization; the engravings and carvings on which bear
witness to the development of artistic feeling. On the other hand,
the flint arrow-heads and knife-blades are not so finely cut; we see
that man had learned to use other materials than stone. The reindeer
is the most characteristic animal form of the Madeleine period.
To the times we have just passed in review succeeded others of a
very different kind, to which has been given the general naive of
Neolithic. The fauna, probably lender the influence of climatic and
orographic changes, underwent a complete transformation; the mammoth,
the cave-bear, the megaceros, and the large felidae died out, the
hippopotamus was no longer seen, except in the heart of Africa;
the reindeer and other mammals that love to frequent the regions of
perpetual snow, retired to the extreme north; and in their place
appeared our earliest domestic animals, the ox, the sheep, the
goat, and the dog. Man, who witnessed these changes, continued to
progress; he abandoned his nomad for a sedentary life; he ceased to
be a bunter, and became an agriculturist and a shepherd. Everywhere
we meet with traces of new customs, new ideas, and a new mode of
life. This progress is especially seen in the industrial arts. Metals
it is true are still unknown, but side by side with tools, which are
merely chipped or roughly cut, we find for the first time hatchets,
celts, small knife-blades, and arrow-heads admirably polished by the
long-continued rubbing of one stone on another. Polishers, so much worn
as to bear witness to long service, are numerous in all collections,
and rocks and erratic blocks retain incisions which must have been
used for the same purpose.[88]
It is impossible to enumerate the number of polished hatchets which
have been found; their number is simply incalculable. Of all of them,
however, those of Scandinavia are the most remarkable for delicacy of
workmanship. With the fine hatchets of Brittany, may be compared the
blades found at Volgu, and preserved in the Museum of Copenhagen,
and those in pink, gray, and brown flint, from the Sordes Cave in
the south of France; but we cannot fix the date of the production of
any of them. One of the great difficulties of prehistoric research,
a difficulty not to be got over in the present state of our knowledge,
is to distinguish with any certainty the periods into which an attempt
has been made to divide the life-story of man from his first appearance
upon earth.
Was there any abrupt transition from one period to another? Must we
accept the theory of a long break caused by geological phenomena,
and the temporary depopulation which was one of the consequences of
these phenomena? Did the new era of civilization date from the arrival
of foreign races, stronger and better fitted than those they succeeded
for the struggle for existence? Or are these changes merely the result
of the natural progress which is one of the laws of our being? These
questions cannot now be solved, and if the industries which are at
the present moment the object of our researches, bear witness to
the employment of a new process, that of polishing, we are bound to
add that everywhere Paleolithic forms are still persistent. Flints,
merely chipped, are clumsy tools, but there is no break in their
series till we come to the splendid specimens from Scandinavia or
from Mexico. Of the seven types of the Solutreen period, six are met
with in the time now under consideration.[89] Five types of Solutreen
javelins have also been found in the Durfort Cave, and beneath the
dolmens of Aveyron and of Lozere. Neolithic weapons, such as those
found in the Moustier Cave, are not so numerous, but the type adopted
there is not such a fine one nor so carefully finished, which accounts
for its having been more rarely copied. If we examine the knives, awls,
scrapers, and saws, we come to the same conclusion, although comparison
is not so easy. "A knife is always a knife, an awl is always an awl,"
remarks M. Cartailhac; "they were made at every period, and their
resemblance to each other proves nothing with any certainty."
Rounded stones of granite or sandstone seem however to have been
weapons peculiar to the Neolithic period. Dr. Pommerol recently spoke
at the Anthropological Society of Paris, of two such rounded stones
picked up in the Puy-de-Dome. Similar stones have been discovered
at Viry-Noureuil, and M. Massenat has one in his collection from
Chez-Pourre. Are not these rounded stones of a similar character to
the BOLAS flung by the ancient Gauls, and still in use amongst the
inhabitants of the pampas of South America?
As we have already remarked, plan from the earliest times must often
have held in his hands the stones which served him as weapons or as
tools. The marks of hammering on the smooth surfaces, the rounded
projections and the grooves worked in these stones, were evidently
made to prevent the hand or the thumb from slipping. Soon, however,
reflection led man to understand the increase of force he would gain by
the addition to the stone of a handle of wood or horn, stag or reindeer
antler. This addition of a handle was simple enough: the workman
merely bound it to the hatchet with fibrous roots, leather thongs,
or ligaments taken from the gut of the animals slain in the chase
(Fig. 21). At first sight we are astonished at the results obtained
with such wretched materials, but it is impossible to dispute them,
for we have seen the same thing done in our own day.
FIGURE 21
1. Stone javelin-head with handle. 2. Stone hatchet with handle.
Other hatchets, chiefly those of a small size, were fixed into sheaths
made of stag-horn, and two chief types of them have actually been
made out.[90] The sheaths of the first type are short and end in
quadrangular beads. They are found most frequently in Switzerland,
in the basins of the Rhone and of the Saone, and throughout the south
of France. Those of the second type are pierced with a hole large
enough to pass the handle through. These are found in the northwest
of France, in Belgium, and in England.
Flint arrows of triangular or oval form, notched or stalked, were
everywhere used for a considerable length of time. They are found
in the numerous caves of France, beneath the ANTAS of Portugal, in
the tombs of Mykenae, as well as among the Ainos of Japan and the
Patagonians of South America. Their use necessarily involves that of
a bow, yet we do not know of a single weapon such as that, or of one
that could take its place, dating from Paleolithic times. Probably
the rapid decomposition of the wood of which bows were made has led
to their disappearance. De Mortillet[91] mentions a bow found in a
pile-dwelling in a bog near Robenhausen, which he ascribes to the
Neolithic period. Another is known which was found at Lutz, also
in Switzerland. To all appearance the most ancient bows of historic
times greatly resemble these two prehistoric examples.
