Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/237

] The vessels for holding water were probably made of wood, and skin, and horn, of which last material the bison, the urus, and the musk sheep would offer a plentiful supply, but of these perishable substances no trace has been preserved. They may also have made vessels for containing fluids after the manner of the Eskimos by cementing pieces of stone together with a mixture of fat and lamp-black. There is no reason to suppose that they used vessels of pottery, since no pot-sherds have been discovered in any of the refuse-heaps which have been carefully explored in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Britain. The round-bottomed vase from the Trou du Frontal, considered by M. Dupont to imply that the art of pottery was known at this time, is of the same fashion as those of the Neolithic age from the pile dwellings of Switzerland, and probably belongs to that age. The potsherds found in the cave of Kuhlock are also of the same make as the Neolithic pottery, and the same remark applies equally to most if not all the cases of its occurrence quoted by Mr. J. C. Southall from France, such as Bruniquel and others. Had the Cave-men been acquainted with the potter's art, there is every reason to believe that traces of it would be abundant in every refuse-heap, as they were subsequently in those of all pottery-using peoples, a fragment of pottery or of burnt clay being as little liable to destruction as a fragment of bone or antler. The absence of Palæolithic pottery in the French caves is confirmed by the wide experience of MM. Massenat, Lalande, and Cartailhac, who write as follows: "La poterie, nous saisissons l'occasion de le dire n'a jamais été trouvée par nous dans les couches franchement intacte de l'âge du renne. Elle