Prehistric Man A General Out Line Of Prehistory

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The History of Civilization

In the Section of this Series devoted to PRE-HiSTORY AND ANTIQUITY are
included the following volumes .

7. Introduction and Pre-History

'SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

THE EARTH BEFORE HISTORY .

PREHISTORIC MAN .

LANGUAGE : A LINGUISTIC INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY

A GEOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY .

RACE AND HISTORY

FROM TRIBE TO EMPIRE

'WOMAN'S PLACE IN SIMPLE SOCIETIES ...
CYCLES IN HISTORY ......

'THE DIFFUSION OF CULTURE . . . . '

'THE MIGRATION OF SYMBOLS

'THE DAWN OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION

//. The Early Empires

THE NILE AND EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION .
COLOUR SYMBOLISM OF ANCIENT EGYPT .
CHALDAEO-ASSYRIAN CIVILIZATION
THE AEGEAN CIVILIZATION .

d.

W. H. R. Rivers
E Perrier

T . ..

J. de Morgan

. j. Vendryes

L Febvre
' E .' pittard

A. Moret
j L Myres

.' J.' L Myres

G . Elliot Smith

D.A.Mackenzie
v G Childe

A **
A. Moret

D . A. Mackenzie

T r% ,
i'. uelaporte

_,

G. Glotz

A full list of the SERIES will be found at the end of this ve >i unte .

Prehistoric Man

A General Outline of Prehistory

By
JACQUES DE MORGAN

Formerly Director of Antiquities in Egypt
and Delegate-General in Persia of the
French Ministry of Public Instruction ;
Author of " JLes premieres civilisations/'
"Mission scientifique en Perse, 1889-1891,"
*' Mission scientifique au Caucase,*' " Re-
cherches sur les Origines de V^gypte," etc.

NEW YORK

ALFRED A. KNOPF

1925

Translated by
J. H. PAXTON AND V. C. C. COLLUM

PRINTED IN C'tKEAT HRITAIN* HV
THE EDINBURGH PRESS, 9 AND II YOUNG STREET, EDINBURGH.

FOREWORD

THE HAND AND THE TOOL

THE first volume of Involution de THumanit^ both links man
with nature and shows in what he has broken away from it.
We see the human form appear in the course of the ascent of
living forms. This form^ doubtless^ results from an infinite
number of different circumstances, and of these Perrier has indi-
cated the principle among those that come within the bounds of
our knozvledge ; but this form above all results from innate
tendency -from the inner growth that constitutes life itself ] and
which, in the human brain, culminates in thought.

" It is our desire to know, to see further and from a greater
height^ that has made us rise to the completely erect attitude of
which we are so proud" says Perrier. ^ " It is this which has
freed the hands from tasks other than prehension and the examina-
tion of objects and the construction and manipulation of defensive
weapons. Thanks to these^ the jaws entirely ceased to bite and
tear y as they had already ceased to seize, and limited themselves
to the mastication of food. On account of this less arduous
work) they became shorter and lighter" 2 The reduction of the
muscles controlling the biting movement of the lower jaw had the
effect^ in turn> of giving more room for the brain and thus per-
mitting a considerable development. By the joint action of cause
and effect and of the persistence of the initial tendency, the human
face zvas gradually " prepared for language audfor smiling?

The hand and language : in these t^vo is comprised humanity.
We feel that two things should be given the premier place in this
work two things that mark the close of zoological and the
beginning of human history ; one^ if we may so put zV, is the
invention of the hand^ and the other is the invention of language.
In these two lies the decisive progress in practical logic and in
mental logic that characterises mankind.

1 Part III, Chap, iv, p. 324.
3 Part III, Chap, iv, p. 320.

V

vi PREHISTORIC MAN

Though physical environment and the factor of race have both
played their part in human evolution and that a considerable one
which will be treated in detail the logical element in either case
has been their basis. Though social environment has played its
part an important one^ which will be emphasized -far from
having created logic) it is in itself a manifestation thereof : society
is an intensive manner of living^ tentatively begun by the animals y
perfected by mankind.

Logic, it must be remembered* is for us something wider than
finality. It is the appropriation which may yet be purely fortuitous >
or Just experimental of means to necessities arising ozit of the
inner tendency. 1 Logic in act or deed is manifested in that life
retains 'what is useful to it and thus adapts itself to environment.
As Henri Bergson has shown (since there is one part of his
Kvolution cicatrice 'which is unassailable and 'which sums up^
profoundly and attractively \ the data of objective science} , organized
matter has " the mysterious power of building up very complicated
machines " and> by means of this mechanisjn^ of iisefully setting
free the energy it has accumulated? We can define it either as a
mechanism formed within ^ or as an ''organization 'which invents
itself" History, in its widest sense^ is logic that is lived^ before
it has either been exteriorized logic (technique) , collective logic
(society) , or reflective logic (reason).

History in its entirety is essentially logic. This, then is our
fundamental hypothesis : that the ivork, taken as a whole, should
be verified by the independent labour of eminent collaborators.
And this hypothesis governs our plan.

* * *

The subject of the present volume^ in essence is the hand and
the hand's extensions. We cannot insist too strongly that tn the
evolution of life the "decisive moment" arrived when a living
being 'who became man adopted the erect attitude ', thus freeing
his hands? and when the industrious activity was inaugtirated
'which this freedom made possible. In the use of the hand as an
instrument, we have the manifestation of an important psychical
progress and the promise of further important progress.

1 See Vol. I, General Introduction, p. xi, and my Syntfiese en Histoire
pp. 141-226.

* [E.T.] Creative Evolution, p. 76.

5 See E. de Majewski, La Science de la Civilization (a deep and original
book), p. 213,

FOREWORD vii

The primitive evolution of mental processes can only be gathered
in approximate fashion from the relation betiveen the behaviour
of beings as modern zoological psychology * calls it and the
development of the nervous system, or rather of its crowning
cerebral effort. A.mong those " moving oceans of the forms of life,"
we see the brain, which assures internal harmony and presides over
external relations , growing ever larger and more perfect in pro-
portion as the organism grows more complex, and not only adjusting
itself better to the external world, but frequently exercising influence
on it.

Already among the insects , in the course of the Secondary
Period^ the brain had acquired a certain volume -which corresponded
to this almost fixed " savoir-faire" which we call (by an equivocal
term) instinct. There is here a lower psychic system, the result
(we have the right to infer} of the * * tendency " and the associative
memory.*

In the course of the Tertiary Period^ the psyche developed
remarkably among the vertebrates. With the mammals the
various functions became centralized and controlled by the growth
of the cerebral hemispheres. This growth, in a skull that was
too narrow, involved, especially among the primates^ folds and
convolutions. The brain zvas modified to a greater extent^ and
more rapidly , than the rest of the body. " In the progression of
the cerebral hemispheres through the geological epochs and the
zoological stages^ it was the frontal lobe, the seat of the most
complicated associations and the closest mental combinations, which
increased in size" ;* it became the intellectual centre. 4 - The
Primate^ the relative weight of ^whose brain is enormous? has a
wonderful faculty for adaptation; and this is especially manifest
in the aptitude for prehension of its anterior limbs^ with an
opposable thumb and flat nails. In the Anthropoid the anterior
limbS) freed from the locomotor function, are kept entirely for
prehension^ and thus we arrive at the hand.

// is probable that, in the course of the Tertiary Period^ the

1 See H. Pi&ron, ** La psychologic zoologique, science du comportement animal,"
in the Journal de Psychologie, February and March 1920.

2 See E. L. Bouvier, La Vie psych^que des Insectes.

E. Houze, " Les Stapes du lobe frontal," in the Bull, de VInstitut de sociologie
Solvay, February 1910, p. 93.

* On this question, see Gley, Physiologie, Vol. II, pp. 1081 ff.

5 Taking the weight of the brain as equalling i, the weight of the body is 5,688
for Fishes, 1,321 for Reptiles, 212 for Birds, 100-60 for Anthropoids, 36-22 for
Man. Houz6, p. 94; cf. Gley, p. 1,085.

viii PREHISTORIC MAN

progressive differentiation of the seasons and the absence of fruit
for many months of the year^ caused certain Primates^ whose
anterior limbs were shorter than their posterior limbs ^ to abandon
definitely the arboreal life, to stand erect, to walk, and to differ-
entiate the four extremities of their limbs into feet and hands.

The " desire to know y to see further and from a greater height"
of which Perrier talks , is better satisfied by the erect posture^ and
certainly encouraged its adoption. But the desire to knoiv^ in its
origin, is altogether practical ; it is grafted on the immediate
vital interest. Just as it 'was self-interest that provoked the
adoption of the erect attitude and the employment of the hand qua
hand, so it was self-interest that kindled the dawn of consciousness
in the brain. The psychic synthesis produced this dawn^ and the
light increased the power of the synthesis. Tendency can satisfy
itself after a fashion^ in the most obscure consciousness ; but
activity as it comes out into the light, becomes ever more sure of
itself* 1

It has been aptly observed that animals are specialists, that
their structure, adapted to determined conditions of life^ has
procured for them a certain superiority within narrow limits,
and, at the same time, has stabilized them almost definitely.
Their mental system or " psychism " has only "fringes of intelli-
gence" Man escapes morphological specialization. Homo nudus
et inermis. His frontal lobe orders everything^ and his hand is
the active exteriorization of his brain. Being without any such
specialized physical means of defence or offence as tusks, horns^
clawSj carapace or scales , he yet has his hand an instrument
strengthened by its locomotor use> made supple and delicate by
its prehensile activity, and early appropriate to the most diverse
uses in the most varied circumstances.

The hand y as a result of experiment both tactile and muscular
acquires information that is ever more and more precise^
associated^ as it is, with visual sensations 'which it completes,
and thus contributes effectively to tfo knowledge of the external
world. By mimickry and attempts at language it brings men
ever closer together^ and indirectly encourages relations between
them by making co-operation between them possible thanks to a
new sort of specialization that zs no longer specific and structural, but
individual and functional. Thus society develops, like the living

Wallon, "Le problems biologique de la conscience," in the Revue
March- April 1921, p. 180.

FOREWORD

IX

being , by the stronger unity of the 'whole in the greater diversity
of its component parts.

HOTJU far back does it go, this hand which so strangely increases
the powers of a privileged species ? Even if it is impossible to
determine exactly > there is no doubt that it was very far back
thousands of centuries in the Tertiary. We are justified in
saying^ though we cannot prove it, that several human species,
among which 'was the species destined to become Homo Sapiens,
existed in the Pliocene and even in the Miocene if not earlier.
The earth has, up to the present, been but imperfectly examined,
and has yielded little for Paleontology. " In the Pliocene
and Miocene formations strange and thrilling discoveries lie in
reserve. ... A day will surely come when we shall discover
a small anthropoid, of almost erect attitude, and with a brain-pan
relatively very large in comparison with the total volume of the
body, but very inferior, in absolute value, to all known members
of the Human Family" x The ancient history of the historians
" is in reality only an ultra-modern history for the prehistorzan,
and still more so for the paleontologist." 2 In the most ancient
history of all, the history of the Human Family ', each cubic centi-
metre and each fold of the brain represents centuries of experience,
to which the increasing ingenuity of the hand corresponds. , 3

from the time when the earliest scanty human remains
appear at the beginning of the Quaternary that is, in the Lower
and Middle Pleistocene Man is already provided with artefacts : *
this was the Lower Paleolithic, the period of the earliest imple-
ments which dates back, consequently, hundreds of centuries.
In the Upper Pleistocene, after the last glacial phase, we find
fossil remains of Homo sapiens 5 and the already advanced
civilization of the Upper Palceolithic. With the commencement of
the last phase, Holocene, *we are dealing with Homo sapiens 6

1 M. Boule, Les Hommes fossiles, p. 175.

2 Ibid., p. 459.

3 See Ibid., pp. 231 ff. for all that the study of the endocranial surface can
teach.

4 Chellean, Acheulean, Moustierian : Homo heidelbergensis, Homo nean-
derthalensis.

5 Grimaldi, Cro-Magnon, and Chancelade races,

X

PREHISTORIC MAN

as we know him. His industrial activity and his inventive
genius are manifested so completely in the Neolithic which dates
from some 14,000 years in the Orient, and 9000 years in our part
of the world and then in the age of metals whose starting point
varies likewise according to locality that it is evident that the
essentials of technique had already long been established. "All
manner of hand implements, the earliest elementary machines,
industries of primary necessity such as spinning, weaving, ceramics
and metallurgy ; the wheel and navigation, the employment of
domesticated animals, the practice of agriculture, buildings in
stone all these acquisitions pre-date history" I

But it was the first inventions that were decisive, when the
hand, more and more adroit, came to be used in the making of
tools, and when these inventions for defence and attack, for all sorts
of useful ends, and for the amelioration of the conditions of exist-
ence, increased the possibilities of the hancfs own employment.
Completed as it were, by the implement, this organ of action on
things itself becomes a universal instrument. More precisely, it
is the brain which becomes a universal instrument the brain
which develops marvellously as a result of the very use of the
tools that the hand permits it to realize. And while the species
itself increases and becomes universal, the faculties of functional
specialization in the individual are also increased.

How did the first implements come to be made ? An obviously
insoluble problem if we wish a precise answer.

Hypotheses have been advanced. The theory of spontaneous
extension according to which men extended the arm in the stick?
the finger in the hook, the fist in the club is not very satisfactory.
It is evident enough that implements elaborated and imitated parts
of the human body in the beginning: but human invention is
manifest more especially in the utilization of the properties of
different materials ^ and in the fashioning of such materials?

Besides^ there were primitive discoveries^ like that of fire^
which cannot be explained by this " extension " theory. Man knew
how to make fire from the beginning of the Palaeolithic^ and
this is c * the pre-eminently human act, that 'which is at the
foundation of all future progress^ and potentially contains all
civilization the discovery of which constitutes the most char-

1 L. Weber, "Y a-t-ilun rythme dans le progres intellectuel ? ** {Bull, de la
Soc. franp. de philosophie, February-March 1914, p. 81),

2 See L. Weber, Le rythme du progr&s, p. 259.

FOREWORD

XI

acteristic act of genius which Humanity can boast." 1 A
weapon, a light, a modifying agent of the most varied materials?
fire marks a date in prehistory, more important than all the
revolutions of history. Prometheus is the great revealer.

For this invention in two stages had its Prometheus^ or more
than one of them. First, spontaneous fire had to be preserved,
and then fire had to be made artificially. The part played by
intelligence and by the individual must be insisted on in any
consideration of the beginnings of human industry. Consequent
on manual skill (itself consequent on the vital and creative activity
of the organs of the body), practical intelligence activated by self-
interest must be sharply distinguished from theoretical intelligence^
and from disinterested curiosity. That form of intelligence which
tends to the " conquest of realities" and direct knowledge for im-
mediate pouter^ is anterior to speculative intelligence; or at least,
the utilitarian function of the intelligence was for a long time
preponderant.

This f acuity ^ which Voltaire called the mechanical instinct,
whose importance the eighteenth century was the first to emphasize^
is specific rather than social^ and appears in all individuals,
though in varying degree in different individuals. Prometheus
is the " Fores eer" the individual gifted 'with attention and capable
of dissociating the part from the whole and employing it in a
practical combination* ; it was Prometheus who utilized a brand
from a fire kindled by lightning, or the property ', either of two
branches rubbed against each other by the wind> or of two stones
struck against one another by chance ', of kindling a spark. It was
he too, who, noticing the recoil of a bent branch, by analogy with
the arm 'which throws the stone^ arrived at imagining a bow ;
it was a Prometheus who, aiding the task of tooth or nail with the
sharp edge of a flint-chip, invented the first implement : it was a
Prometheus who saw what others did not see (as Galilio saw the
lamp which swung in the cathedral of Pisa) and who had the
wit to take advantage of his discoveries.

The imitation of such initial attempts, and the joining thereto

1 Boule, op. cit.y p. 460. He himself cites Re"my de Gourmont, Promenades
philosophiques, 2nd Series, p. xi. See also P. Lacombe, L'Histoire consid&rie
comme science, pp. 180-185.

* The cooking of food has had its effect on the brain : by reducing the masticating
muscles, it has facilitated frontal activity. See Honz, art. quoted, p. 95.

3 See Paulhan, Psychologic de I 'invention; Ribot, Essai sur F imagination
cviatvice.

xii PREHISTORIC MAN

of successive steps in progress , are of a different order from all
social action. Along with certain thinkers^ we believe tliat
technical invention, at its live point^ so to speak, bears the hall-
mark of individual effort like all invention. It is born of direct
experience from the contact of the brain -with^ the external universe!
Without dotibt social life favours technique in a thousand ways :
it is the instigator and propagator of inventions ; but it also
shackles them very often, by tradition, routine and the develop-
ment of illusory practices linked up 'with abortive speculation 2
'whereas in the most primitive technique an elejnent of specu-
lation is implicit.

Already the living organism is in a measure an intelligence in
action: "All our organs imply some sort of knowledge of the
objective and material exterior 'world. . . . The lungs of a
quadruped and the gills of a fish are in their degree an appreciation
of the environment in which the animal has to breathe ; feet^fins^
and wings postulate realization of the environment in which the
various beings must move. ... All organization^ all system^
implies something analogous to understanding which permits the
existence and functioning of the system^ as it implies something
analogous to desire and will^ a tendency 'which is an essential
part of it, just as it is an essential part of human activity ". 3

If concrete mechanics and physics accompany the exercise of
muscular energies, the extension of these energies by technique
implies a sufficiently objective representation of the material ivorld,
and) at the very least, the clear feeling that there is a certain
regularity in things. Before it 'was conceived as such, the lazv
of causality was more and more felt by the unfolding of human
activity in a world ruled by this law, a world of which man is
an integral part,.

1 See L. Weber, Le rythme du progr&s, p. 263. " The inventors (of imple-
ments), although for the most part unknown, misunderstood or forgotten, have not
worked, in their inventions, in dependence on the group, nor according to its
suggestions or beliefs, but according to their own intellectual spontaneity. The
material invention is in itself the purest manifestation (and also the simplest and
oldest) of the individual intelligence, the proprium quid of the specific human
intelligence." Even if it responds to a social need and comprises co-operation, the
material invention is "in itself an individual penetration into the world of physical
realities, a direct struggle of intelligence with matter carried on by a single being
and precisely because of what is in him which is irreducible to the collective spirit.
Of. lBull.de la Soc. fran^aise de philosophic* February- March, 1914. ** \ a-t-ii

February 1921, p. 160.

FOREWORD xiii

Technique preceded technology y and^ a fortiori, science ; but it
prepared the way for both. " Technique is the mother of rational

Indeed, Man, in his beginning, is Homo faber rather than
Homo sapiens. And he remains Homo faber. We shall have
to show later that the part played by technique, decisive at the
beginning, is throughout human evolution immense : 2 Man is " a
worker and an engineer," "a tireless maker of tools , instruments,
and machines* ' ' 8

Paul Lacombe, that vigorous and original theorist tn history >
who gave a preponderant place to economics, 4 was to have con-
tributed a preface to J. Toutain's volume on Ancient Economic
Organization, in which he would have related the technique of
prehistory to the Economics of the Greeks and Romans. What
he has written on these matters -for example in his Histoire
consider de comme science / and in certain notes in his Journal,
where this preoccupation of his is manifest makes us keenly
regret the loss of a collaborator so well fitted for the task. Not
only did he analyse^ with a penetrating ingenuity ', this evolution
from superficial to fundamental properties of things, and in which,
little by little, art and science are disengaged from technique :
but he also emphasized the fact that in the history of technique
a continuous chain of general history the masses, the plebs> played
their part, and an important part : "The history of technique
would not be universal history but, beyond a doubt, it would be
the most universal of histories, since man in the mass, at all
times has been a workman." 5

It is under his inspiration that we shall return later to the
development of inventions ; that we shall distinguish those which
increase the power of our hands, those which take their place, and
those which allow us not only to use things, but to capture and turn
to our profit energies of all sorts, such as those that increase the

1 Ribot, Logique des sentiments, p. 27. Cf. Espinas, Les origines de la
technologie.

2 This is the proportion of truth that historic or economic materialism contains.

* P. Lacombe, Rev. de Synth, hist. : Vol. XXIV, p. 369. For P. Lacorabe
as for Weber, in opposition to Auguste Comte, the first phase of humanity is technical,
and not theological.

* On Lacombe, see Berr, L' Histoire traditionnelle et la Synthese h^stor^que % .

PP- 57~

* Journal, October 22, 1914.

xiv PREHISTORIC MAN

range of our senses and give us, so to speak > " artificial senses",
and those that increase onr facilities for moving about in space^
and communicating with our kind ; we shall dwell on this infinite
development of tool and equipment^ born from the hand> whose
repercussions are themselves infinite and very often completely
unforeseeable and all of which have made of man a god. It
has been said that -machines are exterior organ? rendering the
fleshly muscles useless, and that by them we tend to the state of
"pure spirit"

What we shall find in this book is prehistoric man, generically
not physically. I mean that it will not be a question here of
prehistoric anthropology. All that concerns the physical char-
acteristics of our far distant ancestors the completion of the
brief indications given by Ed-mond Perrier at the end of The Earth
before History will be related by M. Pittard in the volume
in this series in which he studies proto-historic races and the
factor of race in general. To secure a just distribution of
material and a full use of expert knowledge, it seemed best to
divide the subject thus*

M. Cartailhac had originally honoured us by a promise to lend
to our work the great authority of his name. Later ^ he mistrusted
his powers, surely without reason. He feared to delay us ; and
M. de Morgan, at his desire, has been good enough to replace
him. As M. Cartailhac had intended to do, the Former Director
of Antiquities in Egypt and General Delegate to Persia has treated
the subject of human activity in the light of its first extant traces,
and indicated the primitive stages of human progress.

De Morgan is one of the most eminent representatives of this
distinctly French science of prehistory. No one comprehends it
with a wider range of interests and a broader knowledge. All
'works dealing with prehistory take our <part of the 'world as a
basis and neglect the Orient. This entails not only an insufficiency
of data but also, perhaps, an error in the point of view. It 'was
the Orient^ it seems, which, in the beginning, played the pre-
dominant part. The truth is to be found, in all these cases, by
placing the evolution of those areas side by side with the evolution
of Western Europe^ and by putting together what we know of
both. This De Morgan can do, having spent six years in Egypt \

FOREWORD xv

three years in the Caucasus and Armenia^ and sixteen years in
Persia ; his synthetic point of view is altogether happy ^ new, and
highly appropriate to our design.

De Morgan^ while dealing with primitive humanity as a
whole> and treating of diverse regions and civilizations as par-
ticular cases of general prehistory ^ is also personally familiar 'with
the various sciences which have to be drawn upon for a thorough
interpretation of the facts. Geology -, palceozoology and palceobotany>
and climatology are necessary to the comprehension of human
evolution: the complexity of the causes necessitates diversity of
knowledge.

Finally ', de Morgan does not only provide a rich and precise
text) but ample illustration. Primitive man> in his humble life,
can only be reached through the remains of his industry: the
prehistorian must investigate objects of all kinds ; and he must y
naturally ) make them known to the reader. De Morgan has
justly estimated that it would lighten the work, and obviate long
descriptions and comparisons if the objects were themselves pre-
sented ; and he found in this the further advantage of being able
to give more room to general ideas. The 190 plates of this
volume y the 1300 figures a certain number of them illustrating
his own discoveries have been for the most part drawn by him ;
he has sought rest, in the course af his work, only in change of
occupation. By their selection, juxtaposition and appropriate
insertion to the body of the text^ these figures add greatly to the
value of the book ; de Morgan has so conceived it that it appeals
at once to the eye and to the mind.

This is true prehistory with its paleolithic and neolithic epochs
and industry occupies the principal place. But> in this great
fresco of our most distant past, de Morgan has also included the
age of metals^ and he gives us a general impression, in broad
strokes ', of primitive life under its various aspects. He has thus
set out in general outline the characteristics of proto-historic
civilizations to be studied in detail in special volumes ; his volume
is the key to them.*

One of his great merits ', moreover and one which we think
it worth while to stress ', because it falls in so well with the general
character of this history is that of not over-emphasizing the extent

i We shall have occasion to deal ourselves with psychic origins, and the social
r61e of art and religion.

xvi PREHISTORIC MAN

of our knowledge^ of not hiding the problems which remain, but
even of dwelling on them. " What we know to-day is very little
zn comparison with what remains to be learned" ; such are his
final words. But throughout the book he puts the public on its
guard against * * hypotheses which have nothing scientific about
tkem^' and he multiplies prudent reservations. On the original
homes of the human species , on the synchronism of the stages
passed through by different races and groups^ on their migratory
movements and their inter-relations \ on questions of independence
or communications in relation to the development of industries^
he exhibits that modesty of knowledge which is characteristic of
all great authorities.

There is no lack of collectors " amateurs of worked flints "
but there are only too few historians devoting themselves to
prehistory. Nothing is more useful than to give workers in
this field beginners above all a comprehensive idea of the
evolution of humanity as a whole, and to point out the lacuna
in our knowledge*

As regards prehistory ^ much of the earth* s surface remains to
be explored, and research is not yet organized. De Morgan will
have deserved well of science in showing precisely what remains
to be done in this large and singularly attractive field, which
is of capital importance for any historical synthesis. ^

HENRI BERR.

1 We believe that there will also be something to do, in history, as regards
standardizing the nomenclature de Morgan deliberately uses the word prehistory
in a broad sense : all that concerns primitive man (he sometimes says : the
barbarian) , of whatever age and wherever found. For him, then, ethnography
coincides in part with prehistory; he talks of "modern prehistory," Jle
gives a very broad sens.e to the word "philosophy."