Though flint was the material par excellence of Quaternary times for
weapons and tools, it could not long suffice for the ever-growing
needs of man. Our museums contain a complete series of bone or
stag-horn implements such as darts, arrow-heads, barbed arrows,
harpoons, fibulae, and finely cut needles often pierced with eyes
(Fig. 22). The invention of barbs is worthy of special notice; the
series of points made the blow much more dangerous, as the projectile
remained in the flesh of a wounded animal which was not able to
get it out. But this was not the only object of the barbs. Arranged
symmetrically on either side of the arrow they kept it afloat in the
air like the wings of a bird, which may perhaps have suggested their
use and increased the effect and precision of the shot.
FIGURE 22
1. Fine needles.
2. Coarse needles.
3. Amulet.
4 and 6. Ornaments.
5. Cut flint.
7. Fragment of a harpoon.
8. Fragments of a reindeer antler with signs or drawings.
9. Whistle.
10. One end of a bow (?).
11. Arrow-head. (From the Vache, Massat, and Lourdes caves.)
The Marsoulas Cave has yielded one bevelled arrow shaft, made
of reindeer antler, with a deep groove on the surface. A similar
arrow-head was found in the Pacard Cave, and in other places arrows
have been found with one or more grooves on the surface. Were these
grooves or drills intended to hold poison, and was man already
acquainted with this melancholy Diode of destruction? We know that
the use of poison was known at the most remote historic antiquity.[92]
The Greeks and Scythians used the venom of the viper, and other peoples
employed vegetable poisons. There is nothing to prevent our believing
that similar methods were in use in prehistoric times.
FIGURE 23
Amulet made of the penien bone of a bear, and found in the Marsoulas
Cave.
There is no doubt that it is the caves of the south of France which
have yielded the most interesting objects; needles with drilled eyes,
and barbed arrows have been picked up in considerable numbers at
Eyzies, Laugerie-Basse, at Bruniquel, Massat, and in the Madeleine
Cave. Dr. Garrigou mentions some rein deer or roebuck antlers found
in Ariege caves, which had been made into regular stilettos. In the
deposits at Lafaye were fouled stilettos or bodkins, varying in length
from two to six inches; needles measuring from nineteen to one hundred
and five millimetres and provided with eyes; at Marsoulas were found
an amulet made of the penien bone of a bear (Fig. 23), some pendants,
and some pointed pieces of bone which astonish us by the delicacy of
their workmanship, and the drawings with which they were adorned.
FIGURE 24
Various stone and bone objects from California.
At Paviland, Dr. Buckland discovered a wolf bone cut to a point. Kent's
Hole yielded a number of needles resembling those of the Madeleine
Cave; at Aggtelek (Hungary) were found some bones of the cave-bear
pointed to serve as daggers, cut into scrapers or pierced to serve as
amulets or ornaments. In Belgium, objects very similar to these have
been found made of reindeer antler and dating from the most remote
times. The antlers moulted by the reindeer in the spring were in
especial request.
Excavations in the sepulchral mounds near San Francisco (California)
have yielded thousands of bone implements (Fig. 24). Others similar
to them have been found in the layers of cinders at Madisonville
(Ohio) and beneath the numerous kitchen-middings of the coasts of
the Atlantic and Pacific.
The processes employed by the cave-men were very simple. In one of the
excavations superintended by him, M. Dupont[93] picked up the radius
of a horse bearing symmetrically made incisions executed with a view
to getting off splinters of the bone. These splinters were rounded by
rubbing either with chips of flint, or on such polishers as are to
be seen in any of the museums; then one end was sharpened, and the
other, if need were, pierced with a hole. It is astonishing to find
some of them as fine as the steel needles of the present day, and with
perfectly round eyes made with the help of nothing but a rough flint,
and there would still be some doubt on the subject, if M. Lartet[94]
had not obtained exactly similar results by working on fragments
of bone with the flints he had fouled in these excavations. Other
experiments of a similar kind were no less conclusive, for Merk[95]
perforated all ivory plaque with a pointed flint which he used as
a gimlet.
Some objects, which are supposed to date from Neolithic times, bear
witness to an altogether unexpected degree of civilization. In the
heart of Germany, in the peat-bogs of Laybach and Worbzig on the
banks of the Saale, have been found earthenware spoons of the shape
of modern spatulae; at Geraffin on Lake Bienne, a finely shaped
spoon made of the wood of a yew tree; and at Lagozza, another in
shining black earthenware. Lartet had already brought to light a
bone implement covered with ornaments in relief which he ascribed
to the Palaeolithic period, and which he imagined had been used for
extracting marrow; and another archaeologist tells of objects in
reindeer antler found in the Gourdan Cave, which he thinks were used
for a similar purpose. In the Saint-Germain Museum are preserved the
remains of spoons from the bed of the Seine, and in the collections
of England are fragments of bone taken from beneath the West-Kennet
dolmen, which were all probably employed for extracting marrow. But
the most important discovery of all, which leaves no doubt on the
subject, is that made by M. Perrault at the Chassey Camp, near
Chalon-sur-Saone, beneath a hearth dating from Neolithic times. He
collected fourteen earthenware spoons; one of them of a round shape
and remarkable for its size, was unfortunately broken (Fig. 25). It
is of brown earthenware with a rather rough surface mixed with bits
of flint, and is so much worn that it had evidently been in use a
long time. Lastly two spoons, also of earthenware, have recently been
found near Dondas (Lot-et-Garonne). The use of spoons, which certainly
marked considerable progress, must therefore have spread rapidly.
