Socially and intellectually, Palaeolithic man, in the
* The reader should note the conjectural character of these changes, especially of the cause of the climatic re- verses; these may have been due to far more ordinary and recent vicissitudes than geological subsidence and elevation.— En.
PREA1) AMITE
490
PREADAMITE
regions in question, seems to have existed in a most primitive condition. Dwelling in wild caverns, he hunted the beasts with the rudest stone implements, and clothed himselfin their -kins. We find no ei idence of the use of fire, though probably known, and there are some indications thai he made food of his own Bpeciea (on anthropophagy, see Congres International, cFAn-
etd'A rclii.iiliif/li l'r< lii.<lnriijiii .<. lxf,7. |>. 1 .">> : Fliegicr, /.nr Prdkistorischen Elhnologit Ttaliens, Wien, l>77. ]>. 7. 8). Few attempts at pottery have been dis- covered, ami in these the product was rude, hand-made, ami simply sun-dried. In the Reindeer Epoch tin- wa- in genera] use, and it was employed in baking (imper- fectly) a better style of hand-made pottery, and in cook- ing fond employed in funeral, and quite possibly canni- balistic, feasts. .Many pieces of highly ornamented reindeer's horn, pierced with one. two, or three holes, discovered in Perigord, are regarded as staves of author- ity, either civil or priestly. Here also occur numerous phalangeal hones of the deer so pierced with a hole as to mtu' [or whistles. Bone and reindeer'- horn wire
now wrought into barbed harpoons ami arrow-heads. ( tn one oi' the hones from the cavern of La Vache (Ari- e'ge) were graven some peculiar characters, which, as
Suggested, may have been a lir.-t attempt at writing,
though this is very questionable, In the Neolithic Epoch cereals were cultivated, and ground into Hour for cakes: cloth was formed for clothing, and hone combs for the hair; stores of fruits were preserved for winter's use; garden-tools were fashioned from stag's horn: log- canoes were employed in navigation; planks and tim- bers of oak were made by splitting tree-trunks with stone wedges; log cabins were constructed on piles or artificial islands; fortifications were employed in war; fish-nets, well made from flaxen cords, have been dredgi d at I.' benhausen, and the abundant debris of numerous flint-workshops, implying a degree of division of labor, have been discovered at Grand-Pressigny and other places in Belgium and France. As to intelligence and manual dexterity, a surprising amount is developed in the working of Hint implements, especially in the north of Europe.
iEsthetically, Palaeolithic man had advanced no fur- ther than the use of ncckla.e- formed of natural beads, consisting of fossil foraminifera from the chalk. Some Hints from the river-drift of St. Acheul present rough sketches which, it has been conjectured, may have been prompted by the artistic feeling. Some of them bear remote resemblances to the human head, in profile, three-quarter view, and full face; also to animals, such as the rhinoceros and mammoth. If the cavern of .Ma— at (Ariege) is Palaeolithic, it affords us the most ancient known successful attempt at portraiture, for M. Fontan found there a stone on which was graven a won- derfully expressive outline of the cave-bear. In the Reindeer Epoch the taste for personal adornment had become considerably developed. They manufactured necklaces, bracelets, and pendants, piercing for these
purpose- both shells and teeth, and the bony part of i lie eir ol the horse. Amber also came into use. The aesthetic feeling was specially developed in the south.
S hoc of the CUrioUS piece- of reindeer's horn Supposed
to he staves of authority are handsomely enchased. Some remarkable illustrations of primeval art belong- ing to this epo,h are the following: (".i Sculptures.
I' ely wrought spoons of reindeer's horn; hilt of
carved in the form of a reindeer: two nm\
artistically exei uted, representing reindeer; a
harpoon in the sha] fan animal's bead: the head of
a staff of authority . consisting of reindeer's born carved into a fail liful represent at i I a pair of steer- ; another
representing the head "fa mammoth; a pair of pieces
representing the chase of the aurochs on one a rude
aurochs fleeing from a man casting a lance (remarkably
well done i, on the other pice, a figure of a bovine ani- mal different from the first; a serpent in relief on rein- dier'-horn. .Many of t hese from Laugerie-Basse. (6.)
Carvings on shit,, ivory, horn, and bone.— A staff of au- thority, with representations ol a man. two horses, and a fish; a Btag graven on reindeer'- horn: part of a large herbivorous animal: head of lion on a Btaff of author- ity; reindeer-tight on -late; some horned animal on reindeer's horn ; slates bearing other unknown animals; a young reindeer at full gallop; a hare: a curious ani- mal with feline characteristics: a spirited profile of a horse on bone: human head in profile on a bone spat- ula, in the style of a child's work; finally, the entire outline of a mammoth on ivory (Madeleine), and an- other on reindeer's horn, forming the hilt of a poniard (Bruniquel). Most of these from Laugerie-Basse. The Neolithic Epoch seems to have been marked by a de- cline of the artistic feeling. The ornamentation of the pottery i- more elaborate, and the finish of the stone and bone implements mote symmetrica] and neat, but we discover few relics of carving and engraving.