CONTENTS

PAGE

FOREWORD (BY HENRI BERR) ...... v

PREFACE .......... x

PRELIMINARY REVIEW OF THE FIELD ..... 3

PART I

THE EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

CHAPTER

I. PALEOLITHIC INDUSTRY ...... 35

II. ARCH^EOLITHIC INDUSTRY IN EUROPE .... 53

III. MESOLITHIC INDUSTRIES ...... 73

IV. NEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES ...... 80

V. ENEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES ...... 99

VI. BRONZE INDUSTRIES . . . . . . in

VII. IRON INDUSTRIES ....... 127

VIII. THE WORKING OF HARD ROCK 138

PART II

THE DAxLTT LIFE OF PREHISTORIC MAN
I. His DWELLING-PLACE ....... *53

II. HUNTING, FISHING, ANIMAL DOMESTICATION AND

AGRICULTURE .....- 160

III. DRESS AND ORNAMENT . . . *74

PART III

INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT AND
INTERCOMMUNICATION

I. THE ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES . . . .185
II. RELIGIOUS BELIEFS, TOTEMISM, AND MAGIC . . . 231

III. THE WRITTEN WORD 256

IV. INTER-RELATIONS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES . . . 269

SOME INFERENTIAL CONCLUSIONS 279

BIBLIOGRAPHY ..-
INDEX ...

b

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FIG. ' - PAGE

1. Imaginary section of Nile Valley 15

2. Cap Breton Fossa , * . . . . . -15

3. Submarine Plateau of North Sea . . . . . 16

4. Submarine valleys of Iceland ...... 17

5. Maximum extension of Pleistocene glaciers 18

6. The Isle Erlanic (Morbihan) ...... 19

7. Eoliths (France, Portugal, Belgium) 37

8. Chellean Implements ....... 39

9. Implements of Acheulean type 4 2

10. Implements of Chellean type (Algeria) .... 43

11. Implements of Acheulean type (Tunis) .... 44

12. Implement of Acheulean type (Upper Egypt) ... 46

13. Implements of Chellean and Acheulean types (Somaliland) . 47

14. Implements of Chellean and Acheulean types (N. America) . 48

15. Implements of Moustierian type (Le Moustier) ... 49

1 6 Point of Moustierian type (Egypt) ... 50

17 (Somaliland) .... 50

1 8. Implements of Quaternary type (India) . . . 5 1

19. Implements of Moustierian type . . . . . 52

20. Aurignacian industry (chipped flints) 57

21. Solutrean industry (chipped flints) . . * .61

22. Magdalenian industry (chipped flints) ..... 64

23. Magdalenian industry (bone and ivory) ... 65

24. Capsian industry (chipped flints) ..... 69

25. Piehistoric stations between Nile Valley and Oases . . 71

26. Harpoons of bone and stag antler ..... 75

27. Campignian chipped flints .....* 78

28. Arrow-heads (Egypt, Chaldea, Europe, California) . . 81

29. Neolithic weapons and tools (N. America) .... 84

30. Scandinavian Neolithic implements ... 85

31. Neolithic implements of lake villages ..... 86

32. Flint knives (Upper Egypt) 87

33. Flint points (Upper Egypt) ...... 89

34. Axe-heads (Luristan) ....... 90

35. Serpentine hammer-axe (Chaldea) ..... 91

xix

xx PREHISTORIC MAN

PAGE

36. Flint implements (Chaldea) ...... 92

37. Neolithic industry (Sahara) ...... 93

38. Neolithic implements (Palestine) ..... 94

39. Forms of Neolithic axe-heads ...... 95

40. Halting of polished stone axes ...... 96

41. Hafting of flint arrow-heads ...... 97

42. Ivory (Egypt : First Dynasty) . . . . . .100

43. Representation of man (Pharaonic epoch) . . . . 101

44. Schist palette (Archaic Egyptian) . . . . .102

45. Objects of Archaic Egyptian period . . . . .103

46. Objects of Archaic Susian and Chaldean period . . .104

47. Objects of pre-Pharaonic industry . . . . .106

48. Objects of Eneolithic industry (Egypt) .... 107

49. Tepeh Gulam implements ....... 108

50. Eneolithic sepulture at Fontaine-le-Puits . . . .109

51. Copper and tin beds in the Old World . . . .113

52. Copper and tin beds in the New World . . . .115

53. Stone and copper moulds . . . . . . .116

54. Bronze axe-heads (Susa) . . . . . . .117

55. Bas-relief from tomb of Mera (Sixth Dynasty) . . .118

56. Bronze implements of Pharaonic Egypt . . . .119

57. Bronze implements, Egyptian New Empire . . .120

58. Funerary furniture (Syria) . . . . . .121

59. JEgean-Mycenaean bronze implements and weapons . . 121

60. ist and 2nd bronze industries (W. Europe) .... 122

61. 3rd and 4th bronze industries (W. Europe) . . . .123

62. Bronze hatchets (Germany and Spain) . . . .124

63. Bronze implements and weapons (Hungary) . . .125

64. Iron metallurgy (Bernese Jura) . . . . . .129

65. Blast-pipes of smelting furnaces (Silesia and Hungary) . .130

66. Iron industry (Russian Armenia) ..... 133

67. Arrow-heads from iron industry sepultures (N. Persia) . . 134

68. Helenendorf objects (Transcaucasia) ..... 135

69. Hallstatt type swords and daggers (W. Europe) . . .137

70. Nucleus and blades (Grand-Pressigny) . . . .140

71. Obsidian nucleus and blades (Isle of Milos) . . . .141

72. Shafts for extraction of flint at Mur-de-Barrez . . .142

73. Sketch of flint mines, Wady el Sheikh (Egypt) . , 143

74. Flint mines of Wady el Sheikh, after photograph. . . 144

75. Miner's pick from Wady el Sheikh . . . . .145

76. The " Pierre aux dix doigts/' Villemaure (Aube) . . . 146

77. Egyptian Bas-relief, Sixth Dynasty ..... 147

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxi

FIG. PAGE

78. Stone vases, El Amrah (Upper Egypt) .... 148

79. Eneolithic stone vase, Abou Zedan (Upper Egypt) . .149

80. Hut-shaped funerary urns (Etruria) . . . . .158

81. Hunting scene, bas-relief from tomb of Mera . . .161

82. Hunting falcons, Second Iron industry . . . .162

83. Harpoons and fishing implements . . . . .163

84. Fish-hooks (Swiss lake cities, Susa, and Egypt) . .164
85* Fishing scenes, bas-relief from tomb of Mera . . .164

86. Cattle (oxen) under the Ancient Empire (tomb of Mera) . 165

87. Domesticated animals of the Ancient Empire (tomb of Mera) 166

88. Antelopes, Medum fresco (Third Dynasty) . . . .167

89. Rock painting at Cogul (Spain) . . . . .168

90. Wooden statuette and Handmills (Third Dynasty) . . 169

91. Wooden sickle armed with flint (Egypt) . . . .170

92. Ditto from Abuchal, near Carmona (Spain) . . .170

93. Bronze sickles (Switzerland, France, Ireland, etc.) . .171

94. Cultivator and his plough, rock painting (Sweden) . .172

95. Cart with horses, on clay vase (Hungary) . . . .173

96. Clay figurines (Roumania and Upper Egypt) . . .175

97. Figures from Mycenae and Knossos . . . . .176

98. Stone industry amulets and necklace . . . .177-

99. Bracelets ......... 178

100. Quaternary statuettes (Austria and France) . . 193

101. Graven human representations (France) .... 194

102. Mammoth (Font de Gaume) ...... 195

103. Bison (Altamira) ........ 196

104. Rhinoceros tichorimcs (Font de Gaume) . . . .196

105. Bear incised on pebble (Ari&ge) . . . . .197

1 06. Wild boar (Altamira) ....... 198

107. Cervus elaphus (Altamira) ...... 199

1 08. Cervus elaphus (Lorthet Cave) ...... 200

109. Reindeer (Font de Gaume) ...... 200

no. Horse (Font de Gaume) ....... 201

in and 112. Horses (Lourdes and Mas d'Azil) .... 201

113. Wolf (Font de Gaume) ....... 202

114. Fishes (Lorthet) ........ 202

115. Plants (Haute-Savoie and Yonne) ..... 203

116. Magdalenian geometric drawings ..... 204

117. Quaternary sculptures ....... 206

1 1 8. Bronze industry human representations (Italy) . . . 208

119. Susian painted pottery ....... 209

120.

xxii PREHISTORIC MAN

FIG.

Painted vase (Palestine) . . . . . . ,

Pre-dynastic Egyptian pottery ...... 213

123. Pre-dynastic Egyptian painted pottery . . . .214

124. Ivory handle of flint dagger (Edfu) . 215

125. Knife in yellow flint with, gold handle (Upper Egypt) . .217

126. Incised pottery (Cyclades) . . . . . .218

127. Incised pottery (JEgean Islands) ..... 219

128. Vase from Kamares (Crete) ...... 220

129. Dog and wild boar (Tyrins) . . . . . .221

130. Animal figures, iron industry (Ossethia) .... 222

131. Figures engraved on bronze belts, iron industry (Russian

Armenia) ......... 223

132. Incised pottery (Russian Talish) ..... 224

133. Rough pottery (Seine-et-Marne and Vienne) . . 225

134. Neolithic vases (France and Bohemia) .... 225

135. Neolithic decoration on pottery . . . . .226

136. Anthropomorphic pottery (Cyprus, Hissarlik, Denmark, etc.) 226

137. Vase decoration, iron industry (Transcaucasia) . . . 227

138. Vase (Buchheim, Baden) ....... 228

139. Vase (Burzenhof, Wftrtemberg) ..... 228

140. Arts of La Tdne industry (Ireland, France, Germany) . . 229

141. Neolithic interment (El Amrah, Upper Egypt) . . . 233

142. Graves, iron industry (Russian Armenia) .... 234

143. Crypt of Coizard ........ 235

144. Crypt of Courgeonnet ....... 235

145. Dolmens ......... 236

146. Dolmens in plan and section ...... 237

147. Distribution of dolmens in Old World .... 238

148. Builded dolmen (Persia) ....... 239

149. Menhirs .... ...... 241

150. Alignments of M6nec at Carnac (Morbihan) . , . 242
151 and 152. Iron industry burials (Djonu, Russian Talish) . 243

153. Bronze industry burial (Veri, Russian Talish) . . . 245

154. Religious emblems on Egyptian pre-dynastic vases . 248

155. Impression of a seal (from Palace of Knossos) . . . 249

156. Representations of the goddess Nana or Astarte . . . 250

157. Ritual dance (Cogul, Spain) ...... 251

158. Gold ring (Isopata, near Knossos) . . . ,251

159. The solar attributes ....... 253

1 60. Funerary barks on Egyptian pre-dynastic vases . . 254

161. Votive axe-heads (Susa and Hissarlik) .... 254

162. Votive axes and bulls ....... 254

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxiii

FIG. PAGE

163. Painted pebbles and engraved bones .... 257
164* Inscription on glass bead (Mftnsingen, Switzerland) . .258

165. Figurative Mexican painting . . . . . .258

1 66. Chinese characters of different epochs .... 259

167. Pictographic representation on rock (Sweden) . . . 259

1 68. Pictographic representations on rocks at Irytch . . . 259

169. Graffiti on rocks of Jebel Hetemat (Upper Egypt) . . 260

170. Figures on stones of chamber, tumulus of Man6-Lud . . 261

171. Impression from hieroglyphic cylinder (Susa) . . . 261

172. Cylinder stamp with hieroglyphs, proto-Elamite tablet . 261

173. Proto-Elamite inscription on clay tablet . . . .261

174. Lapidary inscription in proto-Elamite characters . . 261

175. Proto-Elamite writing 262

176. Proto-Elamite writing, representation of Man . . . 263

177. Chaldean linear cuneiform (Yokha) ..... 263

178. Chaldean linear cuneiform (Susa) 263

179. Explanation in cuneiform of primitive hieroglyphs (Nineveh) 264

1 80. Pre-Pharaonic cylinders (Egypt) 265

181. Archaic Egyptian hieroglyphs 266

182. Ivory tablet, Semti dancing, First Dynasty . . . 267

183. Hittite hieroglyphic inscription from Djerablus . . . 267

184. Phaestos Disc (Crete) 268

185. Map of trade routes of the Old World .... 270

1 86. Glaciation, and distribution of palaeolithic industry . . 280

187. Distribution of Moustierian type ..... 282

188. Distribution of Aurignacian industry .... 283

189. Distribution of Solutrean industry ..... 284

190. Distribution of Magdalenian industry .... 285

PREFACE

No book can ever be definitive which deals with questions
based on discovery and observation. Such works can only
be up-to-date on the day of publication : a month later the
author will already have had occasion to modify certain
passages of his text. This is bound to be the case with
Prehistoric Man. I should be neglecting my duty to the
reader if I failed to acquaint him with discoveries and new
ideas which have been put forward during the few short
months since I passed the first (French) edition of this book
for press.

In the interval I have sought the opinion of scientific
colleagues, and they express themselves as satisfied with
my r6sume ; but that is not precisely what I meant. In a
book which endeavours to contain the story of the age-long
upward struggle of Man within 300 pages there cannot fail
to be gaps.

Nor are these the only possible sources of error. During
the last two or three years a number of works in various
languages have appeared, and it has happened that when
these books have come to my knowledge I have sometimes
been driven to modify my views. Further, the far-reaching
studies which I have been obliged to undertake in connection
with my forthcoming work, la Prehistoire orientate, have led
to fruitful discussions with specialists as to the interpretation
to be put on certain facts, and I have endeavoured to give
the reader the benefit of these in this edition.

J. DE MORGAN.

^th January 1923.

PREHISTORIC MAN

PRELIMINARY REVIEW OF THE FIELD

THE study of man's prehistory, or of that phase of his
evolution for which there is no written document to guide
research, is still in its infancy, although it has been actually
in existence for nearly a century. On the one hand, our
investigations, still unfortunately very summary, are based
on data from only a small number of countries ; on the other,
we possess no comparative term permitting us to measure in
time as well as in space, the extent of these first efforts of
man to better the conditions of his existence. Moreover, the
breadth of the subject is such that this branch of study
makes a demand on the greater part of scientific knowledge.
Geology, zoology, botany, climatology, anthropology, and
ethnography are the bases of prehistory, which, like all
science based on observation, runs alongside that wall of
shadows behind which the origins of living creatures and
things lie hidden.

When we get out along the various scientific roads lead-
ing back to our origins, we soon come face to face with the
unknown. In proportion as we advance, obscurity increases,
until the gloom of the past and of the future becomes so
complete that the insufficiency of our means of investigation
renders it impenetrable. Our processes of observation have
proved inadequate ; time has destroyed most of the evidence
within reach of our intellect, and that which has survived the
defacing hand of time too often escapes our perspicacity.
The further we go back the more difficult it is to distinguish
such traces as the passing years have left intact. In those
very parts where our footsteps press the thickest, and where
we think we know every inch of the ground, our observations
are still superficial. For centuries we have failed to recog-
nize the remains of those old civilizations of the stone age.
To-morrow, perhaps, evidences still more ancient will appear:
the darkness will recede a little ; but we shall never get back

4 PREHISTORIC MAN

to the beginning of things, never completely disperse the
obscurity that enshrouds them.

Moreover, our present-day researches into the great
antiquity of Man on the earth have covered, as yet, but
a limited geographical area : Western Europe, Northern
Africa, certain points in 'Western Asia and in North America,
alone, have yielded us some of their secrets incomplete
confidences of limited extent, from which it would be highly
dangerous to draw general conclusions. We are barely en-
titled to suggest one or two hypotheses. It must never be
forgotten that a multitude of indications still certainly escape
us, that the stone industries on which we base our theories
constitute but an insignificant part of the witness to human
life, and that other evidence either has not yet been made
manifest, or else has been lost for even

The mind inevitably inclines to the generalization of
phenomena of whose existence it has proof, and to the neglect
of the thousand and one unknown questions it has penetrated
only in part ; and these very human tendencies have been the
origin of theories relative to the prehistoric life of man that
were absolute even while they were irrational. Can we, in
fact, admit that in comparison with the rest of the world
the western countries of Kurope have played a preponderant
part in the beginnings of progress, that they have been the
centres of development? Certainly not, for we are ignorant
of what has passed in other parts of the world, not only in
the continents as we know them as they now stand emerged
from the oceans but also in those vast regions which to-day
are sunk in their depths and whose former existence we can
only suspect* We have no right to deduce laws from our
imperfect knowledge of some few millions of square miles,
and apply them to the entire world. We cannot judge of the
innumerable migrations of primitive peoples, nor classify
those human waves which, like those raised by the wind
on the face of the waters, have spread over continents and
broken against mountains, from the mere study of a few rare
skeletons and local industries. We cannot deduce the world
movement of glaciers, or judge what were the convulsions of
our planet's surface great movements, varying infinitely
according to time and place, and which played so consider-
able a part in the destiny of primitive man from localized

PRELIMINARY REVIEW 5

geological observations in certain fields which happen to
have been more closely studied than others.

Nothing indicates to us, up to the present, the original
homes of the various human groups, and the evidences of
primitive migrations are few and far between. Darkness still
envelops the cradle of our own civilization ; how, then, can
we speak of the origins of those peoples whom we know
only by the products of their rude industry?

We must not seek to give to prehistory a precision which
it lacks. Let us always remember that here we find ourselves
face to face with the unknown in its most baffling phase ;
that from our local observations we may draw but local con-
clusions, and that these evidences bear only on times when
Man was already in an advanced stage of development.

This is not the place to enter into considerations as to
the possible origins of the Human family, since one of
the volumes of this series is devoted to that question, and
since Marcellin Boule 1 has recently treated the subject
in a masterly work with all the fulness it demands ; but,
before dealing with primitive industries, it is important to
observe that as yet we know only very little about human
and animal evolution.

The most ancient geological strata, those in which traces
of life appear for the first time, show us an already highly
evolved fauna ; this is not because animal and vegetable
life had been provided with such advanced organisms from
their inception, but because Nature's first efforts have left
no trace. The Pre-Cambrian gneisses and granites have
certainly known organized life ; but they have transmitted
to us no impressions of it. The same is true of human
origins ; Man may have existed in Tertiary times. Some
day we may find his remains in one of those deposits of
bones which, as at Pikermi, Maragha, Dakota, etc., allow
the reconstruction of a vanished fauna, or in the mud of
some such lake as Sansan, where bodies swept away by the
rivers have accumulated ; but, up to the present, no discovery
of this nature supports hypotheses relating to Man and to
those primitive implements known as eoliths. These eoliths,
moreover, alleged to be fashioned by the hand of Man, are

6 PREHISTORIC MAN

not in themselves conclusive evidence of his antiquity on
the earth. We must limit ourselves, then, to taking the
human being when he appears to us with certainty, in
Quaternary times, just as we take animal development at
the Cambrian period. The pre-Silurian fauna is already
high in the zoological scale, and Man is already in possession
of an advanced state of industry in glacial times ; this is
all we know. Beyond that a veil of mystery hangs over
palaeontology and anthropology alike.

Certain privileged lands, such as Chaldea, Elam and
Egypt, knew the benefits of writing sooner than the rest of
the world. Some six thousand years have rolled by since
this dawn, which broke in the Orient, spread its effulgence
over the Tigris, the Euphrates and the Nile ; but for many
centuries it was a dawn that illuminated only its immediate
neighbourhood, while the rest of the world remained plunged
in darkness. In the end, little by little, drawing ever nearer,
this brightness spread, and is still spreading over new
regions ; but many centuries will pass before all mankind
emerge completely from ignorance and barbarism.

In Asia and in Egypt, too, before the appearance of this
the greatest of Man's inventions that allows him to record
thought by writing, countless centuries must have passed ere
he emerged finally from the lower and animal condition, in
which he certainly lived in the beginning ; before a being
naturally endowed with reason could understand himself,
and free himself from those of his instincts in opposition to
his intellectual and moral development.

It was then that the powerful factor of aptitude inter-
vened among those countless human families. All these
groups were by no means equal in physical and intellectual
vitality, whether because the environment in which they
lived was uncongenial to their development or because they
were condemned to inferiority by heredity.

Here we come up against the mystery of the single or
multiple origin of the human race, a problem whose solution
we cannot even adumbrate. The descendants of Adam, says
the tradition, married the daughters of men. There existed,
then, men who were inferior beings ; these old memories affirm
it and ethnography would seem to confirm their dictum.

What are we to think of the inequality of culture among

PRELIMINARY REVIEW 7

the aborigines of the New "World the great development
of certain peoples in Mexico and Peru, and the inferiority
of certain clans of North America or of certain tribes of the
Amazon or the Guianas, of the Patagonians and Esquimaux,
and all those inferior peoples that even example has been
unable to wean from their primitive way of life? How
should we judge those black races which, in spite of the
culture they receive in certain countries, furnish only a very
small proportion of the individuals who are really men ?

That inequality of cerebral faculties which still exists
among individuals in the most civilized peoples must also
be accepted in Man before history ; as in our days, it not
only separates one person from another, but applies to
the human families as welL Hence the birth of multiple
centres of development of varying intensity at epochs we
are unable to fix, since the very causes of such develop-
ment can be assigned neither place nor time. Phases in
intellectual progress, comparable with those of the various
forms of evolution in animal life, do not exist.

But apart from the greater or lesser cerebral aptitudes in
the various divisions of the human race there was another
cause of superiority of certain groups over others, a cause
certainly predominant in primitive societies the aptitude for
physical development. For in those days, as, often, even
in ours, physical force took precedence of intelligence. Just
as it does in our day, and even more so, climate then
exercised a preponderant influence over human groups,
because Man was nearer to nature than he is to-day, and
the inequalities in the climate and in the facilities for
existence were great. This was the cause of terrible con-
flicts for the possession of the soil, and of those migrations
and movements of which we recover faint traces. What
wars were waged then ! What massacres were perpetrated !
Slavery was the lot of the vanquished, who died out gradu-
ally, leaving, through their women, something of their own
blood in the veins of the descendants of their conquerors.
While races were thus changing, climates and contours were
themselves being continually modified, causing new changes
in the ethnic nature of the populations.

History is made up of these struggles of men among
themselves, of invasions, conquests, subjugations, the dis-

8 PREHISTORIC MAN

appearance of entire peoples, and the fusion of the conquered
with the conquerors. "What has become of the Phrygians,
Cappadocians, Hittites, Elamites, Urartians, Iberians, Etrus-
cans and so many other nations whose existence is known to us
by irrefutable proofs, but of whom we only very rarely find
fugitive ethnic traces ? They have become dissolved only to
constitute the elements of other nations which themselves
have often vanished. What a maze of ethnic complications
there are in these few thousand years of which we have the
history ! How can we picture to ourselves the conflicts
which ravaged the earth in prehistoric times ! We must not
mistake for complete enlightenment the information furnished
us by our discoveries of forgotten industries, of unknown
arts, or human skeletons. These are but faint gleams
throwing no more than a very dim light on the existence of
our precursors on this earth.

Although this may not be the place to study Man from
the point of view of his physical constitution, nor from that
of the languages of which knowledge has come down to us,
it is nevertheless useful to show in a few words how decep-
tive these branches of science may be for anyone hoping to
rely on them for research in human prehistory.

We do not possess even the vaguest indication of the
nature of the dialects spoken in the centuries which preceded,
by several thousand years, the invention of writing. The
oldest inscriptions known to us, those of Chaldea, Elam and
Egypt, show us languages already perfectly organized, having
advanced and even literary grammars, and the same is true of
the archaic texts that come to light every year in different
countries.

On that day when we discover how to interpret the texts
of the Hittites, Minoans, Etruscans, Iberians, Mexicans, etc.,
we shall certainly find ourselves dealing with languages
already well developed, to whatever group they may belong.
There is nothing more fascinating than those comparative
studies in the languages sprung from the Aryan main trunk,
for example, whose branches, though separated for thousands
of years from the bole, still enable us to trace a great number
of original roots, and to penetrate into the thought, already
highly developed, of societies whose antiquity we cannot
attempt to measure.

PRELIMINARY REVIEW 9

Such research has permitted us to recognize the existence
of several groups and even families. There are still certain
ancient and modern dialects, however, which resist analysis
and do not come under the head of the great divisions, either
from the grammatical point of view or as regards roots, but
which seem to be survivals of certain languages which were
spoken before the arrival in our regions of those human
hordes known to linguists as Semites, Aryans and Turanians.
Certain of these languages appear to go back to very ancient
origins, such as Basque, Iberian, Etruscan, Susian, Urar-
tian, and the languages of the Caucasus called Kartvelian
(Georgian, Mingrelian, Laze etc.), forms of speech which
have no relation with the old tongues and which it is im-
possible to relate to any other group ; though we have no
grounds for asserting that they belong to languages spoken
in Quaternary times.

As for those anthropological discoveries which, as they
increase, will throw further light on these questions of
ancient local ethnography, we feel a certain scepticism as
regards conclusions of a general order which some author! ties
attempt to draw from them ; for, if we judge by the mis-
cellany of ethnic elements which have had a place in all
countries during the short period of recorded history, we are
led to think that during the prehistoric phases the fusions
between the various human groups must have been equally
important. It is only with difficulty that we have attained
to a rational ethnographic classification of existing races,
though for this abundant material is available. "What, then,
are we to think of conclusions drawn from the study of a few
rare skeletons discovered here and there, when we do not
know whether these men were really the authors of the
industries in the midst of which we find their remains, or
whether they lived there as a conquered race or as slaves
imported from possibly very distant regions? If we were to
find, in deposits characterized by remains of Roman culture,
the skeleton of a Sudanese Negro, that would not justify us
in concluding that Romulus and Remus had black skins
and woolly hair. This incertitude springs from so many
factors of which we do not even suspect the existence that
it behoves us to be very cautious in estimating what popula-
tions have preceded us on our native soil.

10 PREHISTORIC MAN

For the ethnology of the peoples from the beginning- of
historic times up to our day we can follow but two guides :
philology and anthropology ; and, in most cases, the two
methods of investigation reach conclusions which are dia-
metrically opposed. A few examples will suffice to demon-
strate this.

In the middle of the great Caucasian chain live the
Ossetes, a people who use a very archaic Iranian dialect,
although for more than two thousand years they were entirely
surrounded, on all sides, by people of Kartvelian speech ; but,
owing to mixture of blood, they have assumed the physical type
of their neighbours. Thus anthropology makes Caucasians
of them, whilst philology declares them to be Iranian Aryans.

In Elam, among the nomad tribes, we meet individuals
of the purest Susian type, such as are found depicted on
the bas-reliefs of three or four thousand years ago. But
these people, whose culture is Semitic, are Arabic-speaking
Mohammedans. The language of their fathers is lost, but
their physical type survives.

We have seen that Cappadocians, Phrygians, Hittites,
Etruscans, etc., have disappeared as nations, and have lost
their language ; but in fusing with other peoples they have
certainly imported into the physique of their conquerors some
of their own characteristics ; the same is true of all peoples
in all countries.

Without the shadow of a doubt selection operates at all
times among human races, and the inferior disappear before
stronger groups, better endowed by nature. This selection
is operative even in our own time in America, Oceania,
and in Europe itself ; why should it not have governed the
destinies of humanity in times when the instincts of the
strongest were not restrained by philosophical ideas or laws?

Are not such considerations calculated to make us sceptical
of the results of anthropological observations ?

Thus our only truly scientific guides in the study of
forgotten peoples are the actual traces of their existence on
the earth left by these men themselves the debris of their
daily life as it has accumulated in the caverns they inhabited,
in the ruins of their artificially-constructed homes and their
places of encampment ; whilst, for the most ancient periods,
we must often search in the alluvial deposits of rivers which,

PRELIMINARY REVIEW 11

after scouring the earth's surface, spread over it the debris
carried away in their course. Our observations in this respect
are necessarily localized, and each prehistoric station has to
be the object of a special study. Then, as our observations
multiply and the same phenomena appear in a great number
of places, we are led to extend our conclusions and to apply
them to entire districts. The stratigraphical study of beds
in which we find the remains of human industry is our only
means of establishing a relative chronology of any given
region.