FIGURE 25
Dipper found in the excavations at the Chassey Camp.
Long previously, however, pottery of a great variety of form bore
witness to tire plastic skill of man. Every where we find vessels
of coarse material mixed with grains of sand or mica to give more
consistency to the paste which was baked in the fire, and had often no
further ornamentation than the marks of the fingers of the potter. Does
this pottery date from Palaeolithic times, or were the earthenware
vessels later additions at the time of those disturbances of deposits
which are the despair of archaeologists? A few examples may enable
us better to answer this question.
Fraas tells us that fragments of pottery have been found in all the
caves of Germany in which excavations have been made. He quotes that
of Hohlefels, where he himself picked up such fragments amongst
the bones of the mastodon, the mammoth, the rhinoceros, and the
cave-lion, when the remains of these animals were for the first time
found in Germany. In 1872, the making of the railway from Nuremberg
to Ratisbon brought to light a cave of considerable depth. In its
lower deposits were found nothing but the bones of hyenas, bears,
and lions, of which the cave had been the resort for centuries. Among
the most ancient deposits, relics of a similar kind were found in
abundance, but now mixed with numerous fragments of pottery, worked
flints, and fish bones, including those of the carp and the pike,
with the bones of mammals, amongst which predominated those of the
rhinoceros, most of them intentionally split open. At Argecilla,
twenty leagues from Madrid, Vilanova discovered a regular workshop,
in which were knives and flint arrow-heads, together with some very
primitive pottery made of clay that had evidently been brought from
a distance, as there is none in the district in which the pottery
was found, In an upper deposit Vilanova collected more than two
hundred implements made of diorite, a rock frequently used in Spain,
some very remarkable celts of serpentine dating from the Neolithic
period, and numerous fragments of very delicate pottery. Not far off
he discovered another workshop, containing some very fine hatchets
perfectly polished, and some keramic ware tastily ornamented. The
progress made is as marked in the weapons and tools as in the pottery.
We have also seen some fragments of earthenware from the caves of
Chiampo and Laglio, near Lake Como, and from that known as the Cave
dei Colombi, in tire island of Palmaria, which was occupied shortly
before the Neolithic period. But it is Belgium which yields the
most decisive proof on this subject, and a visit to the Brussels
Museum is enough to convince the most incredulous. The excavations
made under M. Dupont in the caves of the Meuse and the Lesse have
again and again brought to light fragments of pottery, associated
with the bones of Palaeolithic animals. Schmerling, too, had already
found similar fragments in the Engis Cave, mixed with flint weapons
of the rudest description; and his discoveries have been strikingly
confirmed by those recently made at Spy, near Namur,[96] and by
others made by M. Fraipont.[97] In portions of this same Engis Cave
not previously explored the learned professor of Liege found, in 1887,
fragments of a vase of ovoid form, some flints of the Mousterien type,
and some bones of extinct mammals. Most of the pottery in the Brussels
Museum is black and of primitive make; some few fragments, however,
are of finished workmanship. We may mention especially an ovoid vase,
remarkable for its size and for its lateral projections. This vase,
which is hand-modelled, came from the Frontal Cave; the clay is of
blackish hue mixed with little bits of calcareous spar. M. Ordinaire,
Vice-Consul for France at Callao, speaks of the CAYANES or MACAHUAS,
which are earthenware basins of great symmetry of form, made by the
Combos women, without turning wheels or mills of any kind. Though the
elegant shape of the Frontal and other vases at first surprises us,
reflection convinces us that men who could cut stones with such rare
skill would certainly be able to produce equally good pottery.
FIGURE 26
Pottery of a so far unclassified type found in the Argent Cave
(France).
Similar instances may easily be quoted from France. Excavations at
Solutre have yielded several fragments of yellow, hand-made pottery
very insufficiently baked; and other pieces have been found in the
peat-bogs of Bastide de Bearn with the bones of reindeer, and worked
flints similar to those found in Quaternary deposits. We may add
that at Lafaye, Bize, and Pondre (Hainault) discoveries were made of
pottery mixed with human remains and with those of animals now extinct;
and in the Argent Cave (Basses-Alpes) a new type, shown in Fig. 26,
has been found which merits special attention. In the very earliest
days of prehistoric research the Nabrigas Cave (Lozere) was excavated
by M. Joly, who found in it many fragments of pottery. In a volume
published shortly before his death he relates the circumstances of his
discovery, and earnestly maintains its authenticity. Later excavations,
made under the direction of masters in prehistoric science, would have
thrown some doubts on the assertions made by the professor of Toulouse,
if MM. Martel and Launay had not brought forward a fresh proof in
support of it. "On the 30th August, 1885,"[98] they say, "we picked
up at Nabrigas in a deep hole, untouched by previous excavations and
not displaced by water, some human bones and a piece of pottery side
by side with two skeletons of URSUS SPELAEUS. The human bones, of
indeterminate race, included an upper left maxillary, still retaining
three teeth, an incomplete mastoid apophysis, and seven pieces of
crania, belonging to different individuals. The piece of pottery only
measured one and a half by two and a quarter inches; the clay is gray
and friable, bound together with big bits of quartz, mica, and a few
particles of charcoal." There would appear to be no sufficient reason
to question the exactness of a discovery so carefully studied.
