In France many important finds have been brought to light illustrating the art work of the European Cave-men. In the caves at Perigord, at Bruniquel on the Aveyron, at Le Moustier, at La Madelaine in the Dordogne, and in the Duruthy cave at Laugerie Basse, in the Western Pyrenees, have been found many engravings of animals, and carvings on bone, smooth teeth, and antlers, also on sandstone, slate, and schist. Evidences of the Cave-men using skins for clothing is inferred from the engraving of skin-gloves and other things found incised on the teeth of the great cave-bear in the Duruthy caves. Hunting scenes were often engraved with great fidelity, and carved dagger-handles made from the antlers of deer, with the animal itself sometimes carved on them. One of the highest art examples yet found is that of a reindeer grazing, and is the only object on which an attempt is made to represent herbage, and perhaps water (Fig. 5). This interesting relic was found in the Kesslerloch Cavern.
Fig. 7B.—Animal Forms, drawn by Bushmen.
CHAPTER III.
NEOLITHIC STONE PERIOD.
This period is divided from the Palæolithic Stone age by a great unknown gap. It is sometimes called the Later or Newer Stone age. In this period the flint implements were better shaped, many of them were ground and polished (Figs. 17, 18). Some of the flint and other stone implements were very like in form to those of the Bronze period, and as these implements were made, and continued to be used, in Northern Europe after the Bronze periods of the East had developed, it is quite possible that they were copied from the bronze objects (Figs. 10, 11, 17, 18).
A remarkable sickle or knife fourteen inches long is seen at Fig. 11; a flint saw (Fig. 12), semicircular knives or saws at Figs. 15, 16, and a bone and flint harpoon at Fig. 9. Some of the stone hammers or axes are of great beauty in shape and in workmanship (Figs. 17, 18); also pottery slightly burnt, but well decorated by incised straight lines and zigzags (Figs. 21 to 24).
Fig. 8.
Fig. 9.
Fig. 10.
Fig. 11.
Figs. 8 to 11.—Flint Implements of the Neolithic Period (From Danish Arts.)
Fig. 12.
Fig. 13.
Fig. 14.
Figs. 12, 13, 14.—Flint Implements of the Neolithic Period. (From Danish Arts.)
Fig. 15.
Fig. 16.
Figs. 15, 16.—Flint Implements of the Neolithic Period. (From Danish Arts.)
Fig. 17.
Fig. 18.
Fig. 19.
Fig. 20.
Figs. 17 to 20.—Polished Stone Hammers and Celts, Neolithic Period. (From Danish Arts.)
Fig. 21.
Fig. 22.
Fig. 23.
Fig. 24.
Figs. 21 to 24.—Pottery of the Neolithic Age. (From Danish Arts.)
The cultivation of land, the breeding and rearing of domestic animals, plaiting, and weaving was known and practised by these people. Amber, bone beads, and shells were used as personal adornments. Their burials were with or without cremation. The burial-places of these people are found all over the world, in Europe, Japan, India, and other parts of Asia, and in North America. They are named “Cromlechs” (stone circles), “Dolmen” (stone tables) (Fig. 25), “Menhir” (long stone). The burial-place, called a “Tumulus,” is a great mound of earth, usually containing a burial chamber constructed in stone in the centre of the mound. The illustrations of the “Menhir” (long stones) (Fig. 26), and of the so-called Giants’ Tombs (Fig. 27) belong to the Stone age, and are found in the island of Sardinia.
Fig. 25.—Dolmen at Hesbon (P. & C.).
Fig. 26.—Menhirs, Sardinia (P. & C.).
We have seen that the Palæolithic men were hunters, and evidently had a lot of leisure time on their hands, which they turned to good account by devoting some of it to their artistic culture; while the Neolithic men were more of a race of mechanics and farmers, who had neither time nor inclination for the cultivation of art, but were altogether more scientific and mechanical than the men of the Palæolithic period.
Fig. 27.—Giants’ Tomb, Sardinia (P. & C.).
CHAPTER IV.
THE BRONZE AGE.
The people of the Bronze age introduced a higher civilisation into the world than their predecessors of the Stone ages. There appears to be a great overlap between the Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron ages of Central and Northern Europe, and the historic periods of the Eastern countries bordering on the Mediterranean. We have evidence that great periods of time must have marked the epochs of the prehistoric ages, and that the Bronze age, like the Stone and Iron ages, began at different times in different countries. The tribes who brought with them the age of Bronze into Europe composed the Celtic van of the Aryan race. The earliest productions of this period were the simple wedges resembling flat stone axes, the sides of which are slightly thickened to