But stratigraphy, the data of which are often debatable
as regards geological marine layers, when the succession
presents gaps, becomes still more uncertain in the case of
Pleistocene and recent alluvia, so that, according to the
data of the districts on which they have based their obser-
vations, geologists vary in their conclusions. Thus they
differ on the number of glacial advances and retreats, as
well as on their importance. Some admit but three 1 whilst
others 2 postulate six. They do not even agree on the subject
of the glacial period in which products of human industry
appear for the first time those of the Chellean type. Ober-
maier, for instance, after a profound study of the Pyrenees
region is led to place this epoch, and in consequence the
antiquity of Man on the earth, 3 considerably later.

These divergences of opinion are due to the extreme
complexity of the bases on which the deductions rest : here
are alluvial gravel beds ; there moraines in their lateral
and frontal variations ; and there again peat-bogs ; and the
various evidences of glacial action are usually independent
and much separated from one another.

Moreover, it is probable that identical phenomena did
not everywhere coincide in time. The glacial oscillations
undoubtedly correspond to the movements of the earth's
crust, nevertheless they have not everywhere affected those
mountain masses on which snow was deposited. It is true
that the general subsidence of the Scandinavian continental
ice marked the close of the glacial, apd the commence-

1 Penck and Brttckner, T.VXiTI ; Obermaier, Le Quatemaire des Alpes et la
nouvelle classification du Prof. A. Penck, VI, 1904, 26.

2 J. Dchelette, XXVI ; 1908, I. 36.

* Obermaier, Beitrdge zur Kenntnis des Quartars in den Pyrenden ; AfA,
1906, IV, 299 and 1906, V, 244.

12 PREHISTORIC MAN

ment of the modern period ; but the sinking* of the northern
continents has certainly not affected their own series of massifs
as a whole.

However, the uncertainty which hangs over the glacial
epochs has not discouraged the partisans of a very high
antiquity for Man on our earth ; and some of the most
judicious minds, men deeply versed in the evidences of
geology, have allowed themselves to be led into estimating
in thousands of years the periods in which humanity passed
its infancy. To begin with they made the great mistake
of accepting the different phases of prehistoric industry
as synchronous, taking for basis the discoveries made in
Western Europe : hence their estimates, not resting on any
scientific foundation, inevitably gave the rein to fancy.

Goldschmidt, following Haeckel, puts the appearance of
living organisms at one thousand and four hundred million
years before our day ; while the Cambrian fauna, the earliest
of which we have knowledge, was preceded "by other forms,
whose importance we have no means of measuring, still less
their duration. Credner * estimates geological time at a
hundred million years, three million for the Tertiary and
five hundred thousand for the Anthropozoic or Quaternary.

Gabriel de Mortillet* puts the duration of Quaternary
times subsequent to the appearance of Chellean Man at two
hundred and thirty to two hundred and forty thousand years,
of which two hundred thousand are assigned to the glacial
epoch and its oscillations, and thirty or forty thousand years
to the post-glacial.

According to Lyell, 8 Croll 4 and Lubbock, 6 Chellean Man
is three-hundred thousand years old. Lyell e considers that
the formation of the Danish peat required sixteen thousand
years, while Stennstrup 7 reduces this to four thousand.

Every possible means of estimation has been pressed into
service to give us a chronology astronomic observation,
the study of glaciers, peat beds, bog formation, river drift,

1 XXV.

2 "Evolution quaternaire de la pierre," VIH; 7th year, I, January 15, 1897;
G. and A. de Mortillet, XL.

* XXXil, 334.

4 Ge l - Map., 1867, 172; "Climate and Time," 1875, Chap. xix.

Lyell XXXJLV., i, 275.

6 XXXiii, ai.

7 LXIV.

PRELIMINARY REVIEW 13

and the scooping out of valleys, the transformation of
uranium into helium, 1 etc., etc., but all the data in this
problem are incomplete, and the best proof of it is that
the proposed chronologies do not agree among themselves. 2
One of the most curious miscalculations is that of Broca.
After having ascertained that between the caves of le Moustier
and la Madelaine, in the valley of the V6zre, there was a
difference of twenty-seven metres, Broca wrote: "This
scooping out of twenty-seven metres, due to the action of
the water, occurred under the eyes of our troglodytes, and,
since then, for the whole duration of the modern epoch that
is to say during hundreds of centuries it has made but little
progress. It may be judged, therefore, how many human
generations must have gone by between the epoch of le
Moustier and that of la Madelaine." 8 On the one hand
there had only been, since the period of the highest
caverns, the excavation of a valley in light deposit, and
on the other, if nothing had happened since this was
completed, it was because the river had accomplished its
maximum fall. 4

Is there any need to dilate further on this subject? We
think not. The diversity of the estimates arrived at suffices
to indicate that it is better not to launch out into speculations
of this nature. Moreover, even where we know the chrono-
logical value of the various layers, as in the tells of Chaldea
and Egypt, such estimates can but be peculiar to each
deposit studied, for the rate of accumulation at different
points is essentially variable. The city of Susa, which has
probably existed from six thousand to six thousand five
hundred years from the time of its foundation to the abandon-
ment of its site by the Arabs towards the fifteenth century of
our era, has left a mound thirty metres in height at the
highest parts ; whereas at Memphis the level of the ancient
Egyptian empire, about five thousand years old, lies at a
depth of nine metres from the top of the mounds ; and near
ancient Cairo we see mounds due entirely to the Arabs of the
middle ages reaching a height of twelve to fifteen metres.

1 Cf ' jjS"Jfe er The Earth before History, p. 32 ff.

2 Cf. XXXVII, 24 ff., chronology.

3 2QII. CwagTr^j de Bordeaux, 1212.

4 XXXI, 1728.

14 PREHISTORIC MAN

Under any circumstances the data furnished by the super-
position of debris from human habitation should be taken
into consideration with extreme prudence.

The plan, in section, of the valley of the Nile (Fig-, i)
shows the general distribution of the prehistoric and historic
evidence in one of the oldest countries of the world ; better
than any explanation, it enables us to understand the impos-
sibility of basing a serious chronology on the depth of the
alluvial beds and deposits, just as in the case of sites, which
vary infinitely. There is nothing, not even the thickness of
the annual nilotic layers, which does not change with each
flood. The inscriptions accompanying the arrows marked
by the priests at the temple of Karnak, at the time of the
inundations, leave no room for doubt in this respect.

Among the phenomena which have had the greatest in-
fluence on the destinies of the human race, first place must
be given to the natural modifications of the surface of the
globe oscillations of the terrestrial crust which have been
not only the chief contributing cause of glacial cataclysms,
thus modifying the climate of the inhabited portions of the
globe, but have also caused entire continents to disappear
beneath the ocean and have cut the communication between
places which to-day are separated by the sea.

The proofs of these oscillations of the ground are in-
disputable. Submarine valleys, hollowed out in former
times in the open and met with to-day on all the coasts of
Northern Europe, evidence considerable sinking of the land.
The submarine fossa of Cap Breton proves a subsidence of
the Gascon shore of approximately a thousand metres (Fig. 2). 1
The same is true of the North Sea plateau (Fig. 3) and of
Iceland (Fig. 4). There has been recognized on the coast of
Norway the existence of a plateau, now situated at a depth of
about a thousand metres, which formed in ancient times the
shore of the peninsula. The maximum elevation of the
Scandinavian massif at the close of the Tertiary period
reached to 4000 metres at the least. Scandinavia is in the
same latitude as Greenland and certainly was not warmed,
during the Quaternary period, by marine currents such as
the Gulf Stream. So far as atmospheric condensation goes,

1 According to some geologists the cracking of the surface has played an im-
portant part in the scooping out of this valley.

PRELIMINARY REVIEW

15

FIG. i. Imaginary section of the valley of the Kile.

Flo. 2. Cap Breton Fossa.

16

PREHISTORIC MAN

its condition was then analogous to that of Greenland, one
of whose highest peaks, Mt. Petermann, reaches a height of

[.FiG. 3. Submarine Plateau of the North Sea.

3480 metres. But whereas Greenland is surrounded by seas
which absorb its ice in the form of bergs, the Scandinavian
massif, bounded on* the south by the plains of Western and
Central Europe, and on the east by those of Russia, had a

PRELIMINARY REVIEW 17

clear field for the development of glaciers which extended
into temperate regions without meeting- any obstacle (Fig. 5).
In the same way the mountains of New Zealand, 1 3000
metres in height, send their glaciers right into the midst of
the forests of tree fern. 2

In order to gain some idea of the Scandinavian inland

etc? mneuen* courv

<

FIG. 4. The submarine valleys of Iceland (Directions des anciens
cours <Teau= direction of ancient rivers).

ice during Quaternary times, we cannot do better than glance
at the present glacial phenomena of Greenland.

The plateau of this peninsula, averaging 1000 to 1500
metres in height (the altitude of the Scandinavian plains in
glacial times), and comprising some lofty peaks, is an
immense reservoir for the precipitation of snow-packs, even
during the summer. These snows are transformed into ice
by the pressure brought about by their own accumulation,
and this ice is constantly moving down the flanks of the
plateau seawards ; there it breaks up into icebergs which are
carried away by the prevailing wind towards Newfoundland.

Although the rise of the slope down which these glaciers

1 E. C. Andrews, "The Ice-flood Hypothesis of the New Zealand Sound-basins."

m ; 1906, XIV, 22-54.

9 Cf. XLVI ; 53 ; XXXIV, II ; Lartet, L, 150.

18

PREHISTORIC MAN

move is not more than o 30', the pressure from the centre is
such that the rate of advance is beyond anything* known in
our latitudes. The glacier of lakobhavn advances in July at
the rate of 19 metres in twenty-four hours, 1 that north of
Upernavick moves 31 metres a day and that of Torsukatak
only 10 metres.

This irrefutable evidence authorizes us to believe that the
Scandinavian glaciers, following wet periods and as a result of

FIG. 5. Maximum Extension of Pleistocene Glaciers.
(Limite actuelle des glac6S=present ice limit).

great falls of snow, may sometimes have advanced on Central
Europe at the rate of six to eight thousand metres a year.
Hence a couple of centuries would more than suffice for ice
from the highest summits of the Scandinavian chain to reach
the site of the present-day Brussels. These glaciers, which
advanced or retreated according as climatic conditions were
more or less favourable to the condensation of atmospheric
humidity during the preceding years (this again depending
on the occurrence of more or less important oscillations in
the earth's crust), penetrated to the most fertile parts of the
continent.

But the subsidence of the surface, which brought about
the cessation of the more extreme phenomena of glaciation,

1 Cf. Helland, A/. Mit., 1887.

PRELIMINARY REVIEW

19

still continues. Maybe it proceeds more slowly, yet it still
makes itself felt on occasion, as prehistory and even history
record. In the bay of the Morbihan, the dolmens and
circles of the isle Erlanic, near Gavr' Inis, are to-day
under water and visible only at low tide (Fig-. 6). The
formation of the Zuyder Zee and Lake Grandlieu, and the
disappearance of the town of Ys, are evidences of the gradual
sinking- of our coasts, as is also the separation of the Channel

FIQ. 6. The Isle Erlanic (Morbihan).

Islands from the continent, and many more examples that
could be given.

These modifications in the contour of the land go hand in
hand with climatic changes which inevitably resulted there-
from. The winds and the ocean currents themselves have
changed, and, where the ice extended, its melting caused a
considerable lowering of temperature. These modifications
certainly did not come suddenly ; they were gradual, in-
terrupted by periods of stagnation, and throughout those
centuries of time Man and the animals fled before the ice or
adapted themselves gradually to the new conditions of life. It
was thus that the great pachyderms whose bodies we find in
the Siberian ice, and those also of our own country if we
judge by contemporary representations of them gradually
acquired their woolly coats. The flora had changed,, and
the mammoth fed on the young shoots of the larch. Man,
too, probably protected himself against the rigours of the
climate, for one sees, on the Magdalenian carvings depicting
him, hatchings which seem to indicate long hair. Driven
from regions invaded by the glaciers, he retreated towards

20 PREHISTORIC MAN

the south in search of a milder climate and more favourable
conditions of existence ; then he returned to settle in his old
haunts when the glaciers abandoned them, retiring again on
their fresh advance ever moving at the bidding of the ice ;
finally, when the great thaw came, he occupied those areas
we inhabit to-day, and others whose former existence we
do not even suspect.

Certainly bridges to Africa existed then in the Mediter-
ranean and maybe the New World was connected with Europe
by Atlantis or some other vanished continent. There are
not wanting certain regions whose zoological affinities with
other parts of the world invite us to link them together in
thought or at least with continents swallowed up in the not
far distant past. Although the veil of ignorance still shrouds
from us most of the changes in the earth's surface con-
temporary with Man's existence, we can yet observe the
tremendous influence that these great natural phenomena
have exerted on the destiny of humanity.

The causes of human migration are many and complex,
and even more numerous in modern times than in those
distant epochs when our ancestors sought only to satisfy
their material needs. To this motive force to-day is added
the thirst for riches. The expansion of the European race
over the entire face of the earth, together with the disappear-
ance of human families of inferior culture, is due to the
attraction exercised on the mind by gold. But in the days
when the precious metal was no better than a valueless rock,
considerations of climate, fertility of the soil, and desirability
of hunting and fishing grounds, guided the steps of in-
vaders, and the men of the North, accustomed to conflicts
with the elements, speedily dominated those populations
which an easy life had rendered somewhat lacking in
ardour. Then, little by little, the conquerors themselves
lost their virility and were no longer capable of defending
their territory against new invaders coming from regions less
favoured by nature, who were thus superior in physical force.

It is invariably the case that conquered peoples take
refuge in places where they hope to be able to preserve their
independence, as in mountainous regions, in islands or
peninsulas, or in arid districts. History, and the distribution
of the different human races peopling the earth demonstrate

PRELIMINARY REVIEW 21

it, and, moreover, it is strictly logical. The Celts retreated
to the Breton peninsula, to Cornwall and Wales ; the Basques
inhabit the Pyrenees ; the Kurds, formerly masters of all the
northern portion of the Iranian plateau, to-day are limited to the
great mountain chains bordering Persia ; whilst every valley
of the Caucasus is occupied by a tribe speaking- a different lan-
guage, and so forth. Thus, we must not deduce from discoveries
made in districts difficult of access the contemporaneous culture
of the population of the neighbouring and more open regions.

The invasions of historic times have been innumerable
and continue in our day, especially the destruction of other
peoples lacking in defence, which has gone on since the times
when the Semites, absorbing* the ancient elements of the
Chaldean population, marched towards the North and
founded Assur and Nineveh, haunts from which they came
out every year to crush those peoples less proficient than
themselves in the profession of arms. Six thousand years
of history bear witness to man's instinct for destroying- his
fellow man. What is to be said of these successive human
waves from the uttermost parts of Asia which surged and
beat on the walls of the Roman world? of the colonial
conquests of Spain, England and France, of these invasions,
in the name of civilization, of lands where men once lived
content in their freedom, natives whom we daily dispossess
because they are weaker than we, and because the natural
wealth of their soil attracts us V

Every invasion of the West in historical times seems to
have been launched from the north and centre of Asia, when
the world still presented very much the same physical
appearance it does to-day, but we cannot tell what its contours
were in prehistoric times. Many authors have indulged in
hypotheses relating to the cradle of the different human
groups. They have given to the Aryan-speaking peoples
as their birthplace first the Altai, then Transcaucasia, then
the plains of Russia and Siberia ; they have made those
who spoke the Semitic tongue come from Arabia ; in brief,
every possible supposition has been made, but many of them
are absolutely gratuitous, because the story of Man's distribu-
tion on the earth depends on a number of* elements of which
we know little. Prehistory is still surrounded by too many
mysteries to entitle us to approach scientifically the great

22 PREHISTORIC MAN

problems connected with the place of origin of our species.
Moreover, the very terms in use for description of this part
of human history, for which written documents are absent,
are in themselves vague and lacking 1 in precision.

"Prehistoric archaeology/' one says, " is the science of
antiquities previous to the earliest historic documents." 1
This generally received definition nevertheless is incomplete,
since it applies only to countries which have possessed
written documents for centuries, and leaves out of account
those barbaric peoples which, up to our own days, have lived
outside history. It would seem to include only the earliest
antiquity.

We should recognize the expression "prehistoric"
giving to it its full value both in time and in place as
covering all peoples and all those questions of man's existence
of which written documents by the people concerned are
wanting. It applies equally to the most remote as to con-
temporary times. For it is impossible to separate ethnography,
that is to say the study of modern homogeneous groups,
either from that of the peoples of whom classical writers speak,
or from the study of men known to us only by examination
of the traces they have left men whose very name is lost to
posterity. It would be more exact to say that the study of
archaeological prehistory deals with all those peoples who
have not themselves bequeathed to us their annals. Thus
the Germans whom Tacitus describes, the Gauls of whom
Csesar speaks, the Huns concerning whom Ammianus
Marcellinus furnished so many details, the Silures and other
island peoples of whom Herodian tells us, the Kamchadales
of Pallas, and the Tahitians of Cook and de Bougainville, are
prehistoric peoples although living in times when other
nations were already writing their history. We might say
that ethnography merges into prehistoric archaeology, since
it begins with history itself: there is not a page of the
Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek, or Roman annals that does not
speak of barbaric peoples, or of those legendary traditions
in which the actual history of every race has its origin during;
the prehistoric phase of human evolution. It is from the
sum total of archseological and ancient and modern ethno-

1 XXVI, I. i.

PRELIMINARY REVIEW 23

graphical documents that we draw our knowledge of the first
inhabitants of the earth to-day.

The archaeology of the prehistoric remained a mere
subdivision of ethnography until it was perceived by the
aid of geology that traces of man in the alluvium, in caverns,
in the soil, more or less every where contributed materials
of great importance to the study of origins. From that time
forward ethnographic studies have been lavished on these
remains, under the new name of " proto-history , " a fabri-
cated word doing more harm than good, since it claims to be
definitive whilst actually it brings confusion. Thus usage
has sanctioned the terms "prehistory," "proto-history,"
and "ethnography/ 7 to indicate divisions in a group of
studies itself nameless: yet in spite of these complications
the terminology remains incomplete.

The prehistoric branch of ethnographic studies began as
a French science ; and is still in great honour in our country
since the earliest discoveries, together with their interpretation,
were the work of our archaeologists. The juxtaposition of
evidences of human industry with fossil animal remains in
the silt which has filled caverns has been recognized and
recorded from the first years of the eighteenth century.
Most authorities, however, following the example of Cuvier,
explained this association by the hypothesis of a disturbance
of the ossiferous beds within modern times. This was
making the exception the general rule* However, the
evidences multiplied, thanks to the researches of Boue,
Tournal, Christol, Joly, Schmerling and others. 1

In 1828 came the discoveries of Tournal and of Christol
in the Languedoc ; in 1833-1834 those^ of Schmerling at
Li&ge ; and in 1837 anc ^ *838 those of Edouard Lartet and
Marcel de Serres, confirming the existence of Quaternary
man in France. The thinking world still showed itself in-
credulous when a few years later, about 1850, Boucher de
Perthes decisively demonstrated the simultaneous presence
of bones of the larger extinct mammals Mammoth, Hippo-
potamus, Rhinoceros, etc. and the unquestionable products
of human industry in the Somme alluvium near Abbeville.
Boucher de Perthes at first encountered lively opposition

* XXVI, I, 6. Of. XXIV, 2*25 ; XTJT, I, i ; XXIX, 44.

24 PREHISTORIC MAN

on the part of authorities both in France and in other
countries ; but he defended his opinion with untiring energy,
continued to accumulate proofs in support of his state-
ments, and gradually converted the most eminent geologists
and zoologists of his day, both French and English.
Falconer, Sir Joseph Prestwich, Sir John Evans, Lyell,
de Quatrefages, Albert Gaudry, Rigollot, 1 etc., became the
most ardent defenders of the new theories. When Boucher
de Perthes died in 1868 he had had the satisfaction of seeing
his name immortalized by one of the greatest archaeological
discoveries of modern times.

Since then investigations have been pushed with great
energy by a large number of archaeologists both in^ France
and in foreign countries, especially in England. Edouard
Lartet and the Marquis de Vibraye, joined by the English-
man Christy, continued their fruitful excavations in the caves
of the valley of the V&z&re. In Belgium, as early as 1864,
E. Dupont explored the caverns in the neighbourhood of
Dinant.

Edouard Lartet was the first to lay the bases for a classifi-
cation of the Quaternary strata in France. The Saint-
Germain Museum was established by Napoleon III, and the
curator, Gabriel de Mortillet, by his remarkable work, 2
became the chief authority on prehistoric archaeology for
half a century. Since then there have been Ed. Piette,
L. Capitan, M. Boule, the Abbe Breuil, d'Ault du Mesnil,
Adrien de Mortillet, and a constellation of archaeologists
in France who have daily made fresh contributions to the
study of prehistoric man, whilst in England there have been
Lyell, Christy and Evans.

In Denmark, as early as i836, 8 Christian Thomsen had
classified the mesolithie and neolithic series of that country
in the galleries of the museum at Copenhagen ; Worsae
later gave scientific method to this classification. Prehistoric
archaeology rapidly won its way all over Europe as far as
Russia, and crossed the Atlantic.

In Egypt, long before my own discoveries, the most

1 LVHL

2 Essai de classification des cavernes et des stations sous abri, fond&e sur les
produits de I'industvie humaine, XIV, LXVIII, March i, 1869.

8 Ledetraad til Nordisk Oldkyndiged, 1836.

PRELIMINARY REVIEW 25

eminent Egyptologists denied the existence of a stone age
in the valley of the Nile, and this opinion was so firmly
fixed in their minds that Maspero classed (eneolithic) painted
vases as Middle Empire, and Flinders Petrie 1 explained the
presence of worked flints, which he found in his excavations,
by the invasion of the valley of the Nile by a " new race " in
historic times. In this same year, 1896, I published my
first volume on Egyptian origins, annihilating these theories,
and was immediately followed by Flinders Petrie himself.
The next year, pursuing my researches, I discovered at
Nakadah itself, the eneolithic sepulchre of Menes, the first
king of the first dynasty. 2

In Elam, as early as 1891, I had recognized the existence
of the neolithic (or eneolithic), and established the fact that
the Iranian plateau, covered with snow during the glacial
period, had not been inhabited until fairly late.

In Syria, Zumhofen, Vincent, Lortet and other archaeolo-
gists have explored the caverns with great success ; in India
the existence of palaeolithic industry has been recorded by
the Archaeological Survey ; in North Africa likewise the
studies in this respect have been conclusive. Seton Karr
explored Somaliland with great success.

In short, in half a century at the most, this science, born
in France, has made the circuit of the world, and has spread
to every continent.

In parts of the world other than Europe, in America,
Oceania, central and southern Africa, prehistory merges into
ethnography ; since, for the most part, the peoples of these
regions were still in a state of primitive culture when the
European navigators appeared. Among many of these
peoples the polished stone industry was flourishing, whilst
others were in the stage of chipped stone implements. The
persistence of the use of stone and the ignorance of writing
among a large number of tribes brings prehistory to our
own times. Thus we cannot assign dates to these industries
unless we consider them from the purely local point of view,
for no chronological connection can exist between events
which have taken place in our country and those to which
Australia, for example, bears witness. These different and,

1 Messrs. Flinders Petrie and I. E. Quibell, Nagada and Battas, 1896.

2 J. de Morgan, Recherches sur les origines de I'Ulgypte, 1897.

26 PREHISTORIC MAN

as we shall see later, most diverse industries, each have their
epoch and their geographical area.

The study of primitive peoples living in our own day,
and thus coming within the range of modern prehistory, is
extremely useful in helping us to an understanding of the
customs of the earliest inhabitants of our country. Since
like cause begets like effects, and seeing that these causes
were simple ones dictated by material needs, we may safely
explain ancient customs by those still in vogue when like
industries have been born of both.

When, in the eighteenth century, Pallas 1 visited all the
peoples then living in the Czar's domains, he encountered,
towards the extremity of Eastern Siberia, the tribe of the
Voguls, who inhabited caverns and lived by hunting and
fishing alone, not applying themselves to any sort of culture.
In times of dearth these people pounded bones and extracted
a sort of broth by cooking them.

He also saw the Chukchi who inhabit that peninsula
situated between the Siberian Arctic Ocean and the Behring
Sea, within the Arctic Circle. These men were living, as
were formerly all the Kamchadales, in underground dens and
rock shelters, closed by hanging reindeer skins in front of
the entrance. They did not then possess any metal imple-
ments ; their knives were of sharpened stone, their awls of
tapering bone, their eating and drinking vessels of wood or
leather ; for weapons they had bows and arrows, pikes and
slings ; the pikes and arrows were tipped with pointed bone.

The women tanned the skins of animals killed in the
chase, scraping them to remove the hair, after which they
rubbed them with fat and fish-roe, then they pommelled
them energetically. Sinews of beasts, pointed bones and
needles made from fish bones served them for sewing.

Not far from the Chukchi and other Kamchadale peoples,
tribes even less civilized were living on small islands, whom
Pallas designated under the name of Eastern Islanders.
These men, like the others, lived on the game they killed,
and their women, too, tanned the skins and prepared the
pelts. They had no domestic animals, not even dogs. Armed
with spears and bows, with arrow-points of bone, they passed

1 LVIL

PRELIMINARY REVIEW 27

their lives in hunting, having no other occupation than to
feed themselves.

The habitations of these people were underground dens,
sometimes a hundred metres long by six to ten wide, divided
into compartments. Here were herded together as many as
three hundred people, in the most abject filth ; others lived
in caverns and shelters which they endeavoured to close with
driftwood.

Reading this description, we might well imagine that it
dealt with Quaternary man in the caverns of Perigord, with
this difference, that our Magdalenians were artists who em-
bellished the walls of their homes with drawings, and that
quite certainly their refined tastes were manifested in their
ornaments, perhaps even in their dress ; though none of
their belongings not made of bone or stone have survived
the ravages of time, and we are ignorant of most of the
articles they must have possessed.

Pallas's description shows us the life of primitive man in
one of the rudest climates of the world, whereas the navigators
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries tell of peoples
living under a more clement sun, devoting little thought
to their subsistence, which nature provided in abundance.
Elsewhere in the virgin forests of Southern Asia and South
America man has a harder struggle for his livelihood.

