Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/25

Rh (Ariège) and a horse at Font-de-Gaume (Dordogne) are also of this class, as is a bovine head in the newly discovered cavern of Tuc d'Audoubert (Ariège). Shortly after his discovery of the cavern Count Bégouen noted two red spots on the wall. The following day it was my good fortune to identify them as a pair of eyes, the animal's head being formed in bold relief by the projecting rock. Such fortuitous objects as these might have been that which originally sensitized the human imagination till it was able to catch and perpetuate a likeness to familiar or cherished forms. With the gradual perfection of the likeness both with and without fortuitous assistance the fine arts were born.

Nothing quite the equal of paleolithic cave art has since appeared among any people in the hunting and fishing stage of culture; for it must be remembered that domestication of animals and the arts of agriculture were neolithic innovations; so was the ceramic art.

It seems almost a pity that this artistically inclined old race was not familiar with the plastic possibilities of clay. What exquisite figures of their favorite game animals they might have left to us, both in the round and in painted forms. Perhaps they did model in clay. If so the objects were not properly tempered and either poorly fired or not fired at all and have since completely crumbled away. Only one

 in part engraved and in part painted (red); to the right, the head of a horse incomplete; below, six claviform figures. Pindal (Asturias). After Alcalde del Rio, Breuil and Sierra. Les cavernes de la région Cantabrique (Espagne).