Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/156

 CHAPTER III. THE PRINCIPAL CENTRES OF MYCENIAN CIVILIZATION. Method to be followed in the Study of this Civilization. If we began by grouping in a special study the information which is concerned with the stone age, and if its monuments were classed by us rather from their character and supposed function than from what we know of their origin, it is because they do not belong, for the most part, to populated centres whose name history has recorded. What they represent is the first effort of a primitive people to emerge from barbarism ; a status extending to the several clans of which it was composed. Given the paucity of means at their disposal, the results, with perhaps trifling differences, must necessarily have been very similar on different points of the same district. Speaking generally, habits and practices cannot have greatly differed from one population to another, from the eastern shores of the iEgean to its western coasts, or among the isles dotting the broad expanse which intervenes between Europe, Asia, and Africa. True, in order to define these effects and conditions we have appealed to a certain number of antiquities hailing from historic centres, where they were found among other remains implying a more advanced culture, one acquainted with the use of metal. For, be it remembered, the employment of stone implements did not abruptly cease the day when the first weapons and the first metal tools made their appearance among tribes that had hitherto only been served by diorite, serpentine, and flint instruments ; metal ones continued for a shorter or longer period to be rare and valuable objects. Only slowly and by degrees, and as metal became more common, was stone discarded. Clearly the best