I travelled and lived for several months among the
Negritos of the interior of the Malay Peninsula x at a time
when no European had yet penetrated into the heart of the
territory of these tribes. These peoples, sparsely distributed
in clans, each speaking its peculiar dialect, live in the valleys
of steep mountain ranges, whither they retreated before the
invasion of the Malays of the Plains. There, in the heart
of limitless virgin forests, they build large common dwellings,
fifteen or twenty metres in length, made of a simple pent-
roof, of interlaced leaves of the cabbage-palm, resting directly
on the ground. Their costume consists of a loin-cloth made
of bark rendered supple by beating ; for weapons the Sakais
have spear and blow-pipe ; the Semangs, bows and pikes ;
arrows and spears are tipped with sharpened bamboo coated
with a potent poison. They live by hunting and on tubers

1 Cf. J. de Morgan, in FHomme, 1885.

28 PREHISTORIC MAN

which they find in the forest; those who dwell in proximity
to Malay villages cultivate the manioc. They possess no
metal implements other than those procured from the Malays,
and they have no salt. Such social groups will disappear
without leaving any archaeological trace of their existence.

It is impossible for us, in our civilized western lands, to
form any very precise idea of what hunting and fishing are
like in these primitive and little-inhabited countries, or even
in our own, in times when man did not possess the powerful
means of destruction he uses to-day. In Europe game has
become very rare and shooting is a luxury ; as for fishing it
no longer exists except in name ; but when we travel through
new countries in which wild animals have been barely dis-
turbed, we can realize what the resources of our own lands
must have been before civilization had reduced them practi-
cally to nothing. All sorts of game, large and small, abounded,
and there were huge fish in the rivers, so that it was easy
enough to catch one's meat in the course of a few hours.
Caverns and other sites of prehistoric encampment are full
of bones, cracked for the extraction of marrow, and of remains
of fish. Conditions were very different from what they are
to-day, and the sparsely-settled peoples did not have to make
any great effort in order to gain their livelihood.

However, the climate changing, resources became ex-
hausted or so altered in nature as to compel men first to
modify their implements, then to emigrate if life became
too difficult. Thus, by a gradual process of desiccation,
many parts of North Africa and Syria have become unin-
habitable.

At El Mekta, near Gafsa, at Jeneyen, in the extreme
south of Tunis, and in many other places in the " bled," I
found prehistoric stations in places to-day deserted ; and, in
the same shelter one may see layers formed of bones, yield-
ing traces of rude flint implements, covered by others where
we find only a prodigious quantity of helix shells, and very
small flint implements greatly resembling those known in
France as Aurignacian. To the hunters of moderate-sized
game had succeeded eaters of snails. Then they, too,
departed.

These climatic modifications, although occasionally ex-
tensive geographically, were not always followed by identical

PRELIMINARY REVIEW 29

results ; thus it would be risky to attempt a generalization of
the consequent modifications on human industry, just as it
would be dangerous to synchronize two somewhat similar
industries with no other reason than the analogy of form,
since these forms may be determined by like circumstances
in different countries at very different times. Moreover, we
should not lose sight of the fact that, except in Egypt and
Peru, we possess but an insignificant collection representing
the culture of those days, objects of imperishable material ;
stone in plenty, bone and ivory sometimes, but never horn,
wood, or other perishable substances ; therefore we should be
most circumspect in assimilating two different cultures on the
mere evidence of stone implements.

If we are to believe certain writers, the different stone
industries have had each their centre of development, gradu-
ally gaining ground till they covered immense regions all
Europe, according to some. Formerly this propagation of
types was attributed to migrations and invasions ; to-day we
are led rather to recognize commercial influences in this
diffusion. It is possible that all three causes are often
involved, but it is even more probable that the centres of
invention have been multiple ; no cogent reason or shadow
of likelihood lends support to the choice of France as the site
of successive centres of civilization, merely because these
centres happen to have been the most thoroughly studied.

That a discovery should spread through lands apt for its
assimilation is not in itself surprising ; we must not on that
account credit an impossible energy to this power of expan-
sion, especially in times when communications between
distant countries were difficult, and often impossible, and
when needs were different in different parts.

Hence it is not desirable to presume a world-wide import-
ance for the many classifications proposed ; we should rather
consider these terms as expressing a local condition of
culture, varying in area, it is true, but always limited. In
many cases there is nothing to prove that the various indus-
tries of the same type were everywhere contemporaneous.
Hence, in order to avoid confusion, and generalizations for
which there is no authority, it will be useful to add to the
designation of the type, Acheulean, Moustierian, Mag-
dalenian, etc., a geographical name permitting localization,

30 PREHISTORIC MAN

such name being capable, moreover, of expressing- wide
areas in cases where synchronism may be established by
unquestionable proofs drawn from stratigraphy but not
from palaeontology alone, since, in the course of the glacial
oscillations, animals have certainly changed their habitat
without Man having necessarily followed them in their
migrations.

The inequality in the state of preservation of these
primitive cultural remains in different stations is the cause
of considerable difficulty when it becomes important to
establish comparisons. The alluvium yields us only stone
implements, as do the stations in the open ; but we know
nothing of other objects of culture which may have
accompanied the Chellean, Acheulean and Moustierian types
of the north of France. In order to establish their succession,
we take as a basis the relative position of the alluvial beds,
though we are unable to affirm that successive streams have
followed the same path and thus washed successive stations.
It may well be, that running through different areas before
superposing their contributions, these streams have simply
swept up worked flints that are contemporaneous, but which
came from different stations, belonging to distinct types of
culture ; the superpositions in the alluvium of Gafsa in
Tunis are conclusive in this regard. 1

If, in the preceding pages, we have called attention more
especially to the numerous uncertainties to be met with in
the documentation on which the study of prehistoric culture
is based, it is owing to the fact that this kind of research
is quite common, and that studies are constantly being
published in which the authors allow themselves to be
carried away and to launch a whole crowd of frequently
unscientific hypotheses. Real progress, it is true, occurs
every day, but we need not believe that our information on
the question yet authorizes the establishment of a relative
chronology analogous to that which we have in geology.
The various formations of the earth's crust being successive,
the geological difficulties are to be found only in the search
for synchronisms.

It cannot be the same in prehistory, since the evolution

1 J. de Morgan, Sur I' incertitude de la chronologie relative de$ faits
historiques; VI, 1907, 380-383,

PRELIMINARY REVIEW 31

of humanity towards progress differs according to place as
well as time and the aptitudes of Man himself. It is only
by the infinite multiplication of observations that prehistoric
fields corresponding to each cultural phase will be established ;
but in order to do this every country throughout the world
must be studied with as much care as has been expended on
the western and central portions of Europe an immense
task demanding much time and effort The collection of
worked flints is a pleasant hobby to which thousands of
amateurs devote themselves, but to make the observations
that will teach us something of the relative dates of these
different cultures is the work of experts and demands a
varied knowledge which few collectors possess.

PART ONE

THE EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

PAHT
THE EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

CHAPTER I
PALEOLITHIC INDUSTRY

Eoliths. Man certainly gave thought to the provision of
means to strengthen the power of his arm in attack and
defence when his brain had not yet developed much beyond
the animal stage. Then, gradually, the idea came to him
of adapting to his needs such weapons as his environ-
ment furnished ; the branch of a tree, broken off to a
convenient length, served his purpose ; and from stones,
roughly fashioned and provided with an edge, he made
those rude implements to which the name eoliths has been
given. These primitive implements present, however, such
close resemblances to " sports of nature " that, although their
existence cannot be doubted, it is impossible to distinguish
them with certainty from stones split and flaked by natural
forces. Certain archaeologists believe it possible to say
definitely that these primitive tools were used in Tertiary
times. The Abb6 Bourgeois, in 1867, thought he could
distinguish the marks of human industry on certain flints
(Fig* 7, Nos. i, 2 and 2a) from the Aquitanian level at
Thenay (Loir-et-Cher) : in 1871, the Portuguese geologist,
Carlos Ribeiro, discovered others in the Plaisancian beds
of Otta (Fig. 7, Nos. 3 and 3a) (Valley of the Tage); and
G. and A. de Mortillet, in their Musde Prehistorique^ show
eoliths from Puy-Courny, near Aurillac (Fig. 7, Nos. 4 and
4a), implements which would belong to the Miocene and
like those of Thenay and Otta would be clearly Tertiary.
Just recently excavations made at Ipswich, in England,

1 2nd edition, plate IV.
85

36 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

have given similar results, but somewhat more convincing-,
according to the authorities engaged in the research. The
greatest defender of Tertiary eoliths was the Belgian
geologist, A. Rutot 1 , who not only considered them to
represent the first attempts of man in the working of flint,
but also thought that they constituted a special industry
which, beginning in the Pliocene, was continued down
to modern times parallel with other stone industries.
(Fig- 7> Nos, 5 and 6). No evidence from actual facts,
however, has appeared to confirm this hypothesis ; indeed,
on the contrary, Marcellin Boule, professor at the Museum
de Paris, has conclusively shown 2 that the industrial mortars
of Guerville, near Mantes, in mixing clay and chalk for the
manufacture of cement, made eoliths in every respect similar
to Rutot's specimens, and consequently that the action
of natural forces suffices to produce those effects that have
been attributed to human agency.

None the less, it is true that we cannot deny the proba-
bility of the existence of an industry greatly inferior to the
palaeolithic, any more than the probability of human life
towards the close of the Tertiary. Unfortunately we know
but little of the continental deposits of the Miocene and
Pliocene ages, for they were almost all washed away at the
time of the great Quaternary inundations, whilst others were
swallowed up in the ocean together with the continents on
which they had accumulated : nevertheless it is in the humus
or mould of these epochs alone that we may expect to dis-
cover convincing traces of man and his works.

The Chellean Type. The oldest implements of which we
have knowledge that are quite clearly the work of man are
almond-shaped flints roughly flaked on both faces by per-
cussion, and pointed at one extremity, rounded at the other,
and slightly convex in the centre.

They differ in dimension and often also in their general
form but they are all more or less elongated and rounded,
whilst the manner in which they are cut varies considerably.
Nevertheless their average length is from ten to fifteen centi-
metres. These implements were first found at Abbeville
and Amiens, in the department of the Somme, then at

1 VH (1907), VIII, 283 ; and BulL Soc. Beige geot. (1907) XXI, i.
* M. Boule, L'ovigine des Mithes ; VI (1905), 263.

PALEOLITHIC INDUSTRY

37

Chelles in Seine-et-Marne 1 , in the Quaternary alluvium
(Fig-. 8, Nos. i, i a and b, No. 2) ; later they were discovered
in the alluvium in the north of France, in Belgium, Taubach 2 ,
Saxe- Weimar, and the Grimaldi caverns 3 near Mentone, as
well as in many other parts of Western Europe*

FIG. 7. Eoliths, i, 2, and aa, Thenay (Loir-et-Clier) ; 3 and sa, Otta
(Portugal) ; 4 and 4a, Puy-Courny ; 5 and 6 (Belgium).

In almost all these beds the typical implement, known as
Chellean, is found with flaked fragments of indeterminate
shape, worked or otherwise, and with others chipped on
one face only which archaeologists have differentiated as
Moustierian. In general all these stone tools are coarsely
worked, especially in localities such as the south of France
and Saxony where the only materials available were quartzites,

* Cf. D'Acy, I (1891), 348 ; L. Capitan, XII (1900), 55.

Cf. Klaatsch, XUX, II, 269 ; S. Reinach, VI (1897)* 53-

* Cf. M. Boule, VI (1906), 257 ; J. D^chelette, XXVI (1908), *, 7-

38 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

sandstones, quartzes, etc., which do not flake as easily as
flint.

Except in a few caverns, implements of the Chellean type
have always been found swept into the fluviatile strata, the
relative age of which is indicated by the presence of fossil
bones. At Chelles they are found with the remains of
Elephas antiquus, Rhinoceros mercki, Trongotherium, Ursus
spel&us. Hippopotamus amphibius, Hy&na spel&a, and various
Equidae related to the Tertiary horse, Equus stenonis^ whilst,
in the drift in the neighbourhood of Abbeville 1 , Elephas
meridionalis > E. primigenius. Hippopotamus major> Sus scropha^
Cervus belgrandi. Bison priscus and several other large verte-
brates were also found.

This gives us a fairly accurate idea of the conditions
under which these primitive men lived. The flora of this
epoch is revealed to us by the tufa of Celle-sous-Moret
(Seine-et-Marne) which frequently bears plant impressions
such as those of the Judas-tree, Fig-tree, the Laurel of the
Canaries, Box, and the large-leafed Spindle-tree, varieties
which are suggestive of a mild and damp climate more
temperate than that which the basin of the Seine enjoys
to-day.

The foregoing* observations apply to one region only, and
that a comparatively small area, since it includes but three
or four adjacent departments. If, however, we go seven or
eight hundred kilometres further east, keeping- within almost
the same latitude, we find in Saxony a fauna and a flora
that is rather different. In the forests of Conifer, Birch and
Laurel there lived : Elephas antiquus, Rhinoceros mercki. Bos
priscus> Hycsna spelaa, all of our own regions, and also Ursus
arctos, Sus antiquus, Equus caballus^ Cervus euryceros, Cervus
capreolus, Castor fiber, and some members of the Goat family
as yet unnamed. The climate of Saxony was at that time
cooler than that of France if we grant that the deposits
of the Seine basin were synchronous with those of Central
Europe.

At Mentone the climatic conditions likewise were some-
what different ; for we find in the silted-up layers of the
caverns remains of Ursus arctos^ an animal which does not

i D'Ault du Mesnil, VIH (1906), 284.

PALAEOLITHIC INDUSTRY

39

seem to have existed in our northern countries at that time.
We find also in eastern Provence, Elephas antiquus and
Rhinoceros mercki.

FIG. 8. Chellean Implements.

Whatever may be the character of the layers, we know
nothing of Chellean industry beyond its stone tools ; no bone
or ivory implement has come down to us, and some degree
of uncertainty haunts the very existence of the Chellean as
a distinct and typical industry. We have seen that the

40 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

Chelles character is almost everywhere associated with
another called Moustierian, characteristic of implements long-
considered to belong- to a more recent and more advanced
Quaternary industry. On the other hand, the Chellean
implement embraces the main principles of the Acheulean
axe or ' * coup de poing " of G. de Mortillet ; it is only natural
to conclude that if the Chelleans were content with a crude
implement, it was because they had not felt the need of more
highly finished tools, although they were perfectly capable
of fashioning them.

The Acheulean Type. The Acheulean industry 1 is but a
specialization of the Chellean, no doubt determined by
circumstances the details of which escape us ; but whether
induced by local changes, or by climatic modifications on a
wider scale which produced fresh needs, is still unknown.
If we are to judge by the palseontological data in our country,
a distinctly cold period followed the warm or temperate
interglacial times in which we find the fauna associated with
Chellean industry, and it is perhaps due to this change in
temperature that the prevailing use of implements of the
same type as the Chellean, but of a more highly finished
workmanship, is due. It would seem, moreover, that the
two classes of implements were not designed for the same
purpose: whilst the Chellean "coup de poing" was intended
for striking, the Acheulean axe was designed in such a way
that it could be used for both cutting and striking. The
implements of Moustierian type which are found in abundance
with the Chellean in both the drift and the caverns, prove
that the Chelleans did not work their " coups de poing" with
greater care simply because they did not find it necessary.

The Acheulean implement (Fig. 9, Nos. i, 2, and 3) in
general is lighter than the Chellean and it is more varied in
form ; we find a lanceolate form so elongated that it might
well be taken for a dagger, whereas others are elliptical,
rounded, or even discoid (Fig. 9, No. 4). These diverse
shapes are obviously intentional, but we are ignorant of the
purposes which determine the choice of form. 2

x After the name of Saint- Acheul, a sutmrb of Amiens, where there are important
deposits of this type of implement.

3 L. Capitan distinguishes eight types of implements. Cf. "Les divers instru-
ments chelleens et acheuteens," xfT (1900), 61.

PALAEOLITHIC INDUSTRY 41

The method of usage of the " coup de poing" has been
under discussion for years. Taking his stand on the em-
ployment of this implement by certain savage tribes who
still use it and without a handle, merely smearing the
butt (the round part) with a kind of resin to protect the
palm of the hand, G. de Mortillet considered that it was
used without a handle and held in the hand. Other archae-
ologists, on the contrary, have sought to reconstruct the
method of hafting, so that we can merely say that it is
probable that these tools were used in several ways. How-
ever, it seems certain that it was with the point and sharpened
edges only that the fabricators worked, since, among those
that are not quite finished off, it is always the butt that is
incompletely worked and this sometimes shows the unaltered
surface of the flint as it existed before it was chipped (cf.
Fig. 8, No. 2) ; it is never the point that has failed to receive
attention.

It has also been questioned whether the fiint-knapper
sought his material in . its original site, that is to say in the
beds where the process of its geological formation was com-
pleted, or if he used pebbles from the river drift. The
prodigality of the specimens of these tools suggest that the
source of the material was unimportant. 1 It is only later,
when neolithic industry appears on the scene and flint-
knapping has become a fine art, that implement-makers
sought their material actually in the geological strata.

In the alluvium of Northern France, at Saint- Acheul as
at Abbeville, the various types of this industry, Chellean,
Acheulean and Moustierian (Fig. 9, No. 5) are sometimes
found successively 2 in such a way as to indicate the pre-
dominance of the three types in different beds ; nevertheless
at the lowest of the levels known as Acheulean, Commont
discovered in 1905 at Saint- Acheul a work-floor still in
position, including a considerable heap of flint chips, a large
number of nuclei, and various implements such as hammer
and anvil stones, scrapers, planing-tools, arrow and spear
heads, knives, and " coups de poing."

1 H. Breuil, however (in lit. Jan. 10, 1923) is of the opinion that it is impossible
to produce good implements from the Lower and Upper (Archseolithic) Palaeolithic,
using simple pebbles, and that we must admit that flint was really mined at this
period.

2 Cf. Commont, III (1905), 202 and Vm (1906)* 22 * (i97) *4*

42 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

Formerly the three "epochs" of the river drift were con-
sidered to be quite distinct, and characterized severally by
industries shading from one into the other; but these
dogmatic theories have already crumbled to dust in France,

FIG. 9. Implements of Acheulean type.

and it is generally admitted that the Moustierian " period " of
the southern provinces is contemporaneous with the Upper
Acheulean of Picardy. 1

In the basin of the Garonne, where flint is absent and
quartzite takes its place, the resultant industry is coarser ;
this industry is encountered in many other regions (Fig. 10)

i Obermaier, " Beitrage zur Kenntnis des Quarters in den Pyrenaen," XHI
(1906), IV, 306.

PALAEOLITHIC INDUSTRY

43

and at first sight seems to be more archaic than those of the
north, but the presence of Elephas primigenius, Rhinoceros
tichorhinuS) Felis spel&a, and other varieties, indicates both
chronological concordance and the reverse. 1 In the Vienne
Charentes districts, on the contrary, the materials lend
themselves to working-, and the implements of the same

FIG. 10. Implements of Chellean type (Lake Karar, Algeria).

industries show a remarkable degree of skilled workmanship
and regularity of contour*

As always, the river drift suggests doubts as to the relative
age of these industries since they are only rarely represented
with any degree of completeness and accompanied by
palseontological evidence, and such remains may thus have
been displaced from beds slightly older than the implements
found therein. The station of Garret, in the commune of

i Cf. E. Cartaiihac, VI (1894), I ; Obermaier, op* cit+> 305.

44

EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

Villefranche (Rh6ne), presents a striking- example of such
mixed deposits. 1

In this respect the caverns offer greater security. In the
cavern of la Micoque, in the commune of Tayac in the
Dordogne, there is a bed of the greatest importance, which
Chauvet and Rivi&re 2 began to explore methodically in 1896,
and which has yielded the most valuable information on
Acheulean industry in central France.

FIG. ii. Implements of Acheulean type (Tunis).

The upper layer of the bed is composed of a loose breccia
yielding a great quantity of very fragmentary remains of
one of the Equidae, in conjunction with chipped flints and
Acheulean " coups de poing" which sometimes attain large
dimensions and sometimes are extremely small (4 centimetres),
and nearly always of delicate workmanship, together with
chips, arrow-heads, scrapers and discs of the purest Mous-
tierian type in much greater numbers.

Thus even in our own field of Western Europe, the classi-

1 Cf. XXVI, 107,

2 "Le Gisement quaternaire de la Micoque," XIV, Aug. 24, 1896; "La
station quaternaire de la Micoque, " XIII, Saint-Etienne (1897), II, 697 ; L* Capitan,
"La station acheul^enne de la Micoque," Vm (1896), 406 ; id., I (1896), 527.

PALAEOLITHIC INDUSTRY 45

fication by "ages' 5 of different cultures during the era of
stone proposed in the early days of prehistoric study is
gradually losing its value, even locally, whilst Quaternary
Man is revealed to us as having had knowledge of all three
types simultaneously, and as having made use of them
in accordance with special needs determined by climatic
and geographical conditions. It is this stage of civiliza-
tion that we describe as pal&olithic, a term to which we are
far from attaching any general chronological value ; and
we exclude from the palaeolithic the originators of contem-
poraneous industries of later glacial times industries which,
though highly particularized, nevertheless seem to be directly
derived from those just mentioned.

In our part of the world palaeolithic industry seems to
have extended over a considerable period and during this
time it certainly progressed and produced improvements in
the manufacture of implements, but it is not possible for us
to set up a rigid classification from the documentation avail-
able. The first prehistorians were too hasty in marking out
divisions whose existence is no longer admitted.

But it is not only in the west of Europe that palaeolithic
industry flourished ; it seems to have originated and developed
in a number of different places. We say originated, because
it is inadmissible to believe that it would have spread from
a single centre to regions so distant one from another and
separated by seas, deserts and high mountains.

Palaeolithic implements of the Chellean and Acheulean
type have been found in Quaternary alluvium, in caverns,
and on the surface, alike in France, Belgium, the south
of England, Spain, Algeria, Tunis (Fig. n), Italy, South
Germany, Hungary, 1 Egypt (Fig. 12), the Central African
desert, the Cape of Good Hope, Syria, the Syro-Arabian
desert, Palestine, India, Somaliland (Fig. 13), North America
(Fig. 14) 2 and Mexico ; they are still in use in Oceania
among certain populations. Their presence is doubtful in
Greece, Sicily, Malta and Siberia. 3 They are absent in
Scandinavia, Scotland, Ireland, the northern parts of England,

1 These implements are much debated. Cf. D^chelette, op. cit., 90, note I.

* Only the bed of Trenton (New Jersey) [Th. Wilson, XII (1900), 149] is
considered of the Quaternary epoch (Cf. XL, 596). _,,,_

* For the bibliography relative to all these countries, see AJL&VlI, !! ff.

46 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

FIG. 12. Implement of Acheulean type (Upper Egypt).

PALAEOLITHIC INDUSTRY 47

Germany and Russia, in Switzerland and the Tyrol, in the
Armenian, Iranian, Tibetan and Mongolian plateaux, in
Chaldea and the northern part of South America, that is to
say in all those countries which were either uninhabitable in
Glacial times or had not emerged from the ocean. Thus this
industry if not universal at least was very widespread though
undoubtedly at different periods because it met an identical
need and employed identical materials. Everywhere it pre-

FIG. 13. Implements of Chellean and Acheulean type (Somaliland).

sented almost the same characteristics. The Grimaldi and
la Micoque caverns and the open-air work-floors of Tunis, 1
Egypt and Somaliland 2 alike reveal to us that man at that
time was familiar with fire, and that he lived by hunting
and probably also by fishing. This is all that we have the
right to affirm concerning these primitive populations.

TheMoustierian Type. The industry known asMoustierian,
of which mention has been made a few pages further back
(Fig. 15, Nos, i to 6), derives its name from the station of
le Moustier, 3 in the commune of Peyrac in the department
of Dordogne, where there is a large cavern which was
explored for the first time by Lartet and Christy in 1863.

* Of. ibid.

* Cf. H. O. Forbes, XV (January 1900), ix. Nos. 3 and 4.

* For the bibliography, c UX, 181, note 3,

48 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

"We have seen above that the particular style of flint
chipping known as Moustierian goes, back, in France, to
Chellean times, that is to say, it is contemporaneous with
the earliest certain traces of Man that have come to light ;
nevertheless these implements seem to have been comple-
mentary to the use of Chellean or Acheulean " coups de
poing." At le Moustier, and in a great many of the caverns
of the V6z&re, on the contrary, the use of the " coups de
poing " becomes rare, and implements, formed from a large
single flake chipped on one face only, predominate.

FIG. 14. Implements of Chellean and Acheulean type
(North America).

The greatest development of the Moustierian type in our
regions corresponds with a damp, cold climatic phase. We
have already seen that during the period when the Acheulean
"coup de poing "was the principal implement in use, the
mean temperature had fallen considerably. As this gradual
increase of cold continued, the fauna became modified, and
the deposits of bone fragments in the cavern of la Madelaine,
as of all other caves inhabited at that period, reveal the exist-
ence in that region of the Mammoth, Rhinoceros tichorhinus^
Ursus ferox and Cervus megaceros^ species characteristic of
these times, together with the Lion, Hyaena, Leopard, Rein-
deer, "Wolverine, blue Fox, musk Ox, wild Goat, Chamois
and Marmot. Moreover, the transition from one fauna to
the other was brought about gradually, keeping pace with
the climatic changes which in turn brought about changes
in the flora.

PALAEOLITHIC INDUSTRY

As for Man, like the Kamchadales of modern times
described by Pallas, he sheltered in caverns and in hollows
beneath rocks and also, undoubtedly, made for himself

FIG. 15. Implements of Moustierian type fLe Moustier).

underground dwellings near streams in valleys lacking
natural shelters, in the same manner as the Chukchi of
Eastern Siberia. But, before these primitive men could
occupy the caverns, they had to "win them by force of arms
from the wild beasts that had made them their dens.
Frequently in the lowest "floor" of the siltage of such shelters,

r>

50 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

we find remains of the animals which occupied them bears,
lions and hysenas and which sometimes returned, either
after having driven out their human occupants or when, for
one reason or another, the cave had been abandoned. In
the cavern of Echnoz-la-Moline, in Haute-Sadne, no less than
eight hundred skeletons of bears were found. According- to
Dupont 1 many of the Belgian caverns must have been
occupied first by Hysena, then by Bear, and finally by

Man.

The principal implements among the equipment of the

FIG. 1 6. A point of the Mous-
tierian type. Yellow flint.
(Oasis of KJiarghiyeh, Egypt).

FIG. 17. A point of the Mous-
tieriantype. Flints with white
patina. (Somaliland). Seton
Karr Coll. Mus6e de Saint-
Germain, No- 35524.

troglodytes of le Moustier are points (Fig* 15, Nos. i
and 2) and scrapers (Fig. 15, Nos. 3 and 3a) ; the point
is formed of a large flake in the shape of an elongated
arch, chipped only on the two sides of the facet that has
ridges corresponding to the removal of the preceding flakes
from the nucleus* The scrapers are shaped on the same
plan, but generally the chipping is on one edge only. Then
come implements of varied forms, notched blades (Fig. 15,
No. 6) carefully worked, but always on one face only ; finally
the skilfully amygdaloid "coup de poing" chipped on both
faces.

