Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 29.djvu/479

Rh us with moderately faithful representations of animals—such as the frog, toad, vulture, toucan, beaver, and man; and these belong to the Bronze Period of America.

"Let me not be misunderstood: I have but spoken of the state of art and culture that existed among a very limited number of the people of the Palæolithic Period, and it is highly probable that these cave-dwellers of Durdogne were in their skill in drawing far in advance of their contemporaries in other regions. Nevertheless, at this extremely early period in man's history, it is very interesting to find any evidence of art-tendency—any evidence of the existence of a faculty which so completely distinguished Palæolithic man from the brute. From some un- known cause, after this first glimpse of its existence, this artistic feeling remained latent during the many, many generations of men who lived in what we regard as more advanced culture-stages, the Neolithic and the Bronze Periods.

"I would add that although some of the cave-people were probably contemporary, indeed were perhaps one and the same, with some of the Drift-people, and that both lived in the Palæolithic Period, yet the entire Palæolithic Period must have 'extended over a very considerable space of time, and neither all the cave-deposits nor all the river-Drifts can be regarded as absolutely contemporaneous.'

"There can be little doubt, however, that some of the cave-relics are intermediate in point of time between the earlier river-Drift and the Neolithic Period.

"My remarks upon the Neolithic Period must necessarily be brief. During this later Stone Period the art of working stone other than by flaking was practised; and, consequently, tough varieties of stone (which could not have been fashioned by flaking) came into use. Hatchets were ground at the edge and polished on the surface, and many new forms of weapons and implements invented. No lesson is more completely forced upon us by an examination of the objects of the Stone Period than the absolute power of man to grapple with, and overcome natural difficulties. Man's patient labour, his powers of reasoning, and his inventive faculties, have at all periods led to results which, once achieved, were not lost, but were transmitted to his posterity; and each generation has thus started from a higher and still higher vantage-ground of accumulated knowledge. I allude only to man's knowledge of the mechanical arts, and of those arts which tend to the general ease and comfort of life. His mental and moral condition lie beyond my subject.

"There does not appear to me, however, to be any necessary connection between the merest babyhood in the industrial arts and a low state of mental power or moral culture, although it is highly probable that the prehistoric stone-folk were in general culture much upon a par with the stone-using races of modern times. Pre-historic archæology and history alike tell us of man's progressive advancement in the industrial arts. And this brings me to the question of the classification of stone implements according to their form, and to the inquiry whether all forms and types of these implements are the result of development; whether we can trace the passing of one form into another—whether the Neolithic Period is but a development of the Palæolithic Period. It is