Many eminent archaeologists, however, maintain that pottery was
completely unknown in Paleolithic times, and they do not hesitate to
attribute to a later period any deposit in which it occurs where its
presence cannot be accounted for by later displacements. M. Cartailhac
declares that he has never been able to establish either in the south
of France or in the central table-land a single fact which justifies
us in asserting that the men of the Reindeer period, still less those
of earlier epochs, knew how to make pottery. The first explorers, he
adds, did not always distinguish with sufficient care the vestiges
of different epochs, the relics of diverse origins. How often have
bones carried along by water, or brought where they are found by
animals, been mixed with those abandoned by men, or the deposits of
the Neolithic period with those of the earliest Quaternary times! How
often have the contents of a passage giving access to a cave been
confounded with those of the cave itself! Hence deplorable errors,
which it is impossible to rectify now. Evans and Geikie in their
turn assert the absence in England[99] of Palaeolithic pottery,
and Sir J. Lubbock energetically maintains this opinion.
Doubtless these are great authorities, and yet, in view of the facts
now known, it is difficult to believe that man was long a stranger to
the art of making pottery. Its invention required no great effort of
intelligence, and its fabrication presented no great difficulties. Man
had but to knead the soft clay which he trod under his foot, and the
plasticity of which he could not fail to notice. This clay hardened
in the sun, and hollows were formed as it shrunk -- the first vessel
was discovered! Experience soon taught man to replace the heat of
the sun by that of the fire, and to add a few bits of some hard
substance to give the clay greater consistency. These first crude
and clumsy vases have been preserved to our own day as irrefutable
witnesses to the work of our ancestors. Though, therefore, we cannot
be sure that pottery was made in Quaternary times by all the races
that peopled Europe,[100] it is impossible to deny that a great many
of them were in possession of the art. This difference in the degree
of civilization attained to by men living but short distances from
each other need not surprise us, for all travellers report similar
facts amongst contemporary savage races.
The baking of pottery is a proof that the use of fire was known in
the most remote times. The existence in various places of masses
of cinders, fragments of charred wood, and half-calcined bones,
proves it yet more decidedly. At Solutre, at Louverne (Mayenne), at
Saint-Florent (Corsica), to give but a few examples, we find large
slabs of half-calcined stone, laid flat and covered with heaps of
cinders and all sorts of rubbish. These slabs formed the family hearth,
where man prepared his food, with the help of the fire he had learnt
to ignite and to keep burning.
How did man arrive at a discovery so vital to his existence? The Vedas
assign the origin of fire to the rubbing together in a storm of the dry
branches of trees. "The first men," says Vitruvius,[101] "were born,
as were other animals, in the forests, caves, and woods. The thick
trees violently agitated by the storm took fire, through the rubbing
together of their branches; the fury of the flames terrified the men
who found themselves near them and made them take to flight. Soon
reassured, however, they gradually approached again and realized all
the advantages they might gain for their bodies from the gentle warmth
of the fire. They added fuel to the flames, they kept the fire up,
they fetched other men whom they made understand by signs all the
usefulness of this discovery. The men thus assembled articulated a
few sounds, which, repeated every day, accidentally formed certain
words which served to designate objects, and soon they had a language
which enabled them to speak and to understand one another. It was,
then, the discovery of fire which led men to come together to form
a society, to live together, and to inhabit the same places."
Without pausing to consider the somewhat puerile theories of Vitruvius,
or the myths which testify to the importance attached to fire by
primeval man, we are at liberty to suppose that a conflagration caused
by lightning or by the spontaneous combustion of vegetable materials
in a state of fermentation, or other similar phenomena, made known to
man the power of fire, and the use it might be to him. The accidental
striking together of two flints produced a spark; observation taught
men to obtain a similar result by the same process; a great step in
advance was made, and the future of humanity was assured. M. Dupont
picked up in the Chaleux Cave a kidney-shaped piece of iron pyrites,
hollowed out in a peculiar manner, which had evidently been used to
obtain the precious spark. The Christy collection contains a granite
pebble with a hole the shape of a cup, which had evidently been used
to obtain fire, by rubbing round in it a stick of very dry wood. The
two methods employed at the present day were therefore already in
use. Lumholz tells us that the Australians of Herbert River get fire
by rubbing two pieces of wood together. The Indians of the northwest
of Colorado, the Yapais of the Caroline Islands, and the Mincopies of
the Andaman Isles, with many other races, know no other process. We
must, however, still maintain a certain reserve in dealing with the
fire-obtaining implements of so imperfect a nature, and belonging to
times so remote as those called prehistoric.
During bad seasons, or in the bitter cold of winter, primeval man
contented himself with flinging over his shoulders the skins of the
animals he had killed. He prepared these skins with flint scrapers,
and sewed them together with bone needles. In hot weather man probably
roamed about stark naked. Shame is not a natural instinct; education
alone develops it. Writing in 1617, Fynes Morison speaks of having
seen at Cork young girls quite naked, engaged in crushing corn with a
stone. The Tchoutchi women, says Nordenskiold, wear no clothes when in
their tents, however great the cold. In tropical countries men, women,
and children, all completely nude, went to meet the travellers who
landed on their shores. Count Ursel, in a recent journey in Bolivia,
in going through a little town, saw "near the public fountain some
young girls already growing up making their ablutions and playing about
in the garb of the earthly paradise." Travellers who visited Japan
a few years ago reported that the inhabitants, without distinction
of age or sex, came out of the water in a state of complete nudity,
presenting a strange spectacle to European eyes. The sight of what is
actually going on amongst comparatively civilized people in our own
day enables us to understand better what must have been the state of
things when the whole world was in a state of barbarism.