The use of these various implements has been much
discussed ; but most of the explanations given are rather in

1 XII, Brussels, 1872, 116.

PALAEOLITHIC INDUSTRY

51

the domain of imagination than of science, since we are
completely ignorant of Man's customs at that time and are
not able to affirm with any degree of certainty how they
were employed. The people of le Moustier, like those of

FXG- 18. Implements of the Quaternary type. River Penaar. (Central
India-f Seton Karr Coll,

Mentone and Taubach, knew the use of fire. They do not
seem to have made use of worked bone, or at least we do
not possess any such instruments. At most we can point
to a few phalanges of the Horse x and humeri of Bison, that

1 Dr H. Martin, *' Maillets ou enclumes en os de la Quina," IV (1906), 155 and
189; A. de Mortillet, * c Les os utilises de la pgriode moust&rienne. Station de la
QHUMU" Rev. prthist. (1906), 231.

52

EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

bear stria that might have been cut by the hand of man.
The people of the Moustier caverns cracked open their bones
lengthwise in order to extract the marrow, but it would not
seem that they made use of the splinters at all events they
did not carve them.

The Moustierian industry is to be met with all over
France and even as far afield as Croatia, as well as in other
regions such as Tunis, Egypt (Fig. 16), Syria, Somaliland

FIG, 19. Implements of Moustierian type (Trenton Abbot ColL
from sketches by Dr L. Capitan),

(Fig. 17), India (Fig. 18), and the United States (Fig. 19) ;
it is intimately associated with that known as Acheulean,
and in the various stations the proportions of the two
varieties are practically the same. 1

Such similarity in the forms of implements leads us to
think that these industries were spread over the greater part
of Western and Central Europe during the same periods ; but
we must not necessarily deduce from this that the different
people who inhabited these lands were of the same blood.
A few chipped stones are not sufficient to throw much light
on such ethnical questions.

1 Cfc Obermaier, VI (1905), 19.

CHAPTER II
ARCH^EOLITHIC INDUSTRIES IN EUROPE

DURING the period of greatest glacial extent, the northern
continent constituted the main reservoir of the snows and
the point of departure for glaciers. Its subsidence caused
these vast masses of ice to melt, bringing- about great
floods, and at the same time a considerable lowering of the
mean temperature in those regions in proximity to the old
ice-fields. This period of cold, which in our part of the
world was certainly of long duration, caused profound
changes in both the fauna and flora and in the conditions
of Man's existence. The floods certainly caused great destruc-
tion and considerable displacements of population ; for, whilst
the habitable area was increased in some directions by the
retreat of the glaciers over wide regions, it was restricted
in others because much of the land gradually disappeared
beneath the water, in some places temporarily, in others
for ever.

In many districts, such as Egypt, Somaliland, Mesopotamia
and India, the population was driven out with the fauna
with which it had lived ; thus in these countries there was
a long hiatus during whose course we find no trace of
Man. This hiatus corresponds to the age of archaeolithic
industry. This evident depopulation in the regions just
mentioned is less clear in Western Europe, where it only
affects districts of small area. After this cataclysm life was
preserved in " districts of survival " among men who had
escaped extermination owing to the situation of their habitat
or who had had time to flee from the danger. . In
those " districts of survival " new industries developed in
accordance with the requirements of the new conditions.
There is no doubt to-day that the Aurignacian culture, the
first phase of this evolution in the west, developed out of
the Moustierian. Then began the multiplication of human
beings in these centres from which gradually the recon-

54 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

stitution of the population of the world was to come. Every-
where that we find remains of the beginnings of archaeolithic
industry we can regard the existence of such survival areas
as certain ; everywhere that a gap exists after the close
of the palaeolithic, we can be sure that that district remained
uninhabited for a considerable time and was colonized anew
by people from outside it, coming in either from survival
areas or from distant lands.

This phase of culture in Europe, generally known as
The Reindeer Age because of the prominence of this member
of the deer family in the fauna of that time, to which Piette
has given the name of the glyptic period, because certain
districts yield such hard materials as bone, ivory, stone,
and carved or incised reindeer horn, is sharply differentiated
from the palaeolithic by stratigraphy as well as by its own
characteristic industries.

Dr Hamy, as early as 1870, in his Precis de pal&ontologie
humaine, divided the late Quaternary into three successive
epochs after the Moustierian, the oldest being the Aurigna-
cian industry, followed by the Solutrean and Magdalenian
which last closes the series of what we call the archseolithic
industries of Western Europe. This order is generally
admitted to-day. 1

This phase of industry, which is well developed in France,
demonstrates aptitudes hitherto unknown in the inhabitants :
the arts begin, or, rather, we meet their first manifestations
during this era.

The archaeolithic and mesolithic flint industries present
certain general characteristics. Implements are made of
flakes chipped in a variety of ways ; in this they differ
from the palaeolithic industry which utilized the core
itself, chipping it on both faces, and chipped the flakes on
one side only, that opposite the percussion convexity.
The less ancient implements are very varied in shape,
and much localized, some being of independent form,
whereas others are obviously developed one from another
by transformations.

i Breuil, Essai sur la stratigraphie des d&pdts de I'dge du rffnn*, Congris
prthist. JFr. 9 P^rigueux (1905), 75? E. Cartailhac, id., 83. A. de MortiUet (XL,
last edition) and Al. Girod, vBl (1900), 309, perpetuating their error, stUl put the
Aurignacian between the Solutrean and the Magdalenian.

ARCHJEOT.ITHIC INDUSTRIES 55

According to our present knowledge, we see that in
certain regions, such as Western Europe, there were
numerous transition forms between the Chelleo-Moustierian
type and that of the polished stone industry, whereas other
localities possess only a few, and in certain countries we
seem to pass directly from the palaeolithic industry to
neolithic culture, perhaps even to that of metal, without
meeting the slightest trace of any archaeolithic or mesolithic
phase whatsoever. This is the case in Egypt, while Italy
seems to have passed directly from an archaeolithic type
to the Campignian industry without having known the
Solutrean and Magdalenian forms.

In North America the industries are partly of the
Acheulean and partly of the polished stone type ; we
meet at the same time implements belonging to all the
European types, from the Moustierian to that of the
Danish kitchen middens ; and to a large extent these
tools, or at least these shapes, were still in use among the
Indians many years after the colonization of the coasts
by Europeans.

In order to obtain an idea of what were the conditions of
human existence during the period which produced in France
these various archseolithic industries, we must turn to the
phenomena that have taken place since the disappearance
of the great glaciers, and consider in what state the snow
had left the soil.

In their retreat the glaciers gradually abandoned vast
territories, at first unproductive, although soaked with
moisture, cut up in every direction by streams and
covered with quagmires, marshes, lakes, and islands of
melting ice. The grass zone gradually extended over
these areas. On the level land it formed immense prairies
of which wild animals took possession, followed by the
human beings who hunted them, either making their
homes there or penetrating only on hunting expeditions
in favourable seasons. In the rear of these steppes
forests advanced, gaining on them progressively, and
following from a considerable distance the line of glacial
movement, thus presenting the characteristic appearance
of cold countries. This earliest forest zone, of varying
depth, itself was replaced in turn, at a point still further

56 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

back) by the coppices of more temperate climes having
frequent clearings, with swamps in the low-lying- ground,
and pastures on the uplands. The flora and fauna
showed every variety intermediate between the glacial
zones and really hot countries.

It must not be forgotten that the melting of vast masses
of ice, absorbing an enormous amount of heat, produced an
intense lowering of the temperature in their neighbourhood ; I
this cold chiefly influenced the steppes lying nearer than
the forest zone to the glaciers. Under such conditions the
climatic variations between different parts of France were
much greater than they are to-day, and the mean temperature
was colder. Reindeer multiplied rapidly, herds of Horses
ranged over the steppes of our northern and central districts
in company with the Bison, still numerous in North America
during recent centuries. The forests supplied the Mammoths
not only with food but with the mysterious retreats those
pachyderms affected. Goats followed the retreating snow into
the mountains. It was in this complex and infinitely varied
environment that the development took place, in Western
and Central Europe, of the archseolithic industries of
the survivors of the disasters accompanying and follow-
ing the disappearance of the glaciers. In those regions
nearer the tropics, however, the conditions of life were
different.

During recent years, thanks to the labour of a group of
conscientious observers, discovery has borne its fruit. To
the very natural confusion of the early days rational
classifications have succeeded, relative dates have become
certain, and the distribution and extent of industries has
become clear.

Some, widely diffused, extend throughout all those
districts separating Spain from the North Sea ; others are
more limited. Man has become better armed against the
varied difficulties with which nature confronts him, and
perhaps these difficulties themselves have become less trouble-
some than in the past. Population is much sparser, however,
and for a long period wide stretches of the earth will be left
untenanted.

1 In northern seas, according to some authors, the proximity of an iceberg can
l>e recognized, at night, by the rapid fall of the thermometer.

ARCH^EOLITHIC INDUSTRIES

57

THE AURIGNACIAN INDUSTRY

Flint Implements (Fig. 20). Points and scrapers of the
Moustierian type abound in Aurignacian strata, but we find
also a good many forms hitherto unused, among* others
planing tools chipped from very thick flakes, sometimes
even from blocks having the appearance of nuclei ; this new
method of manufacture was undoubtedly adopted to give the
tool greater resistance to fracture ; hence it must have been
intended for use on relatively hard materials. Then come
blades with a single or double notch, others chipped on one

Aurignacian Industry. Principal types of chipped flints.

side alone, thus forming knives with backs ; more or less
finely pointed drills, curved and angular graving tools in-
tended for work in tough materials such as stone, ivory,
bone, horn, hard wood, etc. All these forms are new and
some will persist up till the appearance of metal.

Bone Implements The Aurignacian bone tools are hastily
and coarsely worked. They consist of points, some of
them split open at the base ; coarse pins or awls with a
head ; polishers and bones with deep incisions. But we do
not know to what use these various objects were put.

With the above industry appear Man's first tentative
artistic efforts, or at least the earliest of which we yet have

* Fig. 20, No. 6, is not to be confqsecl with the Magdalenian forked point,

58 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

knowledge. They consist in attempts at graving- on soft
rocks, and in naive sculptures in high relief figurines for
the most part representing women in the nude. We shall
return to this subject when dealing with art in Quaternary
times, but we mention them in this connection because these
engravings and sculptures explain the existence of the
short gravers and very thick planing tools indispensable for
working hard materials.

Together with the remains of the Aurignacian industry are
found the bones of all those animals which Man then used
for food, and the bones and teeth of which he employed in the
manufacture of the implements necessary to his life, and the
pelts for clothing, since the times were cold. These animals
were : Elephas primigenius, Rhinoceros tickorhinus^ Ursus
spelaus, Felts spelaa, Hytena spelcea, Equus caballus^ Bison
priscus, Cervus megaceros (of Ireland), Reindeer in great
numbers, wild Goat (Capra ibex). Roe-deer (Cervus capreolus)^
a Bear and a Hyasna of unnamed species.

Game certainly abounded, but often its capture was a
difficult matter, and the carnivores particularly were formid-
able. How were these men, armed only with the implements
known to us, enabled to match themselves against such
powerful beasts? The little flint points of the Moustierian
type were incapable of bringing down a mammoth or a bison.
Obviously they had more powerful weapons, made of
materials which have disintegrated, such as wood or horn ;
probably they also employed snares, traps and pits similar
to those still in use in Indo-China for trapping tigers pits
furnished with sharpened bamboo stakes implanted in the
ground, on which the animal impales itself in its fall.

This observation with regard to the insufficiency of Aurig-
nacian Man's stone weapons applies equally to every phase
of Quaternary culture, as well as to many groups of un-
civilized men in our own times ; but in our era these primitive
men increase the efficacy of their arrows and pikes by smearing
the points with poison ; perhaps men did the same in long-
past ages.

Dyeing* We possess no other proofs of this custom than
the presence of mineral colours in the Aurig-nacian layers
of the caverns. In the station of Roches (Indre) Septier
discovered seventeen specimens of colouring material, among

ARCHJEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES 59

them a blood-coloured plaque, some red or wine-lees coloured
clayey earths, sandstones containing- oxide of iron, red and
yellow ochre, and fragments of pyrolusite and oxide of
manganese. 1 Iron ore and manganese ore have been dis-
covered in the Grotte des Fees, 2 and in the Aurignacian
Caverne des Cottes (Vienne) a carved reindeer cannon-bone
has been found containing ochre. 3

For what were these colours used? Were they for
dyeing the skins of which the Aurignacians made their
clothes, or for tattooing the body, a practice still in use
among numerous savage tribes, in vogue in prehistoric
Egypt, and even among the Ligures and Gauls? We are
persuaded to believe that these people covered their bodies
with painted designs, when we remember certain objects
discovered in the floor levels of this epoch at Crot-du-Charnier
(Solutre) : rude articles of adornment in bone and ivory are
found associated with fragments of colouring matter and
plaquettes of schist, which, as in the Valley of the Nile,
probably served as palettes for crushing and mixing the
colours with oil, fat or water.

THE SoLUTREArc INDUSTRY

Sections made at the Crot-du-Charnier, at Solutre (Saone-
et-Loire), 4 permit no doubt as to the priority of the Aurignacian
industry over that of the Solutreans, the first of these two
industries being represented at the bottom by two separate
floor levels, each covered by a layer of rock detritus. It is
on top of the last of these sterile layers that the Solutrean
floors are found, accompanied by a fauna differing completely
from that of the lower levels. We find the Wolf and the Fox,
Hyana spelc&a, Ursus spel&us and U* arctos y Meles taxus,
Mustella pustorzus, Lepus timidus, Elephas primigenius, Rquus
caballus, Cervus tarandus, Cervus canadensis, Bos primigenius^
wading Birds and Birds of prey, etc., of unnamed species.*
... In the layers lying between the floors of the two
industries is one composed entirely of the bones of Equidae,

1 IX (1904), 265.

* V (1869), 3&7-

* Breuil, YlS (1906), 53,

4 Cf. Arcelin, JBull. Sc. nat. Sa$ne-et-Loire^ November-December 1901.
6 XXVI, 134-

60 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

giving rise tcr the idea that the Solutreans had domesticated
the Horse ; but this opinion has been abandoned. 1

Flint implements (Fig. 21). These implements as a whole
are remarkable for their fine technique, and are of two diff-
erent sorts, each manufactured from rather large flakes
chipped with great skill. Some are chipped only on one
face, points, planing tools, drills, saws, etc., analogous
to those of the Moustierian and Aurignacian industries ;
others, fashioned on both sides but rather slender, are
heads of javelins, hunting spears, and daggers (?) ; all are
of the lanceolate form of a willow or laurel leaf; occasionally
they are rounded at one extremity while the other remains
sharp.

It is nothing less than a genuine revolution in stone "work-
ing which becomes apparent in the Solutrean industry, and
this lanceolate type of point will be found in every age and
in every country, at different epochs. During the Neolithic it
is seen in Scandinavia, Egypt, Tunis, Central Africa,
Susiana, Mexico, and the United States, either in the form
of arrow-heads or in examples large enough to serve as
heads for lances or javelins ; they are known in flint, quartz,
flint-like feldspar, obsidian, etc. \ but notched and tanged
arrow-heads are also to be found. The various tools of
the Aurignacians persist in Solutrean times, sometimes
even more completely than in the former industry ; we find
the double scraper and the single or double drills in short
nearly all the forms that flints can take in the hands of
skilled workers.

Bone Implements. A series of very fine bone needles
pierced with an eye and of delicate workmanship was re-
covered from a floor layer in which these sewing implements
were found in company with notched arrow-heads, incised
reindeer-horn implements, shells, and animals* teeth with
holes for stringing. The Solutreans occupied themselves
with works of art, and engraved animal figures on their
palettes of reindeer horn.

Geographical Distribution. The Solutrean industry, how-
ever, is limited to one district of our part of the world and
presents a somewhat local interest. It is almost completely
absent in the north of France ; but traces of it exist In

1 I4X, 204,

ARCH^OLITHIC INDUSTRIES 61

Belgium, the British Isles, on the Rhine, and in Bavaria.
It seems to be developed especially between the central

FIG. ai.i Solutrean Industry. Principal types of chipped flints.

Massif and the Jura on one hand, and on the other towards
the Pyrenees and Catalonia in Spain.

Nevertheless certain discoveries made at Predmost
(Moravia) and in the caverns in the neighbourhood of
Ojc6w (Russian Poland), 2 in Wiirttemberg and in Hungary,

4 arld 5 W 6 ** a- 180 an <* especially in the Upper Aurignacian.
IiXIX, 143 and 174. ^

62 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

appear to be Solutrean. It is possible that the form is
analogous ; but, owing to the distance of these stations from
the Solutrean area, limited even in France, it is difficult to
admit the identity and the synchronism proposed by the
Germans*

This industry, certainly imposed on the people by the
fauna and the climate of a certain district of France, seems
to be peculiar to that country. A few of these forms have
been in use in other regions, such as the notched and tanged
arrow-heads, the double scraper, and the laurel-leaf point,
for example. But these analogies should only be taken
into consideration to furnish one more proof that analogous
needs bring about the production of similar implements :
the presence of points of the Solutrean (thick) type in
the Lower Palaeolithic of Egypt and Algeria is a case in
point.

MAGDALENIAN INDUSTRY

The industry known as the Magdalenian, from the name
of the cave of la Madelaine in the commune of Tursac
(Dordogne), constitutes, in France, the last phase of the
Reindeer Age and the final evidence of the life of Pleistocene
Man ; it is the last of the cultures designated archaeolithic.

At that epoch the climate of Western Europe was still
very cold, and it is likely that the seaward boundaries of the
continents were not what they are to day, but that there were
still some extensive stretches of land intercepting those ocean
currents which now render our part of the world temperate.
The climate of France was then continental. The proof of
this lies in the fact that our country sustained an arctic fauna:
Saiga, Canadian Deer, Musk Ox, Lemming, Blue Fox, Grey
Bear, and that characteristic animal of the north, the Reindeer,
Nevertheless, the last of the mammoths and rhinoceroses,
probably cut off in their migration toward the south, still
lived in our forests j their presence, moreover, should not
surprise us, for, in spite of the oncoming of intense cold, they
continued to inhabit Siberia, and the Liakhov Islands, further
north, for a long while.

Man continued to live in caverns and also, no doubt, in
underground shelters which he constructed himself. He

ARCELEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES 63

retained his hunting and fishing habits, and lived on game
and fish ; but the experience of many preceding genera-
tions taught him to make numerous improvements in the
method of using for weapons such hard animal materials
as bone and ivory ; probably he also employed to better
advantage than his predecessors wood, horn, and other
materials at his disposal which have not resisted the ravages
of time. The Solutreans seem to have made the very most
that could be made of chipped flints ; after their day it was to
ivory and bone that the Magdalenians turned their attention,
and though they retained most of the forms used by their
predecessors (always excepting the laurel -leaf point and
the notched arrow-head) they created a great many new
implements of bone and ivory, which, to a large extent, we
still find in use among the primitive peoples of our own
times.

Flint Implements (Fig. 22). The great importance attached
by the Magdalenians to work in ivory, bone, deer and
reindeer horn, constrained them to manufacture a whole
series of flint implements especially designed for this work ;
also a number of forms hitherto unknown appear. These
are blades chipped at the sides and provided with a tang,
no doubt for hafting ; straight and oblique scrapers, blades
with multiple notches which may have served as saws ; awls
and gravers, sometimes very finely made ; and, finally,
hybrid types of scraper-gravers. There are even some
among these instruments so fine that it has been supposed
that they were designed to pierce the eyes of bone needles
or to prick the skin for tattooing; but along with these
special forms are found single or double scrapers, and plain
or chipped blades, very skilfully flaked from the nuclei,
in great abundance ; also blades of all sizes, from those of
a few millimetres in breadth to long knives of some twenty
centimetres in length, all of them in countless numbers
in the caverns.

Implements of bone, ivory , and reindeer and deer horn (Fig. 23).
We shall consider these implements from the point of view
of their use only ; all are more or less ornamented, and their
artistic character will be dealt with in the chapter specially
devoted to the arts.

The characteristic implements of the Magdalenian industry

64 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

are the harpoon and the spear-head, these weapons being
made always of ivory, reindeer horn or bone.

The spear-head is a simple stem, round or elliptical in
section, tapering very much at the point and either thickening
or diminishing at the base, according to whether the hafting
is accomplished by binding it on to the end of the shaft, or

FIG. 22. Magdalenian Industry (principal types of chipped flints).

by implanting it in a wooden shaft previously bored for it.
In both cases it was necessary to make a strong ligature
round this hafting with specially prepared sinews. Modern
primitive peoples make great use of this kind of weapon, and
in our ethnographic museums we have complete panoplies.

The small points served as arrow-heads ; for, no doubt,
the Magdalenians, so advanced in regard to their implements,
and familiar with the throwing-stick still used by the
Australians, the Chukchi and the Esquimaux, 1 were not
ignorant of the use of the bow ; even the Solutreans may
have been archers.

The Magdalenian harpoon is a long point, round in

* The Pre-Columbian Mexicans and Peruvians used the throwxng^tick.

ARCHLEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES 65

section, provided with barbs, often multiple, arranged some-
times on one side only but frequently on both. In this case
the barbs alternate on right and left, at equal distances one
from the other.

Among- these harpoons there are some very small ones

^r-

FIG. 23. Magdalenian Industry (implements of bone and ivory).

which probably were used on arrows ; they are made on the
same model.

At the base of these instruments two protruding points
provide for a secure fastening to the shafts, and when the
head is intended to separate from the shaft, serve as a notch
to which the floating line can be attached.

As for the throwing-sticks, the Mas d'Azil cave (Ari&ge),
the station of Bruniquel (Tarn-et-Garonne), and many other
localities have furnished us complete or fragmentary speci-
mens. These are cylindrical sticks provided with a stop-

66 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

notch, similar in every way to modern throwing-sticks, but
generally ornamented with carvings, representing animals,
that are often most remarkable.

In the Magdalenian caves there are found also peculiar
implements whose use is not known and which have been
called " batons de commandement." These are pieces of
reindeer antler cut slightly above and slightly below the
beginning of a branch-antler, pierced with large circular
holes and frequently ornamented with engravings represent-
ing animals, or with more or less regular lines. These have
been found as early as the Solutrean epoch ; but it is in the
Magdalenian that they are most frequent,

Every possible explanation of the use of these curious
implements has been suggested ; the most probable is that
which allocates to them a magical or religious role, 1

To this already long list of implements of bone, ivory and
reindeer horn must be added needles, remarkable for their
construction, and especially for the skill with which the eye
has been pierced ; pins with or without a head, spatulas,
polishers, bones tapered by polishing, and implements of
undefinable shape, the use of which remains unknown.

When we see how skilful the Magdalenians had become
in bonework, and with what care they polished these imple-
ments, we are surprised at discovering that they never
attempted to polish stone. The delicacy and precision of
this bone cutting took the place of edges produced by friction,
and as their principal weapons were of bone and ivory, they
did not feel the need of replacing these edges by more
perishable implements of flint*

Ceramics. None of our Magdalenian stations have fur-
nished pottery ; but eminently trustworthy Belgian pre-
historians maintain that the contemporaneous stations of the
valleys of the Meuse and the Lesse have yielded a very
primitive, yet clearly characterised pottery. 2 This pottery
was hand-made from a coarse clay and badly baked. No
complete vases have been recovered but only fragments
which would appear to have belonged to large, open, flat-
bottomed bowls. 8

l Cf. XLVm,i, So.

* Cf. J alien Fraipont, * r La poterie en Belgique 4 1'&ge du mammouth/* in
171.

INDUSTRIES 67

We know that many tribes of our own times, of primitive
culture, have no knowledge of pottery ; and that, more
especially among- the nomads, earthen pots are excluded
from their equipment on account of their fragility ; the more
advanced replace them by utensils of metal, the more bar-
baric by receptacles of leather or wood. This is probably
what took place among the Magdalenian troglodytes of our
regions. "We sometimes find in the caverns, however,**flint
geodes of various sizes, and these are occasionally further
scooped out by rough working ; we also find pebbles hollowed
into the form of a mortar, 1 sometimes provided with a sort
of handle. These cupped stones have been compared with
analogous objects used by the savages of South America to
procure fire by means of a dry and inflammable piece of
wood which is rapidly twirled in these naturally rugose
cavities. 2 Hence the existence of pottery in a given station
does not definitely indicate the nature and epoch of the
industry of that site.

Distribution of the Magdalenian Industry* This industry
seems to have occupied a considerable area in the west of
Europe ; we meet it almost all over France ; in the south
and centre of England ; in Belgium ; central Germany ;
Austria ; Hungary ; Poland, and as far afield as Russia.
In the south, in the Mediterranean countries, we as yet know
it only in northern Spain, but it appears in the caverns of
the Syrian coast. It thus extends, except as regards Syria,
over regions which in those days enjoyed a more or less
similar climate, and possessed almost the same flora and
fauna. The presence in the Magdalenian layers of ornaments
of ocean -shells and shells from the Mediterranean suggest
that at that period commercial relations were already being
gradually extended, thus leading to the deduction that,
starting in one locality, the Magdalenian forms of industry
spread widely. This explanation is certainly satisfactory,
because the area recognized as Magdalenian is not of ex-
aggerated extent and hence the Magdalenian cultures-forms,
created for special conditions, would not have left their place
of origin. The existence, however, of any single centre for
that origin is far from proven, since it is quite possible that

* L and IT!* 1 ^ pi- XXII, no. 2 L, I, 249.

68 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

the greater part of these forms, determined by new conditions
of life, might have appeared at the same time in many
different localities among tribes widely divergent from the
ethnic point of view. Our documentation regarding the
eastern districts of Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Syria is
still too incomplete to authorize us to unify all industries of
a general Magdalenian aspect or to consider them as con-
temporaneous ; we are even ignorant if there was an exact
synchronism between the climatic conditions of the Occident
and Orient in the Reindeer Age ; or if this animal retreated
toward the north when it left our regions or the steppes of
Russia. The presence in these days of the Aurochs in the
forests of Lithuania, and its existence in Germany in the
times of Caesar and Tacitus, when it had disappeared from
Gaul, would seem to indicate that the migration of these
animals was at first from the west eastwards across Central
Europe, following the climatic changes ; then from the south
northwards, working up from the Russian plains to Lapland
and the coasts of the Arctic Ocean. In that case the industry
appropriate to the conditions of the life of the reindeer would
have followed, and there would be no synchronism for the
various stations beyond the Alps. Moreover, thousands
of years after the extinction of the Magdalenian culture in
our land, many northern tribes still practise these industries,
and one can hardly deny that such inventions, meeting
special needs, are born wherever those needs make themselves
felt (Fig. 24).

The Magdalenian industry, even in the Occident, is far
from homogeneous ; in the numerous stations where its
remains are found the implements vary in detail, as also in
development of artistic taste ; such variations are due either
to local conditions, or to the different phases of this culture
as exemplified at different stations ; but as a result of the
nature of the researches undertaken, and the methods
employed, together with the mental tendencies of the re-
searchers, these various evidences of Magdalenian life have
received different names, all more or less justified in them-
selves, but each being considered, quite erroneously in our
opinion, as corresponding to special ages. Thus we see
such classifications as the Ebumian, Glyptic, Gourdanian,
Tarandian, Lortetian y Elaphotarandian, Hippidan, Egutdzan

ARCELEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES 69

FIG. 24. Chi;

flints of the Capsian industry : i to 8, El Mekta
s) ; 9 to 15, Foum el Maza (tunis).

70

EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

1

&

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fi

:H

fiq

* 5
53

| 3

tft

H

4
1

5n3

* S3
^ ed

I 1 !

I

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C-s |s

O o> C^

00 rJB fc S

. "^S 2 S3

*s :>s

O ttS

38

Is

II

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'I

ARCH^EOLITHIC INDUSTRIES

71

and Blaphian industries, to which it has been attempted,
without justification, to assign a chronological value ; such
assignments usually having a merely local value, showing
how the researchers, brought into contact with reality,
all have a tendency to divide these industries according to
place and climate, and to give a very great importance to
prehistoric regionalism despite theories of generalization.

Gisement $al(zolithigucs= Paleolithic Deposits. Stations entolithiques-=.Eneolithic
Stations. KJoekenmoeddings enolithiques=zEneolithic Kitcken Middens.

FIG. 25. Prehistoric stations in the desert between the Nile Valley
and the Oases. (From a sketch-plan by G. Legrain in 1897).

After having set forth all that is known of those industries,
which in our part of the world were developed in Quaternary
times, it may be useful to sum up in tabular form the more
important facts relating to the life of Man, to the climate, and
to the accompanying fauna. We borrow the main features
of this table from Marcellin Boule. 1

We cannot insist too much on the fact that this table is
applicable only to the western countries of Europe, both in

* M. Boule, VI (1906), 261 ; Dchelette, op. cit. 9 46,

72 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

regard to the glacial phenomena, th$ climates which it in-
dicates and the resulting types of fauna and industry ; many
regions never experienced the effects of the glacial period ;
others have only been affected by it to the extent of a recrud-
escence of the humidity of the atmosphere, resulting in modi-
fications in their fauna entirely different from those which
have taken place in our northern latitudes, and hence in these
areas a completely different course has been followed by the
life of Man. Thus the inhabitants of Egypt seem to have
passed directly from the palaeolithic industry to neolithic,
perhaps even to eneolithic, and the same seems to be
true of Mesopotamia. None the less we dare not deny
absolutely the existence of archaeolithic industries in some
localities of these oriental countries merely because we have
not yet met traces of it. It is certain that after the great
Quaternary inundations these regions remained desert for a
long while ; the sudden appearance of eneolithic industry
in the valley of the Nile and in Chaldea supports this
hypothesis. In the Egyptian (Fig. 25), Arabian and Syrian
deserts, palaeolithic implements are extremely numerous.
The population at that time was relatively very dense in
these countries ; then, as we have seen, there was a hiatus
covering all those developments of culture that in Western
Europe correspond to archaeolithic and mesolithic industries.
It might be claimed that this gap is merely apparent and
that it is due only to the insufficiency of our researches.
Taking into consideration the great areas in which no form
of implement is found that could be attributed to archaeologic
industries, I am unable to agree with this view.

CHAPTER III
THE MESOLITHIC INDUSTRIES

- ETHNOLOGISTS are accustomed to include in the
neolithic industrial phase cultures differing greatly from
those we have just been considering, and, in their opinion,
transitional between the chipped stone industries and polished
stone tools. On the one hand we find among the equipment
of these groups many implements common to them and the
Magdalenians, whilst, on the other, new forms appear which
do not include those of polished stone* In 1909 l I proposed
for these intermediate industries the name of Mesolithic.

"In reality/' says J. D6chelette in his Manuel* "the
ancient technique, that of chipping flint, persisted parallel
with the new processes. Several types of tools, ordinary
blades, notched blades, scrapers, drills, etc., fundamental
forms of the flint tools of all times and latitudes, remain in
use, though sometimes undergoing slight modifications.
New tools likewise chipped by percussion or by pressure
appear alongside the ancient types. 55

In our part of the world, at that time, the conditions of
life had been modified; to the dry cold of Magdalenian
times had succeeded at first a damp, temperate climate, and
the glaciers came gradually to be limited to the regions they
occupy to-day. The present fauna became established, the
Reindeer withdrew into northern regions, and the pachyderms
disappeared, although they had survived the intense cold of
later Quaternary times and although the conditions in Gaul
had become more favourable for them than in the past.

This disappearance, coincident with a neglect of art,
which had been so highly developed among the Magdalenians,
suggests that in spite of the reasoning and conclusions of
most prehistorians, 3 there exists a gap in our knowledge, a
hiatus whose existence cannot be denied. 4 The phenomena

1 XXXVH, 136 ff. 8 1, 308.

* or. xxvx, i, 310 ; MX, 266*282. 4 cf. LV, 247*

74 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

which took place at that time and which caused this hiatus
were certainly of a natural order, otherwise the Mammoth,
the Bison, and many other animals besides would not have
become suddenly extinct As for the disappearance of the
arts, it is complete, or at all events those timid attempts of
the early days of mesolithic and neolithic industries are
certainly not a degeneration of the art of the caves, for they
do not appear to be inspired by the same spirit.

From the outset of mesolithic industry a greater variety
of culture is evident than in Quaternary times. Special
needs corresponded with differing climatic regions, and since
the human mind is receptive of new ideas, more intimate
groupings than of old, and a great development of local
tastes and tendencies resulted. As for the migrations to
which formerly perhaps too much importance was given,
but which to-day seem to be too much denied, they have
certainly played a great part in the transformation of the
civilizations of Western Europe. It is difficult to explain
otherwise how the Magdalenian tribes, remaining in the
land of their origin, dwindled to the point of leaving nothing
of their civilization, at the very moment when the conditions
of their existence became most favourable. "Whatever was
the cause of it, the caverns are almost all abandoned at this
epoch, although they always offered excellent shelters*
Without doubt these sudden transformations in the life of
Man were the result of profound causes, and everything leads
us to believe that they are due to the intervention of peoples
newly come into our part of Europe.

It must not be forgotten that Siberia, which from the

beginning of the glacial era was without communication with

Europe, separated as it had been from Europe by the glaciers

of the Russian steppes and the Aralo-Caspian lake, had just

had the way opened up to the old world, and that hordes,

driven from their country of origin by the cold, started to

come in successive waves and to flood Europe, Iran and India

in search of greater ease of life. These migrations from East

to West began very early and continued almost up to our

days, flood after flood appearing almost ceaselessly. In these

movements we must seek the cause of the confusion which

we recognize in the succession of western industries ; and

also that of the appearance of brachycephalic people and of

MESOLITHIC INDUSTRIES 75

the languages of the Aryan group. Thus a great revolution
took place at this period.

Azilian Industry Among the rare discoveries which throw
light on the beginnings of mesolithic industries, those of Piette
in the cave of the Mas d'Azil (Ari&ge) a are of first.importance.

Lying above two layers clearly characteristic of the
Magdalenian industry, and separated from these floors by a
stratum of yellow river-ooze, were found the remains of a

FIG. a6. Harpoons of bone and stag-antter, 1-3, rr

Cave of Touiusse (Haute-Garonne). 5-6. Cave of Reilhac (Lot)

culture to which Piette gave the name of the Azilian Epoch.
Here were found hearths, heaps of peroxide of iron, numerous
bones of deer but none of reindeer chipped flints of the
Magdalenian type in great abundance, little rounded side-
scrapers, knife-blade implements, flat and perforated har-
poons of stag-antler, bone stilettos and polishers, and broken
bones giving evidence of the presence in this region of
the common Stag, Roe-deer, Bear, wild Boar, Beaver,
Badger, wild Cat, etc. Piette came across numerous
pebbles of schist bearing marks traced in red ochre. This,
though astonishing, is confirmed by similar discoveries m
other caves, such as in those at Cousade 2 near Narbonne,
and Tourasse. 8

a

Bre.0. Cf. SCXVJ, I, 3I-

76 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

In this same layer were two skeletons, of which we shall
speak later in connection with funeral customs.

Above the Azilian layer the explorer found a last archaeo-
logical level containing, among other implements, tools of
polished stone. Thus the Azilian industry is intermediate
between that of the Magdalenians and neolithic culture.

It is not only in the Mas d'Azil that we find the remains of
this particular industry, for many of the caves of Ariege and of
Haute-Garonne yield them ; and, if we take into considera-
tion the form of the harpoons, we shall find similar examples
in the Dordogne, and even in Scotland in the Oban cavern
(Argyllshire) ; but it would be overbold to base a likeness of
culture merely on the form of a single implement

Tourassian Industry. Among mesolithic industries we
may cite, in passing, the industry A. de Mortillet 1 called
Tourassian, considered by this archaeological authority as
marking a stage in the degeneration and extinction of the
Quaternary industry. He saw in this a special epoch, traces
of which he believed he had found all over Europe, in the
Mediterranean basin, and as far afield as India* In reality
this industry does not seem to correspond so much to any
particular culture as to special not very well defined needs
common to many countries, and, probably, to different
epochs, including, it would seem, the closing phase of
mesolithic industry and the opening phase of polished stone.

The Industry of the Danish Kitchen Middens* The kitchen
middens, or food refuse heaps, are mounds of rubbish left by
people near their habitations, sometimes on the very site of
their encampment. These mounds are of all times and all
places; in Western and Northern Europe, Japan, Brazil,
Chili, Patagonia and North America, we find them on the
coasts ; in Egypt they are situated in the desert, at some
hundreds of paces beyond the inundation zone of the Nile.
Considered in the widest acceptation of the term, these
remains of camps appear in all epochs, even in modern
times.

In Denmark, 2 the kitchen middens include remains of the
most ancient stone civilization known in the Scandinavian

1 "Evolution quaternaire de la pierre," in Vm (1897), 24. A. De Mortillet
** Lesjpetits^lex tallies a contours gom6triques," VUX* VI (1896).

MESOLITHIC INDUSTRIES 77

region. These mounds formed as soon as the country was
freed from ice and Man was able to take possession of it.
They are generally five or six metres broad by two or three
metres high, and their length varies between twenty and
four hundred meters ; they consist of heaps of shells and
bones, hunters' debris, and include chipped flints of a
special type, scrapers, paring-knives, cores, knives, drills,
etc., carefully worked bones and deer horn, and fragments
of coarse pottery. The polished axe is absent in these
layers, which are considered to be synchronous with our
Campignian encampments of Northern France. The hearths
of earlier times, still undisturbed, are frequently found in
these mounds and sometimes also the skeletons of the men
who dwelt in these villages formed, probably, of huts of
branches covered with clods of earth and set in line in a long
row on the coast.

Campignian Industry. This industry, localized in the
of Gaul, seems to have immediately preceded neolithic
industry in this region ; its tools consist of the scrapers,
knives, notched blades, and drills of earlier times, to which
are added paring-knives in great numbers, and picks.

The stations of this industry are found principally in the
departments of the Somme and the Seine-Inferieure, under
the form of hut foundations. Amongst the ashes, and about
60 to 80 centimetres high by 3 to 6 metres wide, are found
the hearths, together with various objects such as worked
flints, flint chips, fragments of pottery, generally crude, but
occasionally decorated with geometrical ornament incised in
the soft clay, and handmills and pestles. The polished
axe is rarely found in the foundations of these huts ;
and that it is represented at all in this industry is still
disputed. 1 Lanceolate or barbed arrow-heads, so common
among neolithic implements, are entirely absent.

In 1872 the station of Campigny, near Blangy-sur-Bresle
(Seine-Inf6rieure), was discovered by Eugene de Morgan, 2
and in 1886 Ph. Salmon suggested a "Campignian epoch' 5
as a separate classification.

Although many other encampments of this kind have
been recognized in the last few years, opinions on the subject

1 XXVI, I, 326. * UV.

78

EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

of the industry are still divided. It has not been met with, up
till now, in stratified beds superposed on older industries, or
under others more recent. "These stations, which are very
poor in polished hatchets/' said G. de Mortillet, 1 "have an
altogether peculiar individuality ; they might well represent,
in France, the beginning of the Neolithic Epoch. "

FIG. 27. Campignian chipped flints Le Campigny, Seine-Infrieure). J

Mesolithic industries, though certainly numerous, have
been ill studied hitherto, both in France and elsewhere,
the reason being that the beds are always isolated and
without stratigraphic relations with other industries ; and
that the neolithic burial-places are usually ossuaries where
skeletons and funerary furniture of different epochs are mixed

1 XL, 2nd. edit., 518.

MESOLITHIC INDUSTRIES 79

together, thus making it impossible to know whether they
were already in use during the period of mesolithic industry ;
and finally because the forms representing these industries
in collections have usually been found on the surface. Per-
haps we might include certain forms from North Africa and
Syria among mesolithic industries. All that can be stated
positively of them is that they only very rarely include special
archaeological forms, and that polished stone implements do
not commonly appear in mesolithic layers*

I remember having found a neolithic flint axe-head,
polished and re-worked at the edge, but not re-polished, in
the foundation of a hut at Campigny in 1873. This observa-
tion permits one to suppose that the Campignian industry
may have existed in the north of France at a time when the
Neolithic was already making progress in other not far
distant regions, and that the very rare polished axe-heads
which sometimes appear in Campignian finds came
into Picardy by commerce. It might be objected, how-
ever, that the Campignian villages had never ceased to be
inhabited from the time of the appearance of neolithic
industry in the country and therefore that the presence of
polished axe-heads in the foundations of the huts may be
due to subsequent occupation of such villages by men
familiar with the art of polishing flint.

CHAPTER IV
NEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES

THROUGHOUT the world we see any number of innovations
springing up with the rise of neolithic industry. It becomes
obvious that this was the phase of development of human
intelligence that opened up the real high-road to progress.
The art of polishing hard materials, applied, as we have
seen, to bone and ivory from Pleistocene times in the
Solutrean and Magdalenian industries, has now become
general ; it is the method employed to give an edge to the
hardest rocks, such as flint, jade, diorite, syenite, etc., and
produces a form recognized as that best adapted to the
use to which- the implement is to be put. Man, still hunter
and warrior, makes his arrow-heads in many different ways,
but generally follows the earlier harpoon model, providing
it with barbs (Fig. 28). He is no longer content with the
skins of beasts for clothing, but weaves wool and veget-
able fibres, perfects his ceramic arts, domesticates animals,
raises cattle, builds dwellings on land and on the water,
hollows out pirogues, and finally, cultivates cereals.
The door of progress stands wide open for him to enter :
he has but to develop his knowledge, to ameliorate the means
of manufacture, and, when metal appears, he will have
definitely left barbarism behind him.

While he ameliorates the conditions of existence, his
power of thought develops ; he seeks to discover the where-
fore and the why of things, and from his meditations in
the presence of the phenomena of nature, and the happenings
of life, he evolves religious or superstitious ideas. His
mode of sepulture bears witness to a belief in a second life ;
and architecture is born with the raising up of monoliths and
the construction of dolmens and the covered alleys of burial
mounds* The workman becomes a miner, and seeks in the
bosom of the earth fine materials for tools and weapons ;
he delves in the ground and attacks the geological strata,
and this raw material, flint, becomes an object of widely

NEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES

81

FIG. 28. Arrow-heads : 1-8, Abydos (Author's collection, given to the
Mus6e de Saint-Germain) ; 9-14, Wagla (Pzard find) ; 15, Susa (Musee
de Saint-Germain); 16, Alcala (Portugal); 17, Gironde (St-G.) ; 18,
Aveyron (St-G.) ; 19, Dolmen of Gourillach (Finist^re) ; 20, Fayum ;
21, California (obsidian); 22, Aveyron; 23, ? (tdL) ; 24 Finistere; 25,
Loir-et-Cher ; 26, Abruzzi (Italy) ; 27, Aube.

82 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

extended commerce, because in many regions it is absent.
Large workshops come into existence to supply this export
trade in chipped stone. The fine flints of Spiennes and of
Grand Pressigny go as far afield as Switzerland, and amber
from distant lands arrives in Gaul. Finally, Man protects
his settlements with earthworks and fortifies himself on
hill-tops.

The glyptic arts which disappeared with their authors,
the Magdalenians, are replaced by crude representations of
man himself or his weapons, and by geometrical ornament
unworthy of the perfection achieved in stone working.

In Egypt and Scandinavia, thanks to the abundance and
the fine quality of the stone in those countries, flint is trans-
formed into genuine works of art in the shape of knives,
daggers, javelin, lance, and arrow-heads, and the workmen
become so skilful that they even chisel bracelets as light and
fine in character as though made of metal. In the valley of
the Nile, in the Elamite country, in Syria, Crete, and Greece,
there appears a painted pottery which seems to be derived
from a more ancient art whose origin is still a mystery.

However, according to the different localities and the
peoples inhabiting them, a number of centres of neolithic
culture became established, each one possessing its own
qualities and characteristics. The type of implement differs
from one country to another 1 to such an extent that an
ethnologist accustomed to handle chipped flints has no
difficulty in distinguishing their place of origin at first
sight,

The multiplicity of neolithic cultural centres is beyond
question, though it would be impossible to fix the geographical
position of a single one of them. "Without doubt these divers
centres often reacted one on the other. The world over
peoples were much mixed after Quaternary times ; moreover,
their industries overlap in a manner that becomes the despair
of anyone who attempts to discover the origins of even a
single human group.

The diffusion of amber, a northern material, as far west
as our part of the world, shows how relations had been
extended, and a number of proofs combine to convince

1 Cf. for the polished stone age Hans Hildebrand, Sur la subdivision du nord
tie PMttrope en provinces arcktologiques (Congres de Bmxelles, 479-485),

NEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES 83

us that in those days great movements of peoples still
took place repeatedly, thus changing* the face of Europe.
Legendary history recounts to us some of these migrations.

If the environment to which the wave of invasion came
was complicated by earlier migrations, the invading* culture
was not less modified. There were migrations in plenty
which, travelling only along natural lines of communication,
overran and crossed one another, leaving between them vast
areas unaffected by their direct action. It would seem
certain, for instance, that different peoples raised up the
megalithic monuments and built the lake villages ; and
that divers types of neolithic industry, corresponding to
different tendencies, imply diversity of ethnic origin. And
as sometimes happens to-day, there were cultures side
by side that were very diverse in development. Examina-
tion of the different tribes of Red-skins in South America
provides striking instances even to-day, and the Dutch
colonies of Malaysia show at least three degrees in advance-
ment still persisting, although these three classes of men
live side by side. To speak only of Western Europe, is it
not conclusive in this regard to state the fact that in France
and England the neolithic polished hatchet is rounded at the
sides, whereas in the Scandinavian countries, Finland, the
north of Germany, and the Baltic islands, it is trimmed and
polished square on its surface extremities, and in the pile-
dwellings its cutting edge alone is polished, and that in
Italy it has a large groove?

If we generalize, the problem becomes still more insoluble ;
for the whole world, or nearly the whole world, has known
the polished stone axe, as it has known the " coup de poing"
of Acheulean type; but whereas the "coup de poing "
is practically of the same type everywhere, this is not the
case with the polished axe, whose form varies infinitely
while preserving the same static principles.

Just as in the case of the study of Quaternary industries,
those relative to neolithic cultures are still limited to
European, West Asiatic and North African lands ; for our
knowledge as regards the other portions of the old continents
and the New World (Fig*. 29) still lacks precision. In America
all these civilizations, so complicated in certain districts, so
primitive in others, all included in one vag-ue classification

EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

as pre-Columbian, are known to us neither by their geo-
graphical dissemination nor by their epoch ; whereas with
those of the Old World we begin to see more clearly both
their distribution and their succession in each region.

In the Scandinavian countries (Fig. so), 1 there existed
from the outset an industry in which the axe-head is polished
completely or on its cutting edge alone ; then comes the

FIG. 29. Neolithic weapons and tools from North America,

appearance of the holed axe-head or axe-hammer, denoting
a consummate skill in the working of stone ; finally the
establishment of a transition phase corresponding to the
appearance of metal (eneolithic industry).

In Spain, 2 three periods may be distinguished : first, a
local industry of arch -c aspect, with a few polished objects,
probably imported, corresponding to the period of the
Portuguese kitchen middens (mesolithic industry?), but not
to that of the analogous civilization in Scandinavia ; then
the full development of polished stone and ornamented

f. LH; LVJ.

'LXm.

NEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES 85

pottery, an industry reminiscent in both art and technique
of the culture of the earliest of the Hissarlik cities ; finally,
the zenith of flint working and the beginning of the metal
age (eneolithic).

FIG. 30. Scandinavian Neolithic Implements (Denmark and Sweden).

In Switzerland, the lacustrine industry comprises three
successive periods: first of all, that of small axe-heads,
hardly polished at all, and made from native rock ; con-
temporaneously, bones are worked in a rudimentary fashion,
and the coarse pottery is unornamented (Fig. 31) ; then comes
the industry of larger axe-heads, simple or holed, of rock
often foreign to Switzerland ; while the pottery, not quite so
coarse, is simply decorated. Finally, holed axe-hammers
appear, and are numerous in certain stations ; work in stone,
bone and horn is from that time at its zenith ; foreign stone
is no longer seen ; the pottery is more and more ornamented ;
and metal makes its appearance (eneolithic).

86

EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

FIG. 31* Neolithic implements of the Lake Villages i, 2 and 3, Axe-heads
polished at the edge only (lake of Neuchdtel) (i Jtf.S.) ; 4, Hatchet-handle

N.S.) ; 10, Bow (Robenhausen, Switzerland) ( N.S.) ; n > Arrow-head
ce of NeuchStel) (N.S.) ; 12, Club of yew-wood (Robenhausen) (t N.S.) ;

WrrW J_I-LV^LAJ.

(f N.S.); 18, Flint scraper (lake oi Sfeuchitel) "(f N.3.) ; 19, Flint point
(lake of Neuchatel) (f N!s.) ; 20, Bone pin (lake of Nenchatel (J N.S.) ; ax,

Bone needle (lake of Neuchatel) (J

NEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES 87

FIG, 32. Flint knives, Messawiyeh (Upper Egypt Garstang excavations).

88 EVOLUTION OP INDUSTRIES

In Italy, where polished axe-heads in flint are never seen
but the celts are all made of some hard rock, it would seem
that two neolithic currents met and united one coming- from
the Jura and Switzerland, which, having crossed the Alps,
appears to have come down the valley of the Po and the
Tessin without crossing the Po, while the other, coming from
the basin of the Danube, via Istria, Emilia, and Venetia,
appears to have advanced along the Adriatic coast as far as
Apulia.

For France, the south of England, and Belgium, 1 it
would seem that we must adopt three divisions : first of all,
an industry very close to the Campignian but having the
characteristic Neolithic polished celt and arrow-head ; then,
that of the axe-hammer corresponding to the introduction of
foreign stone and the zenith of flint working ; finally, the use
of metal concurrently with the preceding industry, the pottery
improving during the course of all three phases.

In Egypt (Fig. 32 and Fig. 33),* there must have been
but two phases, that of the polished axe-head of European
type in which flint alone was used for. all the tools,* and
the Eneolithic period in which flint working reached its
zenith. Then we find hard stone and metal in use at the
same time ; pottery, ornamented with paintings in red ochre,
now reaches its greatest perfection. We shall see later that
the use of metal in the valley of the Nile, and the arts, appear
to have come from Asia.

In Elam (Fig. 34) and in Chaldea (Fig. 35 and Fig 36),
we also find two phases, that of the polished axe-head
of European type, 4 though flatter, and the Eneolithic in-
dustry with its admirably painted ceramics, already very
stylistic, its varied implements, its axe-hammer, its points of
Solutrian type and its very primitive weapons and utensils
in metal.

The Sahara and Tunis (Fig. 37) show an industry which
presents considerable analogy with that of Egypt, but we do
not find there those large, marvellously worked blades of the

* For Belgium, Rutot (LXH), divides the Mesolithic and the Neolithic into five
phases : ist, Tardenoisian ; and, Ftentisian ; 3rd, Campignian ; 4th, Robenhausian ;
5th, O mail an.

* The existence of this phase in the valley of the Nile is doubtful.
4 Here too the existence of this phase is doubtful.

NEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES

89

de

Flint points from Upper Egypt: i and 2, Adimiyeh (Henri
's researches) ; 3, 4 and 5, Nakada (Flinders Petrie's
researches).

90

EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

valley of the Nile. The industry of Palestine is more nearly
related to that of Egypt (Fig-. 38) than is that of North Africa.
This is practically the limit of our knowledge of the
subdivisions of neolithic industry in lands explored up to
the present. As we can see, evolution in each country has

FIG. 34. Polished stone axe-heads. Tepeh Gulam (Pusht-i-Knh and

Luristan).

been independent in its main lines ; but these differences
are also often due to foreign influence.

As to the date to be assigned to neolithic industry, it
varies, naturally, in different localities. Montelius, taking
as his basis the stratigraphy of the Tell of Susa and
observations of the same order made in Egypt, allows 20,000
years for the appearance of the polished axe-head in Elam
and in the valley of the Nile. This estimate is much too
high, for it would give some 12,000 years as the duration
of the strictly neolithic phase in these two countries, whereas
the remains of neolithic industry in Egypt and Elam are
not sufficient to justify such an estimate. In any case we

NEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES 91

have to admit that we do not possess any basis for fixing
chronologically the beginnings of this culture in any country.
Hence any estimate in this respect can only be made in the
domain of the imagination.