It was not until much later, in the times to which the name of
Neolithic has been given, that men made stuffs, and replaced the skins
of animals by lighter and more flexible garments. The inhabitants of
the Lake Stations of Switzerland and of Italy cultivated hemp. At
Wangen and at Robenhausen have been found shreds of coarsely woven
cloth, and at Lagozza fragments of yet more primitive material. On
some of these pieces it is supposed that traces of fringe and
attempts at ornamentation have been made out. Even in the Perigord
caves Lartet noticed some long slim needles which could not have been
used for sewing skins; and he concluded that they were intended for
more delicate work, perhaps even for embroidery. A new art, and one
which we certainly should not have expected to find is now met with
for the first time.
It is probable that our savage ancestors tatooed themselves, or painted
their bodies, as did the Britons in the time of Caesar, and as do
modern savages, or, not to go so far afield, as do English sailors
and some of the workingmen of France.[102] At Montastruc have been
picked up some fragments of red chalk, and in Mayenne of red iron ore,
whilst in the cave of Spy was found a bone filled with a very fine red
powder, and in that of Saltpetriere some powder of the same kind was
discovered preserved from destruction in a shell. Lartet and Christy
have made similar discoveries in the caves of the Dordogne; M. Dupont
in a shelter at Chaleux, and M. Riviere at Baousse-Rousse. The Abbe
Bourgeois found at Villehonneur not only a piece of red chalk as big
as a nut, but also an oval-shaped pebble, which had been used for
grinding it, the interstices of the surface still retaining traces
of coloring matter.
Red chalk was not the only substance employed. At Chatelperron, were
picked up fragments of manganese; at Cueva de Rocca, near Valentia,
pieces of cinnabar; in the Placard Cave, bits of black lead; and
in the different stations in the Pyrenees, especially in that of
Aurensan, ochre has been found which was doubtless used for the same
purpose. At Solutre, ochre, manganese, and graphite were found;
the last named had been scraped with a flint, and the scratches
made by it are still distinctly visible. From a Westphalian cave,
Schaafhausen took some dark yellow ochre; at Castern (Staffordshire),
a bit of this same calcareous substance, worn with long service,
was picked tip; in Cantire (Argyleshire), a piece of red hematite,
which had evidently been brought from Westmoreland or Lancashire;
and lastly, in Kent's Hole was found some peroxide of manganese.
All these fragments of ochre or manganese, red chalk or black lead,
were reduced to powder with the help of pebbles, artificially hollowed
out. Everywhere we meet with these primitive mortars, and side by
side with them other pebbles in their native condition, which had
evidently been used for crushing the coloring matter.
A recent discovery tends to confirm the hypothesis that these colors
were used for the decoration of the human body. A curious engraving
on a bone represents the head and arm of a man, and on the lower
part of the forearm it is easy to make out a four-sided design which
evidently indicated tatooing.
In every country, and in every climate, we find men as well as women
manifesting a taste for ornament. The progress of civilization has
greatly increased this taste, but it existed as a natural instinct
in the very earliest days of humanity, and the contemporary of the
mammoth and the cave-bear, the cave-man cowering in his miserable den,
sought for ornaments with which to deck himself. In the caves near the
stations occupied by primeval men we find little bits of fossil coral,
beads of hardened clay, the teeth of bears, wolves, and foxes, boars'
tusks, and the jawbones of small mammals, fish-bones, and belemnites
pierced with holes, and intended to be used as amulets or ornaments
to be worn round the neck. At Lafaye, we find the incisors of small
rodents serving the same purpose. The dweller in the Sordes Cave owned
a precious necklace made of forty bears' and three lions' teeth. The
teeth found often have on them ornamental lines, which doubtless
indicated the rank or celebrated the deeds of the chief. The Abbe
Bourgeois describes some stags' teeth found at Villehonneur (Charente),
two of which bore scratches which may have had some signification. At
Cro-Magnon were picked up some ivory plaques pierced with three
holes; at Kent's bole were found some oval disks measuring five by
three inches, which in the delicacy of their workmanship presented a
curious contrast to the other objects taken from the same cave. In the
Belgian caves here picked up some thin slices of jet and some ivory
plaques, and in those of the south of France fragments of steatite,
cut into rectangular and lozenge shapes, whilst in the Thayngen Cave
was found a pendant of lignite (Fig. 27). Men were not content with
natural products; fashion demanded new forms and fresh materials.
FIGURE 27
1. Lignite pendant. 2. Bone pendant (Thayngen Cave).
But what most attracted the attention of the ancient inhabitants
of France were bright-colored shells. The caves of Roquemaure have
yielded nearly a thousand disks and beads made of cockle-shells;
at Cro-Magnon more than three hundred shells were picked up which
formed a collar or necklace, which was not however so valuable
as that of the man of Sordes. M. de Maret discovered at Placard
numerous shells; some belonging to ocean species still extant, and
others fossils of forms now extinct. Many of them are foreign to the
country in which they were found. From the most remote times therefore
the inhabitants of the present department of Charente fished in the
Gulf of Gascony, crossed Aquitania, visited the shell marl deposits
of Anjou and Touraine, and penetrated as far as the present Paris
basin. The finding of the CYPRINA ISLANDICA in one of the French
caves proves that the prehistoric men of France even went as far
away as the north of England. This is by no means an isolated fact;
numerous shells from the department of Champagne had been taken to
tire shores of the Lesse and the Meuse. At Solutre have been found
belemnites, ammonites, and Miocene shells, which were certainly never
native to that district, with pieces of rock-crystal from the Alps,
and beads made of a jadeite of unknown origin.