As regards its closing limit we are somewhat better in-
formed, because then we approach historic times. In Chaldea
it was towards the end of the sixth millennium before our

FIG. 35. Axe-hammer in serpentine. Chaldea. (Author's collection,
Muse'e de Saint-Germain.)

era that metal put an end to neolithic industry in this region,
if indeed it ever existed there, which I consider very unlikely,
and the date would be about the same in Egypt ; x whereas
the ^Egean civilization was born at the very earliest in the
3Oth century B.C., and Scandinavia could not have known
bronze until the i8th or 22nd century B.C. In Gaul, in
Switzerland, and in neighbouring lands this evolution
probably took place about the 25th century ; while Finland
must have replaced its stone weapons by iron implements
about the 5th or even the 3rd century B.C. without passing
through the almost universal intermediate stage of copper

; JLe tcmbeau dc Ntgada, Paris, 1897,

92 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

and bronze, and many tribes of Polynesian and other regions
discovered by Europeans in modern times would have
reached the i8th or igth century A.D. before putting- aside
the stone axe and taking to firearms. "We have seen
already that Lower Chaldea seems never to have known
Man in possession of a really neolithic industry ; and

FIG. 36. Flint implements. Yokha (Chaldea). Author's collection
(Muse de Saint-Germain).

that at the time when it was populated the people of
the mountains bordering it on the north-east and on the
north already knew copper.

It would be beyond the scope of a study such as
this, which has for object the discussion of the progress
of humanity as a whole, to describe the innumerable
neolithic industries of different localities; we give in the
illustrations the principal types of some of them, and the
reader will be able to judge their characteristics for himself*
We must, however, note that no other district ever equalled
the perfection of stone-trimming reached in Egypt arxi Scandi-
navia, and the workers of the valley of the Nile greatly
excelled in skill those of Denmark and the south of Sweden.

FIG, 37. Neolithic industry, Sahara (PSzard's researches) (near Wagla) :
i and 3, Ostrich shell; 2, Light opaque flint; 4, Brown flint, veined
black; 5, Grey flint, white patina; 6, Light opaque flint; 7 to 9,
Translucent yellow flint; 10, Light opaque flint; xi, Opalescent,
translucent flint; 12, Yellow flint; 13, Opalescent translucent flint.

94

EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

Still, it is quite possible that in the one as in the other, copper
was already known when these admirable implements were
made, in spite of our not finding- it in Denmark, and although
in Egypt we find the same trimmed flints, both alone and
accompanied by metal.

Flo. 38. Neolithic implements, Palestine : 1-3, Sur Baher
(Jerusalem) ; 4-5, Valley of Hesban (after Vincent).

However, before leaving the subject of neolithic industries
we will review some of the forms of these polished axe-heads,
and demonstrate how much these implements vary (Fig^ 39).
Types i and 2, widespread throughout Europe, are
found also in Western Asia and in India, among other
countries, while No. 5 with square sides characteristic of the
Scandinavian countries, the north of Germany and Finland,
is found also, although more rarely, in Western Europe* No.
6 in hard stone, such as syenite, diorite, etc., is universal ;
No. 7 is rare in the West as are also Nos. 8 and 9 ;
Nos. 10 and 18, characterized by the fact that the implement
is flatter and less rounded in section than in France,

NEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES

FIG. 39. Various forms of Neolithic axe-beads: i, France and all
"Western Europe; 2, Id. the most frequent type; 3, Jadeite (Seine-et-
Marne) ; 4, if. (Brittany) ; 5, The roost frequent type in Scandinavia,
Finland and North Germany, existing also in Western Europe; 6, Of
universal distribution ; 7, Western Europe, rare ; 8, Id. rare ; 9, Id. rare ;
10, Susian and Chaldean, fiat type rounded at the sides ; n, Jadeite (Gers) ;
12, Antilles; 13, Cambodia; 15, United States; 16, Id. Western Asia;
17, Sasa ; 18, Id. very flat type ; 19, Egypt ; 20, Egyptian type, flat

on one side*

96

EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

are found in Elam and Chaldea. No. 12, rare in Europe, is
found in the Antilles, while No. 13, highly specialized, seems
to be peculiar to Indo-China. Nos. 15 and 16 are common
in the United States, but are known also in Europe and
Asia. The salt mines of Kulpi in Transcaucasia have
yielded us a few of these implements.

Type No. 17 seems to be peculiar to the Elymaids and

40. Method of halting polished stone axes : i, La Lance (Musee de
Saint-Germain, gift of the author) ; 2> Zeeland (Denmark) ; 3, dairvaux
(Jnra) ; 4, Bay of PenhouSt (Loire-Inf erieure) ; 5, La Lance (Switzerland) ;

6, Gavr'inis (Morbihan).

type No. 19 to Egypt ; metal implements having these forms
are known-^ but has the metal tool been copied from the flint
or vice versa? It is impossible to say. Then comes the
axe (or paring-knife) flat on one face, a speciality of the
valley of the Nile, though inspired by the same principle
as the Campignian paring-knife.

Finally Nos. 3, 4 and n show implements of jadeite, a
material formerly considered to have been imported into
Gaul from distant lands (? Siberia), but now regarded as
indigenous in France.

The polished axe-head was hafted, and we possess a
number of examples with handles (Fig. 40, Nos. i to 5) ; we

NEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES

97

see them figured in contemporaneous neolithic sculpture
(Fig. 40, No. 6). Usually the axe-head was set in a sawn
and hollowed piece of deer horn, and the horn socket itself
was usually hafted crosswise on to a wooden handle.

Grooved implements were generally hafted directly into
the wood. Implements such as saws, gouges, paring-knives,
scrapers, and graving-tools were frequently hafted either in
wood, horn, or bone.

Among the most common and at the same time the most
varied weapons of neolithic industry we must mention arrow-

_ _ ! Egyptian

historical period ; (Author's collection, Musee de Saint-Germain).

heads, which are found in great numbers in nearly every
station in all countries. The variety of shapes is infinite,
although we possess flint arrow-heads only and a few made
of bone ; those made of wood, horn, and fish-bone have
disappeared.

The method of hafting these arrow-heads (Fig. 41) was
itself very varied ; we possess a few antique specimens and
others among our ethnographic collections in our museums.

It will be noticed that the straight-edged arrow-head in
use among the Egyptians in historic times (Fig. 40, Nos. 6,
7, and 8) (Middle Empire), was already employed by the
contemporaries of the first dynasty (Fig. 40, Nos. 4 and 5),

98 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

who had made a true work of art of this weapon. But
besides these beautifully finished arrow-heads, there were
certainly others, made of a simple untrimmed chip, of which
we probably come across numerous specimens without recog-
nizing their purpose. And this is very likely true of a
number of implements belonging to all the stone industries,
either very slightly or not at all trimmed, whose use remains
unknown.

Thus neolithic forms vary infinitely and are distributed
over a number of districts in different periods. Some of these
industries are very old, and others are contemporaneous with
our own day ; but no matter to what age or land they
belong, they all reflect the same ideas in the men who
fashioned them, and thanks to the exigencies of the material,
all present an air of relationship, although in most cases
these diverse industries are absolutely independent of one
another.

CHAPTER V
ENEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES

ITALIAN arclueologists have given to the cultural phase in
which a few metal implements are found with neolithic
remains, the name of eneolithic. This phase characterizes
the transition between the use of trimmed stone and of
bronze. There is still no knowledge of alloys, but only of
the two metals, copper and gold, which are found in the pure
state in all parts of the world.

We must not, however, include in eneolithic industry
those copper implements that have been simply forged,
such as those of the North American Indians : these belong
to neolithic culture, since the metal has not been smelted,
but is merely hammered. By the Eneolithic we mean a
phase of culture resulting from the first steps in metallurgy.

Implements of pure copper had been in use for a consider-
able time in nearly all countries. They are found all over
Europe, in Asia as far as, possibly even further east, than
India, but they would seem to be absent in Japan ; through-
put Africa except Egypt and, naturally, in Oceania, a region
in which worked stone was still in use up to our times.

Was copper first found in one country, from which the
knowledge of it spread to other regions, or was the discovery
of multiple origin? We do not know for certain, but, as we
meet with it at the foundation of every civilization, it is likely
that it was in the countries of the most ancient culture that
these centres, though in themselves perhaps secondary, were
established, and that from these centres the precious discovery
was spread abroad.

These lands of very ancient culture are few, and only
Chaldea, Susa, Egypt and the ^Egean Islands are entitled
by their antiquity to be considered in this connection.

100 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

During* the last few years this antiquity has been lessened
by ten centuries by German scholars * who refuse to acknow-
ledge the old chronology of Nabonidus, and this thesis has
been accepted in France by a good number of archaeologists. 2
But as this new theory which is already being abandoned

i

FIG. 42. Ivory. Tomb of King Qau (First Dynasty). Flinders
Petrie, The Royal Tombs, 1900, Part I, pi. XII, Fig. za, 13.

in many quarters allows neither time for oriental civiliza-
tion to develop nor for the dynasties to succeed one another
without too greatly overlapping, we shall abide by the old
chronological estimates.

In these conditions the culture of the Pharaohs would have

1 douard Meyer (Aegyptische Chronologic, AbhandL Berlin. Akad., 1904,
and Nachtrdge, id,, 1907) based his theory on astronomical calculations. See the
objections of G. Maspero in XI U9Q5> H> 203).

8 Cf. XXVI, II, ist part, 54; XXVJU, 2nd edition, 1914, table, pL XIII, etc.

ENEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES

101

begun in the second half of the fifth millennium before our
era. In any case we are faced with the problem as to whether
this culture was indigenous or was brought in by foreign
influences. We shall show how, at an early date, during
the Egyptian neolithic industry, the valley of the Nile under-
went Asiatic influences, and was probably even occupied for
a time by a population that had come from Mesopotamia,
and that these conquerors would have thus brought into
Egypt the knowledge of copper. Later, we shall see that it
was at this period, also, that ceramic art would seem to have
first shown itself among the pre-Egyptians.

FIG. 43. Representation of man at the beginning of the Pharaonic
(After Flinders Petrie, The Royal Tombs, 1901.)

In the tomb of the first dynasty, king Qau, Flinders
Petrie x discovered an ivory plaque representing a captive of
distinctly Asiatic type (Fig, 42), though the author himself
thought it was Libyan. Other representations of the same
period show that even then the artists took special care to
differentiate ethnic characteristics. Elsewhere on a schist
plaque now in the British Museum (Fig. 44) we see at the
upper right hand corner a person dressed in a long robe
of Asiatic fashion, pushing before him a naked captive,

* The Royal Tombs* 1900 : part I, pi. XII, Figs. 12 and 13 ; pi. XVII, Fig. 30*

102 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

while at the left another naked person is fleeing- ; in the centre
we see a lion and various birds of prey devouring* the corpses
after a battle. The conquered are Africans, they wear beards
in the Egyptian manner and have crinkled hair ; it is likely
that in those primitive times the race peopling the borders
of the Nile was not of pharaonic type and that, if smooth-
haired men existed in those regions, it was further north, in
the delta then forming.

These documents, and many others, show beyond doubt
that at a time getting on towards the period of the first
dynasty, earlier rather than later, Egypt was the theatre of
conflict between two peoples of distinct race, and they also
inform us as to the nature and origin of the invaders.

FIG, 44. Schist Palette, Archaic Egyptian. (British Museum.)

The same fact is brought out by a comparison of Figs.
45 and 46, where we have grouped the principal industrial
and artistic forms common to pre-Pharaonic Egypt, Chaldea
and Elam. It must be conceded that these analogies are
such that it is impossible to deny the influence of the one
civilization on the other.

The presence of the Asiatic divinity in Egypt (Nos. 2, 3,
5, 6, 27, 33) and the cylindrical seal which, as is known, is of
Chaldean origin, can leave no doubts on the subject of the
centre whence came the culture which was to be transformed
later into the civilization of the Pharaohs.

Thus, it would seem likely that the knowledge of copper
(Fig. 47) came to Egypt and the Asiatic coasts of the
Mediterranean from Chaldea. But this deduction advances
us little in regard to the country in which copper was dis-
covered (Fig. 48) : for we have never found in Chaldea, as
we have done in El am and the Iranian plateau (Fig. 49), any

ENEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES

>**

103

FIG. 45, Principal objects of archaic Egyptian period.

104

EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

FIG. 46. Principal objects of arcliaic Susian and Chaldean period.

ENEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES 105

definite traces of purely neolithic industry, and we know, by
the study of the formation of the delta of the Chaldean rivers,
that that district was not habitable till relatively late. It was
thus neither in Chaldea nor in Iran that the first metallurgical
essays were made. Nevertheless, it is highly probable that
Western Asia was at least one of the principal secondary
Centres whence the knowledge of metal was propagated, though
we are still ignorant of the actual point at which metallurgy
first developed.

The principal types of copper implements would have
spread from the Mediterranean coasts and from Central Asia
into the Mediterranean islands first, then into Western,
perhaps even into Central and Northern Europe, being
modified by the different neolithic cultures into which
they penetrated, but retaining their principal characters of
the flat axe-head and triangular dagger ; and if a few rare
Egyptian, Phoenician, or ^Egean objects reached the confines
of Europe, it was quite exceptional : it was the knowledge of
metallurgical processes that spread, and not the metal object
itself. The copper probably circulated in the form of ingots,
as was the case with bronze, which was exported in the
prepared state, containing the proper proportion of tin.

It would seem to be definitely proved to-day that the
knowledge of copper reached Gaul simultaneously from the
South and the East, that it came from the Black Sea and
the -^Egean, a district where this industry according to
specialists in ^Egean questions began towards the early
part of the third millennium before our era ; though naturally
it took long centuries before it was propagated as far as the
British Isles and Scandinavia. "We do not contradict these
authors as regards the age of civilization in the Mediterranean
Isles any more than in Western Europe.

As for gold, we find it used as early as copper, together
with which it is found in almost all the stations and in
eneolithic sepultures. The tomb of Menes at Nakada,
contained a very heavy gold bead in the form of a spiral.
In the same way in the sepultures of Muqayyar (Ur of the
Bible) and Warfca (Erech) the tombs contain, in addition to
stone and copper (and sometimes bronze) implements, crude
ornaments of gold.

In spite of daily increasing discoveries, we are still in-

106 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

FIG. 47. Objects of pre-Pliaxaonic industry. Upper Egypt

; poterie=pottery ; incis~incised ;

; os=*bone.)

ENEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES

107

Fio. 48. Objects of Eneolithic incfustry in nistorical Egyptian times.
Objects of the First Pharaonic Dynasty.

steatitic-schist ; pie*re=stone ; ivoire=*ivory.)

108

EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

sufficiently informed as to the extent and duration of eneolithic
industry ; it is only by numerous chemical analyses that we

'. -:,=
.-i.:

FIG. 49. Tepeli Gulam (Pusht-i-Kuh).

can possibly pronounce on the question, because the use of
bronze is grafted on to that of copper, and stone, copper, and
bronze implements are frequently found tog-ether. Further,

ENEOLITHIC INDUSTRIES

109

most archaeologists, though recognizing the existence of
a copper industry and placing it in the last neolithic
phase, 1 do not arbitrarily differentiate it 8 from the bronze
industry*

The appearance of metal (Fig. 50) did not, as we might
suppose, occasion a revolution in the established order of

*o i Eneolithic sepulture at Fontaine-le-Fuits (Savoie) : a,

* b ^Jadeite a*e-hads; d, knive* a*d paring-t<x>ls ; e, ^es and

' *Pe, mwSarS: 7, Spn, V id. 8-ir, Adimiyeh (fegypt), *

things ; in most instances its use came in slowly and by-
contact with metal-users, rather than by invasion, and it
penetrated into neolithic environment very gradually. In the
earlier stages, weapons and implements of metal were scarce
because of the rarity of copper, which at first was only an
object of trade ; the forms of flint implements were copied in

copper and even vice versa occasionally. Then, metallurgy

becoming established in the mining countries, and commercial
relations being extended, most of the stone types disappeared ;
but this substitution of metal for stone was very irregular and

* Cf. XXVI, II, ist part.

XLI.

110 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

very slow ; worked stone continued in use for a long- time ;
it was employed for the heads of such projectiles as, from
their destination, were bound to be lost. It was thus that,
even when iron was known all over the Old World, arrow-
heads and the heads of throwing-spears continued to be made
of stone as well as of metal. Then, in certain ritualistic
practices, the use of stone remained de rigueur ; it persisted
indeed for thousands of years. In Egypt, the disembowelling
of bodies to be mummified was done with a flint knife *, and
a flint knife was used for circumcision * among the Asiatics.
The use of stone for the latter purpose enables us to under-
stand the important place that was taken by work in obsidian
for exportation in j^Egean districts.

Thus eneolithic industry, properly speaking, is not a welj-
defined stage of human culture it is only a transition phase,
and nowhere does the appearance of copper modify the
customs and usages of the neolithic peoples. Copper repre-
sents neither an epoch nor any definite duration of time,
since its propagation was irregular in progress according to
different localities ; and as the use of bronze came about in
the same way, certain areas remained for a much longer
period than others in this transition stage, as, for example,
Hungary.

It should be noted that metal, being an extremely precious
material, was handled with great care at its inception, and
thus that many stations classed as neolithic because copper
is absent, really belong to the eneolithic stage ; some archaeo-
logists are even of the opinion that the concluding polished
stone phases, among different peoples, should all be ranged
with the new-born metal industry ; I am not far from sharing
this opinion as regards Egypt and North Africa.

1 Hesiod, bk. II ; Diodoras Siculus, bk. I, cf. XL VII, 9.

2 By the Jews and Phoenicians among others.

CHAPTER VI
BRONZE INDUSTRIES

Dis>~ -very of Metals and Metallurgy. Bronze is an alloy of
copper and tin, which has qualities of hardness greatly
superior to those of pure copper, a soft metal that is very
malleable ; bronze is to copper what steel is to iron. But
it is not only by alloying it with tin that copper can be
hardened ; a very small proportion of arsenic 1 , antimony or
zinc 2 modifies the molecular state of copper. These pro-
cesses were perhaps attempted in a halting manner by the
Ancients, but we cannot be sure, because such alloys may
be indeed probably are the result of impurities in the
copper ore treated.

A 10 per cent, alloy of tin gives to copper the qualities
proper to the use for which the weapons and tools were
destined ; a higher tin percentage renders it increasingly
brittle ; a content of 30 per cent, of tin gives a very fragile
white metal which was used in olden times for mirrors*

The metallurgists of primitive times, not having at their
disposal our modern scientific means, could only proceed by
experiment by successive attempts and this is why the
tin content of bronze implements varies so greatly. We
must also take into account that if copper ore was abundant
in the Old "World, stanniferous beds were much more rare,
hence there was often a complete absence of tin on the
market of many lands. However, the composition that the
metal founders of prehistoric times apparently desired to
reach varied between 10 and 18 per cent, of white metal.

Copper is found in the natural state in the rare form of
native metal, abundantly as metallic sulphides, and as
oxides, carbonates and other ores resulting from prolonged
contact of the outcropping copper veins and lodes with the

1 Certain axe-heads from Hungary contain as much as 18 per cent, of arsenic.
This high content would seem to be attributable to particularly impure ores.
a Cf. XXVI, II, 1st part, 175 #

ill

112 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

atmosphere ; the other natural combinations of copper are
outside the scope of our consideration as regards this par-
ticular question.

Tin-bearing- strata are much rarer and are limited to a
few localities ; the ore occurs in the original deposits in
veins, and in the form of small crystals in crystalline rocks
known as granulites ; it is always an oxide (cassiterite) and
never found as a native metal.

The attrition of rock-matrices and outcropping veins by
atmospheric agencies produced alluvial formations in which
stream-tin occurs in the form of sand ; it is only necessary
to wash this alluvium in order to extract the cassiterite.
This is the method used in the exploitation of tin in Malaya,
at Brangka, Perak and elsewhere. Native gold is obtained
by the same process based on difference in density.

As the first metallurgists found the beds of copper and
tin in a virgin state, they only had to deal with oxides, and
it sufficed to smelt it in a reducing fire of charcoal to separate
the metal. This is the metallurgical process still used in
our own day, and, especially for tin, the Malays still use the
primitive furnaces or smelting hearths.

The exploitation of both copper and tin mines was ex-
ceedingly simple ; as the outcropping veins were still virgin,
it was merely necessary to work, almost without effort, the
vein of rock where it had been split by atmospheric agency,
and to pick up the detached blocks among the fallen d6bris
and, in the case of tin, to wash the sand.

Cassiterite is always found in a siliceous gangue which
flakes in the fire. As for the carbonates of copper, whether
the gangue is calcareous or siliceous, it splits with the heat.

Fire was used from very early times for the disaggrega-
tion of rocks containing metals ; we find traces of this
process in all mining districts ; the auriferous beds of
Bohemia and Transylvania show thousands of examples of
it. Further, since the driving of galleries for the extraction
of flint was practised in neolithic times, we ought not to be
surprised when we meet with real mines dating from the
earliest days of the knowledge of metal.

Thus it needed only the chance of favouring circumstance
for Man to discover the two metals which constitute the alloy
that plays so great a part in prehistoric times. Since the

BRONZE INDUSTRIES

113

copper-bearing strata are much more widely spread over the
surface of the globe than those bearing tin, copper was
discovered first, contemporaneously with gold nuggets which
sparkled among the sands and shellets of streams.

If we indicate on a map of the world the chief locations

FIG. 51. Situation of copper and tin beds in the Old World.
(Cuivre copper ; ttaintin.)

of copper ore (Fig. 51), we see that this metal is of uni-
versal distribution ; furthermore, it has been discovered in
the New as well as in the Old World ; South Africa and
Australia, however, did not profit at an early date by their
natural riches.

It is necessary, however, to distinguish between copper-
producing regions which gained metallurgical knowledge
from foreign sources, and those in which it may have
originated. To begin with, the two Americas must be

H

114 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

ruled out ; and we know by a great deal of archaeological
testimony that neither Algeria, Spain, France, the British
Isles, Scandinavia r nor Central Europe saw the separation
from its gangue of the first copper ingot. There remain
then the -gean Islands, "Western Asia and Egypt ; for we
have seen that Chaldea need not be considered and that
Egypt in all probability got the knowledge of copper from
Asia.

As regards Egypt a legend was established, arising
from an error made by the German savant Lepsius which
still persists 1 relative to the richness of the copper mines of
the Sinai Peninsula. 2 This archaeologist, who was versed
neither in mineralogy nor geology, took the natural beds of
manganese ore of Serabout-el-Khadim for slag resulting
from an intensive exploitation of supposed copper mines ;
and this gross error became law for those who alluded to
Egypt. The strata forming the Sinai Peninsula cannot, by
their geological constitution, contain considerable beds of
copper ore, and the sole wealth of these mountains consists in
the turquoises found in the sandstone. There exist genuine
remains of a metallurgical industry at Wady Maghara,
but it dealt only with insignificant quantities of carbonated
ore existing in isolated rounded masses in the sandstone
adjacent to that in which turquoises are found. Egypt must
be ruled out absolutely from among the copper-producing
countries.

What countries remain in which the invention of metal-
lurgy can have taken place? The -^Egean Islands, Asia
Minor, Transcaucasia, Armenia and Iran, on the one hand ;
the far eastern group on the other it is quite certain,
however, that metal is much more ancient in Chaldea and
Elam than in Sino-Japanese and Indo-Chinese regions.

The Altai and the Pamirs are equally rich in copper ; but
the antiquity of metallurgy in these regions does not seem
to go back very far. In all probability, then, it was in the
north of Western Asia that this great discovery was made ;
thence, in a very rudimentary state, the knowledge would
have gone down into Chaldea with the men who first came

1 Cf. XXVI, II, ist part, 176.

2 Cf. ^xictg, 216 ft. All the documents relating to the question of the Sinai
mines, brought together by the author, are in his collections at the Muse de Saint-
Germain..

BRONZE INDUSTRIES 115

to settle in the island mud-flats of what was later to become
the empire of Sargon the First and of Naram-Sin ; then it
would have passed over to Egypt, the Phoenician coasts and
the -5igean Islands, the centres whence the knowledge spread
to Europe.

These are merely conjectures, but they rest on serious
foundations on a collective series of facts to which neither

Fig. 52. Situation of copper and tin beds in tne New World,

geology, Asiatic tradition, nor the earliest historical and
archaeological data offer any contradiction.

As regards tin the problem is still more difficult of
solution, since the stanniferous areas are few 1 . The rare
deposits of tin known in Morocco, Western Spain, Auvergne,
Brittany and Finland do not enter into consideration, and
the same is true for those of England because of the distance
of that country and its isolation in the middle of the ocean.
Cassiterite is found, according to some authors, in the North-
east of Persia, at KLhorassan and in several districts of
Armenia ; but I have not been able to verify this information.
Madagascar, the Cape of Good Hope, and Australia must
be ruled out from the list of countries where the discovery of
the white metal could have been made. In North America,
cassiterite appears (Fig. 52) on the coast of the Pacific
* Cf. XXXVHI, Etudes archM. et Jiistor., zz> and map, pi. II (p, 34).

116

EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

Ocean, In Mexico it produced a special bronze industry ; it
appears, finally, in South America, but we cannot consider
the tin-bearing- beds of the New World in a study relating to
the old continents.

There remains only the Malay, Indo-Chinese and Chinese
group, whose richness is great ; maybe tin followed the
same route taken by the great Mongolian invasions of the
Middle Ag-es to reach our part of the world.

FIG. 53. Moulds. r-2, Scotland; stone (Univalve) ; 3, Mould of
hardened bronze (Lake Geneva); 4, Lac du Bourget (stone).

Indo-China and China were favoured by nature in a way
that may well have been conducive to the discovery of
bronze, because here cupriferous and stanniferous ores
occur together in great abundance ; but we must put a
limit here to such considerations, and wait until Central
Asia and China have been better explored. Perhaps we
may even some day discover in the northern mountains of
Western Asia stanniferous beds forg-otten for thousands of
years, and their presence would annihilate all the hypotheses
we may be tempted to hazard to-day as to the location of the .
first centre of metallurgy.

Archaeologists debate as to whether bronze was prepared
by measuring out the proportions of the two elements
(Fig*- 53) in the metallic state 1 , or whether the ores were
mixed before being put in the furnace, and they explain by
this last hypothesis the notable differences in the tin content
1 Zeughelis, SW le 'bronze pr&historique> Melanges Nicole y Geneva, 1905.

BRONZE INDUSTRIES

117

of bronze- These are but conjectures which, before they can
be supported, require that we should be able to study in the
most minute detail a foundry incontestably of this period,
and that we should be able to analyse the resultant slag-.

"We may add that if the Ancients did not use brass, that
is to say the alloy of copper with zinc, although calamine
was very abundant in Europe, it was because zinc burns on

FIG. 54. 1-3, Bronze axe-heads (Susa) ; 4-8, after a bas-relief of
Naram-Sin, found at Susa.

contact with the air when it becomes red-hot, even in an
alloyed condition, and the metallurgical procedures of those
days did not permit of its being treated always in a reducing
atmosphere ; tin on the contrary is very stable, either in the
pure metallic state or in the form of an alloy. As for lead,
its property of oxidation is the basis of the process of refin-
ing, of which the Ancients made such great use in historic
times for the extraction of gold from quartz before the use of
mercury came in.