In Scotland have been found necklaces of nerites and limpets;
at Aurignac, eighteen little plaques of cockle shell pierced with
holes in the centre. At Laugerie-Basse, a man overtaken by a landslip
had been crushed by the stones which had fallen upon him; time has
destroyed his clothes, but the shells with which he had decked himself
are still preserved.[103] He had worn four on his forehead, two on
each shoulder, four on each knee, and two on each foot. All idea of
these shells having formed a necklace must be abandoned; they were
all notched, and had been used either. to adorn or fasten the clothes.
The most interesting discoveries, however, were those made in the caves
of Baousse-Rousse, of which we have so often spoken. M. Riviere picked
up the skeletons of two children, some thousand shells (NASSA NERITEA)
artificially pierced, which had been used to deck their garments: Near
an adult were other shells forming a necklace, a bracelet, an amulet,
and a garter worn on the left leg; whilst on the head was a regular
RESILLE or net, not unlike that of the Spanish national costume, which
net was made of small nerita shells and kept in place by bone pins.
We must also mention amongst favorite ornaments beads made of
jet and of very fine ochreous clay dried in the sun, of calcareous
crystalline rock, and of grayish schist, and in other places of beads
of amber or of hyaline quartz, the brightness of which attracted the
attention. At the station of Menieux (Charente) with flints of a type
to which it is usual to give the names of Mousterien or Solutreen,
excavations have yielded numerous carefully polished balls of calx,
varying in diameter from one to two inches. If there had been any
doubts as to their use, those doubts would have been removed by the
discovery at Laugerie-Basse of a fragment of the shoulder-blade of a
reindeer on which was engraved the figure of a woman wearing round her
neck a necklace of clumsy round balls. Other yet stranger ornaments
have been found, for which what we have said about the cannibalism
of early man should have prepared the reader. Our ancestors of the
Stone age adorned themselves with necklaces of human teeth, and two
skeletons have been dug out wearing round their necks this token of
their victories. M. de Baye possesses in his collection some round
pieces of skull pierced with holes (Fig. 28), and at the meeting
of the American Association in 1886, at Ann Arbor (Michigan) were
presented some ornaments made of human bones from a mound in Ohio.
In taking from the gangue in which it was imbedded a skull from the
megalithic monument of Vaureal, Pruner Bey noticed a fragment of a
human shoulder blade pierced with an incision in which was fixed
a little rounded piece of bone. This style of ornament seems to
have remained in use for many centuries, for M. Nicaise has lately
discovered at Moulin d'Oyes (Marne) a necklace made of calx balls,
shells, and pendants cut out of the scales of unio shells. On this
necklace hung a round piece of human cranium, and in the Gallic
cemetery at Varille, the exterior lamina of a human lumbar vertebra
was fastened to a necklace made of coral beads.
FIGURE 28
Round pieces of skull pierced with holes (Al. de Baye's collection).
We are also acquainted with facts of another order, which may be
mentioned in this connection. The men of Marjevols drank out of human
crania; the Grenoble Museum owns a drinking-vessel of this kind; others
have been discovered at Billancourt, at Chavannes, at the Chassey
Camp, and at Sutz, AEfele, and Loci-as in Switzerland, as well as
at Brookville in the State of Indiana. Dr. Prunieres possesses half
a human radius, probably that of a female, carefully polished and
converted into a stiletto (Fig. 29). Dr. Garrigou has an arrow-head
made of a human bone, Pellegrino a fibula converted into a polisher
found in the lower beds of the celebrated Castione TERREMARE near
Parma. At the meeting of the Prehistoric Congress in Paris in 1869,
Pereira da Costa mentioned a femora converted into a sceptre or staff
of office, and to conclude this melancholy list, Longperier mentions
a human bone pierced with regular openings, which, by a strange irony
of death, served as a flute to delight the ears of the living. .
FIGURE 29
Part of a rounded piece of a human parietal-Stiletto made of the end
of a human radius -- Disk made of the burr of a stag's antler.
One of the earliest necessities of human nature must have been
companionship; for help was absolutely necessary to enable man to
cope with the dangers surrounding him. Tribes, formed at first of
members of the same family, must have existed from the very dawn
of humanity. The reindeer phalanges, pierced to serve as whistles
(Fig. 30), found at Eyzies, Schussenreid, Laugerie-Basse, Bruniquel,
in the Chaffaud Cave and the Belgian shelters, in a peat-marsh of
Scania, in the island of Palmaria, and in many other places, were
doubtless used to summon men to war or to the chase. In the Cottes Cave
were found some reindeer and aurochs' shanks, which may naturally be
supposed to have served the same purpose. The curious objects preserved
in the Christy collections must also have been used in war or in the
chase. They bear, in addition to the mark of their owner, notches of
different shapes commemorating his exploits in battle or in hunting. At
Solutre, MM. Ducrost and Arcelin noticed fragments of elephants'
tusks, calcareous plaques, and some sandstone disks from the Trias,
with notches and equidistant lines evidently having a similar purpose.
FIGURE 30
Whistle from the Massenat Collection.
From whistles to regular musical instruments the transition is
simple. Without describing that mentioned by M. de Longperier, which
we cannot confidently assert to be of great antiquity, M. Piette,
in one of his numerous excavations, discovered a primitive flute made
of two bird bones which, when put together and blown into, produced
modulations similar to those of the pipes used by the people of
Oceania; the monotonous music of which is alluded to by Cook. Some
time afterwards M. Piette noticed similar bones in the Rochebertier
collection. So far we know of no other discovery of a similar kind.
The curious objects known under the name of staves of office would,
if it were needed, afford yet another proof that the men of the Stone
age lived in societies, possessed an organization, and acknowledged
a chief. The staves of office consist of large pieces of reindeer
or stag antler, artistically worked and presenting a pretty uniform
appearance. Their surface is decorated with carvings and engravings
representing animals, plants, and hunting scenes. They are thicker
than they are wide, and the care often taken to reduce the thickness
is a proof that an attempt was made to combine elegance and lightness
with solidity (Figs. 31, 32, 33, 34, and 35). Nearly all of them are
pierced at one end with large holes, of which the number varies. Some
of these holes were later additions. May we perhaps see in them the
signs of a priesthood, in which successive ranks were attained, and in
which every new achievement was rewarded with a new distinction? This
is difficult to prove, but these staves could not have been used as
weapons or as tools; the care taken to cover them with ornaments,
with the long time required for this decoration, shows the value their
owners attached to them. The impossibility of any other hypothesis
is the best proof we have of their use.
FIGURE 31
Staff of office.
Amongst the marvellous objects collected by Dr. Schliemann at
Hissarlik, were two fragments of reindeer antler pierced with holes
presenting a singular resemblance to those we have been describing. We
may also compare with them the POGOMAGAN, the badge of office of Indian
chiefs on the Mackenzie River, the Tartar KEMOUS, the sticks on which
the Australians mark by conventional signs any event of importance to
themselves or their tribe, and the similar objects from Persia, Assam,
the Celebes, and New Zealand. But why seek examples so far away? Is
not the memory of these ancient insignia preserved in our own day,
and may they not have been the original forms of the sceptres of our
kings and the croziers of our bishops?
FIGURE 32
Staff of office made of stag-horn pierced with four holes.
FIGURE 33
Staff of office found at Lafaye.
FIGURE 34
Staff of office in reindeer antler, with a horse engraved on it,
found at Thayngen.
These staves, of which hundreds have now been found, were picked up
in many different places, including the Goyet Cave in Belgium, the
caves of Perigord and Charente, and the Veyrier Station in Savoy. At
Thayngen, as many as twenty-three were found, all pierced with one
hole only.[104] We must not omit to mention amongst these relies of
ages gone by, one of the most interesting found in 1887 at Montgaudier
(Charente) (Fig. 35), which bears on one side a representation of two
seals, and on the other of two eels, the former of which especially are
executed with a truth to form, boldness of execution, and delicacy of
touch which are positively astonishing when we remember that the artist
(we cannot refuse him this title) bad no tools at his disposal but
a few miserable flints or roughly pointed bones. The hinder limbs,
so strangely placed in amphibia, are faithfully rendered; each paw
has its five toes, the texture of the skin can be made out, the head
is delicately modelled; the muzzle with its whiskers, the eye, the
orifice of the ear, all testify to real skill. The existence of the
seal in the Quaternary epoch in the south of France was not known
until quite recently, when Mr. Hardy found in a cave near Perigueux
the remains of a seal (PHOCA GROENLANDICA), associated with quite an
arctic fauna. In part at least therefore of the Quaternary period,
very great cold must have prevailed in Perigord.[105]
With this staff of office were picked up some pieces of ivory
covered with geometrical designs, engraved with some sharp implement,
stilettos, bone needles, knives, flint scrapers, and, stranger still,
the remains of the cave-lion, the cave-hyena, and the RHINOCEROS
TICHORHINUS, all contemporaries of the most ancient Quaternary fauna.
FIGURE 35
Staff of office found at Montgaudier.
It was not only on the staves of office that the men of the Stone age
exercised their talent. Many and varied are the subjects which have
been found engraved on plaques of ivory or on stone, and incised on
bears' teeth or on stag horn. We represent one forming the hilt of
a dagger (Fig. 36), and another representing a bear with the convex
forehead, characteristic of the species, engraved on a piece of schist
(Fig. 37), and a mammoth engraved on an ivory plaque with its long
mane, trunk, and curved tusks (Fig. 38). The artist who depicted
these animals with such faithful exactitude evidently lived amongst
them. The first discovery of this kind was made by Joly-Leterme in
the Chaffaud Cave (Vienna); it was a reindeer bone on which two stags
were represented.[106]
FIGURE 36
Carved dagger-hilt (Laugerie-Basse).
FIGURE 37
The great cave-bear, drawn on a pebble found in the Massat Cave
(Garrigou collection).
In the Lortet Cave was found the bone of a stag on which could be
made out a representation of fish and reindeer, whilst at Sordes was
discovered a bear's tooth with a seal engraved upon it (Fig. 39), at
Marsoulas a piece of rib on which is depicted an animal said to be a
musk-ox (Fig. 40), and at Feyjat (Dordogne) a bird's bone bearing on
it a drawing of three horses moving rapidly along. I am obliged to
pass over many other most interesting examples, but I must not omit
to mention the magnificent examples which form part of the Peccadeau
collection at Lisle. Cartailhac mentions some chamois, an ox, and an
elephant; some engraved on the bones of deer and others on fragments
of ivory, or on reindeer antlers. The art of the cave-men was now at
its zenith.
FIGURE 38
Mammoth, or elephant, from the Lena Cave.
FIGURE 39
Seal engraved on a bear's tooth found at Sordes.
But for one exception to which I shall refer again, it is curious to
note that we only find these engravings and carvings, which so justly
excite our astonishment in a district of limited extent, bounded on
the north by the Charente, on the south by the Pyrenees and extending
on the east no farther than the department of the Ariege. It is a
pleasant thought that in the midst of their struggle for existence,
and when they had to contend with gigantic pachyderms and formidable
beasts of prey, our most remote ancestors, the contemporaries of the
mammoth and the lion, already developed those artistic tendencies
which are the glory of their descendants.
FIGURE 40
Fragment of a bone with regular designs. Fragment of rib on which is
engraved a musk-ox, found in the Marsoulas Cave.
FIGURE 41
Head of a horse from the Thayngen Cave.
FIGURE 42
Bear engraved on a bone from the Thayngen Cave.
I referred above to ail exceptional example of prehistoric art found
beyond the borders of France. In excavations in the Thayngen Cave,
on the borders of Switzerland and Wurtemberg, twenty most remarkable
examples were found, in which it is easy to recognize the horse
(Fig. 41), the bear (Fig. 42), and the reindeer grazing (Fig. 43).[107]
All, especially the last named, are rendered with such perfection,
that it was at first supposed that they were the work of a forger. A
searching inquiry has proved that they are nothing of the sort;
a skilful zoologist would have been needed to represent the OVIBOS
MOSCHATUS (Fig. 44), which retired many centuries ago towards the
extreme north. If we do find a few rare attempts at art in other
districts, they are absolutely rudimentary. The staff of office found
in the Goyet Cave is of very rude workmanship. The Brussels Museum
contains a few other specimens, of which the most important is a
fragment of sandstone from the Frontal Cave, on which a few uncertain
scratches represent what looks like a stag. Some indistinct traces of
engraving have been made out on the bones found in the Altamira Cave,
near Santander, and recently a bone on which a kind of horse was
engraved, was picked up at Cresswell's Crags, Derbyshire, in a cave
known in the district as MOTHER GRUNDY'S PARLOR. This specimen, as were
those of Thayngen, was associated with numerous bones of Quaternary
animals, amongst which those of the hippopotamus were the most curious.
FIGURE 43
Reindeer grazing, from the Thayngen Cave.
The representation of the human figure is extremely rare. I have
already mentioned the young man trying to strike an aurochs which is
running away from him; and the woman wearing a necklace. The former
(Fig. 45), found at Laugerie, is engraved on a piece of reindeer
antler about twenty-five centimetres long. The aurochs with its head
down and quantities of bristling hair, widely open nostrils, arched
and uplifted tail, presents the appearance of a terrified animal
endeavoring to escape the danger threatening it. The man is naked,
and has a round head, his hair is stiff and seems to stand up on the
top of his skull; on the chin a short beard can clearly be made out;
the face expresses the delight and excitement of the chase. The neck
is long, the arm short, and the spine of unusual length. In the other
example of the representation of the human figure, that of the woman
wearing a necklace, drawn on a piece of a shoulder-blade of a reindeer,
she is seen lying by a stag, and would seem to be in an advanced state
of pregnancy. The piece of bone however is broken, and the head of the
woman is lost, which of course greatly lessens the value of the relic.
FIGURE 44
Head of OVIBOS MOSCHATUS engraved on wood, found in the Thayngen Cave.
FIGURE 45
Young man chasing the aurochs, from Laugerie.
On a fragment of a staff of office from the Madeleine Cave is
engraved a man between two horses' heads (Fig. 46). On a reindeer
antler is represented a woman with flat breasts and very high hips,
followed by a serpent; a shell from the crag near Walton-on-the-Naze
had a human face roughly engraved on one side. The Abby, Bourgeois,
in the excavations so fruitful of results at Rochebertier, found a
rough carving of a human face (Fig. 47); M. Piette at Mas d'Azil
found a little bust of a woman, carved on the root of the tooth
of a horse. This statuette had a low forehead, a prominent nose, a
retreating chin, and breasts of the negress type of the present day;
characteristics quite unlike those of the skeletons taken from this
cave or those near it. We wonder whether the artist meant to represent
the features of a race other than his own.[108] M. du Bouchet mentions
a rough sketch engraved on a flint discovered near Dax; the workman,
doubtless daunted by the difficulties of his task, had abandoned it
unfinished. It is, however, easy to tell what it was meant for. The
skull is low and flat, the nose but slightly prominent, the eyes
are oblique, and neither the mouth nor the chin are finished. The
magnificent collection of the Marquis de Vibraye contains a little
figure from Laugerie, representing a nude woman without arms. Thin
and stiff, she is chiefly remarkable for the exaggerated size of the
sexual organs, and for some peculiar protuberances on the loins. We
dwell upon the former peculiarity, because it is so far extremely
rare, whereas certain relics of the Greeks and Romans, in spite of
the comparatively advanced civilization of these two great races,
are such that they can only be exhibited in private museums. Such
depravity as this implies was then quite an exception among the
cave-men, and but for the one example I have just mentioned, I have no
phallic representations to refer to except the few from the Massenat
collection, which were shown at the Exhibition of 1889.
FIGURE 46
Fragment of a staff of office, from the Madeleine Cave.
FIGURE 47
Human face carved on a reindeer antler, found in the Rochebertier Cave
(Charente).
We must not close this account of the art efforts of the men of the
Stone age without mentioning the remarkable discovery by M. Siette,
of flints covered with lines and geometrical designs colored with red
chalk. These are the very earliest examples of the art of painting
which have hitherto come to our knowledge. They bear witness to a
remarkable progress made by our remote ancestors of the valleys of
the Pyrenees.
We cannot more appropriately close this chapter than by quoting
the magnificent verse of Lucretius, which brings before us, better
than could a long description, the condition of these men, and the
humble starting-point from which humanity has advanced to achieve
its immortal destiny:
Necdum res igni scibant tractare neque uti
Pellibus et spoliis corpus vestire ferarum,
Sed nemora atque caveos monteis sylvasque colebant
Et frutices inter condebant squalida membra
Verbera ventorum vitare imbreisque coactei.[109]