"Whatever may be the origin of the metals, we see in
almost all countries the use of bronze succeeding that of
pure copper ; and it was only very gradually that neolithic
stone implements disappeared. But just as the polished

118 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

stone industry is subdivided into regions, so is bronze
fashioned in different manner according- to time and place.
The numerous human groups occupying the 'world at the
time of the introduction of metal progressively accentuated
their regional characteristics, but this is not the origin of
nationalities, for they are much older than metal ; it is, how-
ever, the definitive affirmation of clans, tribes, peoples and

FIG. 55. Bas-relief from the tomb of Mera (Sixth Dynasty), representing
the working of precious metals.

empires. Both the powerful means of domination resulting
from metallurgical knowledge, and the rapid progress made
materially and intellectually, permitted certain peoples to
attain the hegemony of their sphere of influence. History
now begins, in Asia, Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean,
and gradually spreads in the areas surrounding the first
centres of metallurgical knowledge ; thus the modern world
has its inception.

In Chaldea and Elam the bronze industry began at
the same time as the use of writing (Fig. 54). From that
time these countries enter the domain of History : never-
theless, this industrial phase characterized them for many
centuries to come, until iron insensibly replaced brass in
armament. The forms characteristic of these areas remained
specialized for a very long time, and they have nothing- in
common with those in use among the still barbaric popula-
tions of the north. Under Naram-Sin, in the middle of the
fourth millennium before our era, the lance, bow and axe were
still the principal weapons of offence ; the sword did not
appear until much later, coming into current use in Assyria

BRONZE INDUSTRIES

119

only in the times of the kings of Assur, and, among the
Greeks, with the Dorian invasion.

It was the same in the valley of the Nile (Fig. 55), where
bronze remained in use for many purposes, parallel with the
use of iron, up to the period of the Alexandrine conquest.
Here also the archaic forms are specialized ; they seem to
have evolved from those of the worked stone implements
(Fig. 57). In Syria (Fig. 58), and in the islands of the

FIG. 56. Bronze implements of Pharaonic Egypt.

Eastern Mediterranean (Fig. 59), although Egyptian influence
made itself felt occasionally, the forms in most cases are
strongly individual.

Unfortunately we are but ill-informed as to the industries
of the peoples of Western Asia other than the Chaldeans, the
Elamites and the Assyrians. A very great number of diff-
erent peoples jostled each other among the mountains and
the high plateaux of the North. Except for the Urartians and
the Hittites, they had no written character, and therefore the
study of their culture belongs to prehistory. The Assyrian
annals supply their names ; but we are able but rarely to
place their names with certainty on the map, and the districts
in which they lived remain unexplored from the archaeo-
logical point of view.

120

EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

Besides, if we may judge by the results of my own
researches in the north-west of Iran and Transcaucasia which
supplied almost all that we know about these regions, it is
not in the Chaldean or Elamite industries that we shall find
the origins of Nordic culture, but somewhere in the still un-

FIG. 57. Bronze implements, Egyptian New Empire (Cairo Museum).

known parts of Central Asia. The different bronze cultures
whose traces we find in the dolmens of the Russian and
Persian Talish are linked more or less closely with the
civilizations of Central and Western Europe; in them we
find that the dagger, the sword, the torque, incised pottery, and
geometrical ornamentation are general. Except for animal
and human representations, their predilections are largely

BRONJZE INDUSTRIES

121

FIG. 58. Funerary Furniture from Tell and Tin (Syria) (Excavations of

J. E. Gautier).

FIG. 59. JEgean-Mycen&an bronze implements and weapons.

122

EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

characteristic of our neolithic populations of the "West ; it
would seem that from before the days of polished stone a
current of ideas and culture began to flow between the
countries of Central Asia and those of Europe, that this
current had not been affected to any great extent by the

FIG. 60. Western Europe, ist and 2nd Bronze Industries.

southern centres of civilization in Western Asia, but that in
passing from East to West it had borrowed ideas, in certain
details, from -^Egean civilization* It follows that by the time
this flow of culture had Breached our part of the world it
could no longer be identical in its manifestations with those
revealed in the funerary monuments of the southern shores
of the Caspian.

The bronze industry of the Old World should thus be
considered as regional and individual in development*

BRONZE INDUSTRIES

123

Chaldea and Elam of which Assyria was the child, Egypt
and Crete, would seem to be the most ancient centres of the
culture ; then come the Nordic civilizations, all more or less
closely interrelated, which covered the north of Western
Asia and the whole of Europe, distributed over these vast

FIG. 61- Western Europe. 3rd and 4th. Bronze industries.

regions according to time and place. Here the various
peoples exhibited their individual genius, taste and tendencies
while preserving the main outline and development of the
Nordic bronze industry. Thus appeared at different periods
the Caspian, Caucasian and Mycenaean industries, and those
of the Russian Steppes, the Danube (Hungary), Scandinavia
and Northern Germany, Gaul, Spain, Northern Italy, etc. ;
whilst in Mediterranean areas, the Minoan, JEgean, and even

124

EVOLUTION OP INDUSTRIES

Egyptian influences made themselves widely felt, whereas
in northern lands they were less accentuated, or in any case
were of later date.

In each northern district, whether in Europe or Asia, the
bronze industry evolved locally, passing- through successive
phases. In the north of Persia and in Transcaucasia diff-

FIG. 62. Bronze Hatchets. 1-2, Germany ; 3, Spain.

erent periods are easily distinguished by differences of
detail in the local industry, and the same is true for all
these districts under consideration.

In France, the form of the early bronze implement is
usually inspired by that of the stone tool ; then the sword
appears on the scene, and later on comes into general use.
With the sword came defensive armour, such as the helmet,
the cuirass and the buckler, all of which had long- been
in use among- the Orientals.

The fibula only appears in the West towards the fourth

BRONZE INDUSTRIES

125

bronze industry ; it was always unknown in Kgypt, Chaldea,
Elam and Assyria, whereas in the Hellenic world it was a
familiar ornament from very ancient times.

In a book such as this there is not space to examine, one by
one, all the objects of the bronze industry in order to investi-

FlG. 63. Bronze implements and weapons^ Hungary.
A. de Mortillet's

(From

gate their relationship, or even their origin ; a study of that
kind would take us far beyond the limits set to this volume,
and would involve us in distinctions between the original
form current among each people and those arrived at through
contact with the inhabitants of neighbouring districts. It
must suffice to say that in the bronze industry of our own
regions we meet with many traces of mixed forms demon-
strating the wide extent of the relations entertained between
one people and another in that age.

It is difficult to be precise as to the date of the inception

126 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

of the bronze industry in different lands, and it differed in
different localities. In Elam, Chaldea and Egypt, it would
seem to be toward the end of the fifth millennium before our
era ; in the Eastern Mediterranean it would be in the course
of the third ; at Mycenae about the same epoch ; in Gaul,
somewhere about 2000 B.C., and in the north of Persia and
the Caucasus probably a thousand years earlier ; but all these
estimates are merely approximate, our documentation still
being much too imperfect to enable us to establish chron-
ology with any certainty.

CHAPTER VII
IRON INDUSTRIES

IN no country does the passage from a bronze to an iron
industry occur suddenly. Arms and implements of bronze
continued to be used long after the Hallstatt forms came in.
It is quite usual to find both bronze and iron swords and
daggers in tumuli. The forms themselves, however, were
rapidly modified, and the superiority of the Hallstatt models
being* recognized, they were copied in copper alloys.

The weapons of offence consist of the long, slender sword,
the dagger, lance and bow and arrow ; the iron swords and
daggers are remarkable for the shape of their hilts, which
often have horns, and a conical pommel of characteristic
appearance ; the lance-heads and javelins are inspired by
bronze types.

In the same way neolithic stone arrow-heads persist side
by side with examples in bronze, the reason being that, at
the beginning of the Hallstatt phase, iron, a metal still rare
and precious, had to be economized. It was hardly ever used
for anything other than side arms, such as swords and lances,
which, being held in the hand, would not be lost.

By way of defensive armour, the cuirass, as in the days
of bronze, is sometimes seen, but it is either of Greek or
Italiote origin, or copied by the Celts from Mediterranean
models. Further, the importation of utensils and weapons
of southern manufacture had by this time become the object
of a widely extended trade: situlae of beaten copper, cere-
monial baskets, and vases of all shapes are common in
the Hallstattian necropoles of central Europe and Gaul.
Some of these receptacles are even elaborately ornamented
with designs cast in the piece or done in repousse, and
for the most part the motifs are those of Greece and Italy.
Along with these objects are glass cups and vases of different
shapes often ornamented with coloured bands, whose proven-

127

128 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

ance is beyond doubt. Gold is seen in the funerary furniture
as well as in articles of adornment.

Tools and kitchen utensils soon reach a high degree of
perfection and show by their development that the exigencies
of life have become greater since the close of the bronze
industry. We find saws, sculptors' chisels, curved knives,
and others that fold inside the handle like those we use
to-day. Bronze casseroles are common, and spits tied up
in bundles are fairly frequent in Etruscan sepultures ;
andirons, and even spit-standards, were made, and among
ritual implements the great meat-roasting forks should be
mentioned.

Some of the burial mounds in several different European
countries have yielded chariots, 1 usually with four iron
wheels, and in other sepultures . ploughshares have been
seen. Bits and bridles for horses are frequent.

Personal ornaments of gold, bronze and iron are found in
great variety ; among them torques, necklets of beads made
of coloured glass, amber, coral, ivory or mother-of-pearl ;
bracelets in many shapes, ear-rings, pendants, pins, fibulae
of every sort and kind, toilet-sets, amulets representing
animals, usually horses which sometimes have riders ;
and finally, bronze belts of varying breadths, engraved or
bearing designs in repouss6 work. Almost all the metal
jewelry is ornamented with finely engraved geometrical
designs with which are often associated animal and human
representations or religious symbols such as the solar disc,
the wheel, the swastika and many others besides whose
signification is still unknown.

The shape of the vases and the quantity of pottery found
vary in different localities. The pottery is generally incised
with geometrical designs associated with rude painting done
over a glaze, but human and animal figures roughly done
with straight strokes as in the Caucasian representations are
also seen.

The classical Greek and Roman writers of antiquity speak
of a Ligurian people, not very clearly differentiated, but the
recollection of whom was a living thing throughout the
Occident. These Ligures no doubt comprised all the old

1 J. de Morgan, VII, 1921. I myself found a chariot in a Hallstattian tumulus
in the forest of Moidons (Jura).

THE IRON INDUSTRY 129

indigenous races of Western Europe, whose various groups
had become absorbed into a foreign element and who, for
the more judicious of modern authors, 1 are the hypo-
thetical founders of neolithic civilization, and are thought
to have taken part in those successive waves of Aryan-
speaking peoples which have broken over Europe so often ;

FIG. 64* Iron metallurgy. Ore furnace, Bernese Jura,
after Quinquery,

the Ligures would have been the dolmen builders and perhaps
also the first inhabitants of the pile-dwellings ; but they
would have become metallurgists, probably under external
influence, at the same time as the skilled stone-workers,

We have shown how great is the uncertainty surrounding
the genesis of metallurgy, and we have stated that in our
opinion it is of oriental origin ; in that case metal-working
would have come among the Ligures, already long settled
in the .Occident, through some continental trade current,
as well as by way of the Mediterranean. The Celts and
the Dorians must have been the principal propagators of
the iron industry. The ore itself, and the processes of

1 Cf.

I (1908), chap. IV, no ff.

130

EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

working it, would have spread first, and the Ligures
would have adapted its use to their needs and tastes ;
then would have followed the manufactured iron objects
exported by the Hellenic world. This is probably the
explanation of the dualism in artistic tendencies seen in the
course of the bronze industry, a dualism which does not
exist in the oriental dolmens of the north-west of Persia,
and which is only found in these regions much later, when

FIG. 65. Blast-pipes of smelting furnaces, i, Silesia ; 2-3, Hungary.

Hellenic influence, through the Black Sea traders, pene-
trated among the peoples of Transcaucasia.

The so-called Ligurian period in our part of Europe is
that of the foundation of cities, or, at any rate, it was during
the bronze industry that there occurred the sedentary develop-
ment of the settlements established by the neolithic people,
as a result of the advent of agriculture and cattle-raising.
Extended commercial relations followed* It was at this
epoch that the Phocaeans, drawn by the prospects of trade
which hitherto had been carried on by stages, followed it
to its source, and, landing in the country of the Ligures,
founded Marseilles.

In those times also there were other barbaric groups of
peoples the Celts living beyond the Rhine, and in distant
islands at the edge of the world. 1 It is generally agreed that
the Celts came from the east by the valley of the Danube. 2
Then these hordes would have gone up into the northern parts

1 Ammianus Marcellinus (after Timagenes, XV, 9, 4).

2 Of. XXX, 227, note 2.

THE IRON INDUSTRY 181

of Germany, toward the Baltic coast, and thence descended
upon Belgium and Northern Gaul by sea and by land,
driven from their domains by the tidal bore which sub-
merged the Northern and Baltic coasts about 530 B.C.
It is also about this time that the Iberians, coming from
the Spanish peninsula, penetrated into the South of
France.

The history of the exodus of the Celts from the Northern
countries is known from a number of passages in the
writings of antiquity ; so we can leave them to occupy Gaul,
having subdued, without destroying or driving out, the
Ligures. It is of greater importance for us to find traces
of them in more ancient times. There were Celts, or tribes
closely related to the Celts which had remained in or returned
to Thrace and Macedonia ; it was they who, in 279 B.C., pil-
laged the temple of Delphi, and this indication is precious,
since it allows us to link up the Celtic culture with civiliza-
tions still further east.

Dechelette is of opinion that "from their primitive domain,"
Central Europe and North-eastern France, the Celts spread
into very distant territories during the first and second Iron
Age, at the beginning- of the third century the period of
their greatest expansion. Their domain would then have
included the British Isles, the Iberian Peninsula, Gaul, North
Italy, and the Rhine and Danube country up to the Black
Sea ; certain tribes would then have established themselves
in Thrace ; others again would have succeeded in firmly
establishing settlements in the centre of Asia Minor (Phrygia
and Cappadocia), and in Galatia l that of the Gallo-Phrygians.

This designation of their "primitive domain" seems to
be extremely risky, and dictated by the reaction, which is the
fashion to-day, against an oriental origin for the people of
Aryan tongue. Our information, though incomplete, cer-
tainly shows us that there were Celts in the valley of the
Lower Danube on the shores of the Black Sea ; but it does
not tell us whether they extended still further to the
Russian Steppes, nor if the Celtic peoples had lived there in
earlier times*

Hoernes, 2 one of the best versed prehistorians of the

1 XXVI, 572* * LXX, 54.

182 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

Hallstatt civilization, bases his classification principally on
the characteristics of the pottery and fibulae. "Without
denying the great interest of these two elements, we would
remark that the true characteristic of this culture is the
introduction of naturalism into the geometric art; a char-
acteristic distinguishing it clearly from the bronze civilization
in Western and Central Europe, and which, both in its con-
ception and its technique, removes it far from the Chaldean,
Egyptian and Pre-Hellenic cultures, though allowing us to
catch a glimpse of a certain distant relationship to Mycenaean

taste.

However, the traces of the Hallstatt spirit are not limited to
Europe ; we find it far away in the north of Western Asia,
to the south of the Caucasus, and in Caspian districts. A
very different civilization from that of the oldest sepultures
appears in Russian Armenia during the Iron industry, and
this culture, though modified in a number of details, re-
appears both in Russian and Persian Talish and Ossethia,
and even in Daghestan. It is characterized by its human
and animal representations, of which both technique and
style in all these places seem to derive entirely from the
geometric style.

In Ossethia, this culture would not seem at that time to have
used iron industrially, all the weapons being made of bronze ;
but this is apparent only, for the predominance of copper
among the Ossetes is simply and solely the result of the
near neighbourhood of rich mines of this metal. In Armenia
the same culture comprises iron, silver and lead. The pottery
in all three regions has the same technique of ornament it
is incised, often very carefully, and polished, and both in
Armenia and Persia it presents animal shapes, something
quite new in these parts.

If this industrial group and that of Hallstatt be closely
compared, there are some striking analogies between them.
Of course, in the Hallstatt culture it is necessary to leave
out of account all Mediterranean influences, and to exclude
their products which is quite easy ; the analogies then seen
are so great that it is impossible not to connect these two
industries and, in consequence, the people who were their
authors. The geometric ornament on Bavarian vases is
identical with that on the Lelwar and Helenendorf vases.

THE IRON INDUSTRY

133

FIG. 66. Iron industry, Russian Armenia.

134

EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

In the personal ornaments, our Hallstatt bracelets differ
in no way from those of the East ; the torques are the same,
and so are the ear-rings, rings, pendants and fibulae ; we find
also bronze belts, but most of ours are inspired by Etruria
or Greece. The toilet-sets, the form of the weapons, the
necessities of all sorts, the great bronze forks, all, if not the
same, at least are analogous. Only the pins differ; but

FIG. 67. Arrow-heads from iron industry sepultures in northern Persia :

x-2, Bronze; 3, Iron; 4-5, Smoked transparent obsidian; 6, Red-veined

obsidian ; 7, Red jasper (Talish).

those of Lelwar are merely imitations adapted from the pins
of the preceding- iron industries in the same locality.

The method of burial is practically the same in both
Orient and Occident ; the body is extended (formerly it was
doubled up) and is covered over with a heap of stones.

Iron, like bronze, made its appearance at different dates
in different countries. In Chaldea, Elam and Egypt this
metal was known from very ancient times ; but in these
regions the use of bronze remaining predominant, either for
religious reasons, or more likely because iron in the natural
state was rare in these parts of the ancient world, it becomes
impossible to say precisely at what epoch iron became in-

THE IRON INDUSTRY

185

FIG. 68. Helenendorf (Transcaucasia).

136 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

dustrially used. It is otherwise where northern regions are
concerned, whether in Asia or Europe.

In Transcaucasia, we distinguish two successive forms of
the iron industry, very different in appearance and certainly
belonging- to different ethnic groups. The first, highly
specialized, seems, on the whole, to be simply a continuation
of the forms of the bronze culture of those parts ; it is localized
in the mountains of Armenia. The second, on the contrary,
as we have seen, is that which appears to have been the
parent of or sister to the Hallstatt culture of the West. And
this culture itself, if we may judge by the funerary furniture,
must have borrowed some details from the civilization which
had preceded it in Transcaucasia.

In the West the second Caucasian culture alone finds ah
equivalent ; but it is followed in our part of the world by
another phase generally known as La Tfene, from the name
of the locality where it is best represented. The La T&ne
industry was that which characterized Gaul at the time of the
Roman Conquest. It is strongly imbued with the Mediter-
ranean spirit as well as with the northern taste of North
Germany and Scandinavia, and does not seem to be, like
the Hallstatt culture, of oriental origin.

At this period Hellenic and Italiote Culture become more
and more important throughout "Western and Central Europe ;
coins, Greek at first, then native but of Greek type, make
their appearance, and history, properly speaking, begins.

Elsewhere, in the north of Russia and in Finland the use
of iron succeeded directly that of polished stone. It was the
same in Central Africa and on the Upper Nile, probably in
more ancient times than in Europe. In India this progress
seems to have been due to the Alexandrine conquest, or
at least to have preceded it by very few centuries. We are
unable to judge as yet of the evolution of the Far-eastern
countries.

In the New World, in Oceania, in Polynesia, and among
the tribes of Northern Siberia, the appearance of iron is quite
recent, dating only from the discovery of these lands by
explorers of our own times.

THE IRON INDUSTRY

137

FIG. 69. Hallstatt type swords and daggers, Western Europe.

CHAPTER VIII
THE WORKING OF HARD ROCK

WE have seen that the most ancient products of human
industry of which we have knowledge to-day are implements
in chipped and flaked stone such as flint, quartzite, siliceous
sandstone or quartz, according to which of these rocks
occurred in the district, either in the outcropping geological
strata or in the alluvium.

In every land and in every prehistoric age, flint has
always been the favourite rock because it splits easily and
the flakes thus obtained are very sharp-edged. Flint is a
very resistant material, only to be blunted by blows on
a hard body ; thus it lends itself admirably to the method
of chipping or knapping by percussion, and the flakes are
rapidly chipped into shape either by light hammering or
by pressure, for it suffices to apply an oblique pressure to
the edge of a flint chip with a body of medium hardness to
cause the splitting off of very small flakes, and by repeat-
ing this operation the implement can be shaped at will. The
chipping instrument may be made of flint or any other stone
of medium hardness, or even of wood, bone or horn, since
a very light pressure is sufficient to knap flint in this
manner.

Siliceous sandstone, quartzite, quartz and rock crystal of
the same or greater hardness than flint, do not possess its
special qualities, and split awkwardly,, ill obeying the will
of the workman. Consequently these rocks were at first
used only when flint was unprocurable, and when relations
between different peoples had been opened, it became an
object of extensive trading.

Other materials, such as jade and obsidian, were also
used, but jade is a very hard rock and can be chipped only
with great difficulty by percussion, necessitating the pro-

188

THE WORKING OF HARD ROCK 139

cess of wearing down by polishing ; we meet with it only
in the later neolithic industries, at a time when serpentine,
diorite and other vein-rocks appear, the employment of
which was unknown before Man applied to stone the pro-
cess of polishing already long in use for ivory, bone and
horn.

Obsidian, an ideal rock to chip, has the great disadvan-
tage of being too fragile. This volcanic rock, however,
has been much employed in prehistoric antiquity because
for many uses it can take the place of flint, which never
occurs in those districts where the volcanic rock is met with
in the lava streams. This material was freely employed in
Mexico, Japan, the Greek Islands of the Mediterranean,
Transcaucasia and Armenia. It can be chipped in exactly
the same way as flint, but it does not lend itself to
polishing.

When a flint nucleus is struck obliquely with a hammer
or a simple pebble of hard stone, a chip is flaked off whose
virgin surface is slightly convex, and projects at the point
where the stroke was made. This protuberance is known as
"the bulb of percussion," and is to be seen in chips of all
hard rocks. It leaves a corresponding cavity on the core.
If, after chipping a certain number of flakes from the same
side of the core, we strike it in the other direction, a very
sharp though wavy edge is produced, whose alternating con-
vexities and concavities can be reduced by further light
knapping, till quite a regular cutting edge is achieved. These
two methods belong to palaeolithic industry, the Chellean type
most often showing wavy edges, and the Acheulean presenting
a nearly regular cutting edge* With the Moustierian industry
the trimming becomes more highly finished in the " coups
de poing " ; but Man chiefly uses the chips whose edges he
trims on one side only, either by percussion or pressure^
We have seen that the " coup de poing" disappeared with
the archaeolithic industries, but the method of chipping both
sides, as in that implement, is thenceforward applied to
the chip ; this results in the appearance of nuclei cores
from which flint blades are split off, eventually to be fashioned
in a hundred different ways according to need, one or both
sides being trimmed*

The mesolithic industry shows great progress as regards

140 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

variety of form ; there appear, among others, the paring-tool,
precursor of the axe which, later on, will be polished ; but
the paring-tool is generally chipped only on one side, the
other remaining flat.

In Egypt and in India 1 , this paring-tool appears in the

FIG. 70. Nos. i-iz, Nucleus (Grand-Pressigny). Nos. 3-4, 1st blade.
No. 5, 2nd blade. No. 6, 2nd blade.

form of a true hatchet, concurrently with another disposition
in which the implement is trimmed away on both sides ;
the knapping being effected by blows skilfully struck on the
side of the tool thus prepared* In the Egyptian paring-axe,
however, the edge is often produced by a series of chips,
which differentiates it from the true Campignian parer as
well as from the corresponding Indian implement.

i Communicated by H. Seton Karr (Pnaar River).

THE WORKING OF HARD ROCK 141

The polished axe appears in the neolithic industry along
with a number of new forms, and its use continues during
eneolithic industry, and even into the bronze phase, for
metal was then still very rare, and for many purposes the old
implements continued to be employed.

It is in neolithic and eneolithic industry that we meet with
the masterpieces of flint-knapping, and it is hard to believe
that craftsmen existed who were skilful enough to trim those
large perfectly-executed Egyptian blades, always so fine,

FIG 71. Nucleus and blades in obsidian (Phylacopi, Isle of Milos).

and sometimes polished on one side, that bear traces of
chipping so regularly done as to be mathematical in its
precision. The neolithic craftsmen in Egypt, as in Scandi-
navian countries, were past-masters in their art. Along the
Nile valley they even fashioned light bracelets of flint, perfectly
circular and polished on the outside. In Jutland and Scania
they excelled in the manufacture of daggers. Some specimens
found even in France are by no means negligible, but it
remains to be proved that they are really indigenous, for at
that time trade in flints had been greatly expanded.

In the north of Europe flint appears in large nodules in
the upper cretaceous beds (from the lower green chalk to the
white chalk inclusive) ; these nodules are especially formed
in the chalk, after it is deposited, the silica collecting in
the holes and hollows caused by the moulds of decom-
posed organisms buried in the mud. The sponges have
been the principal agencies causing this concentration of
silica. The finest flints in the world are found in the white

142 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

chalk of the south of England, the north of France, Belgium,
the north of Germany, and Denmark. Flint-bearing chalk
does not exist in Sweden. 1

In Algeria and Tunis flints are plentiful in the same
formations as in Western Europe, whilst in Egypt they appear
in the Tertiary (Nummulitic) beds ; and, so far as concerns
the low hills of the Nile Valley, the quality of the flint is in
no way inferior to that of the West.

In order to feed trade and to supply flints to populations

FIG. 72. Shafts for the extraction of flint at Mur-de-Barrez ( Aveyron)
After Marcellin Bottle (Mat. 1887, p. 8).

whose own territory yielded none, flint-knapping centres
formed ; such workshops were established in Belgium, in
the basin of the Loire, and at Grand Pressigny. In this last
locality very fine flint knives were made which were exported
all over Western Europe, but other implements do not appear
to have been made there to any large extent. The abandoned
nuclei that had done the service required of them are found
in the fields by thousands at Grand Pressigny among other
places. These nuclei consist of longish pieces of flint that
have had large chips flaked off them on every side, but one
of which alone was prepared for the splitting off of blades.

ij.de Morgan, 1882. Les terrainsTcr6tac6s de la Scandinavie, X.

THE WORKING OF HARD ROCK 143

They are of varied dimensions ; some have a length of more
than 50 centimetres (Fig. 70).

These great blades were split off by percussion, and very
great skill and special precautions must have been required

FIG. 73. Topographical sketch of the flint mines of Wady el Sheikh

(Egypt), from a survey by Seton Karr.
(Mines prhi$toriques=pTebistoTic mines ; puits arabes= Arab wells.)

to prevent the jar from breaking these long-, thin, fragile
knives. Of course we do find broken blades, but these are
very few in relation to the enormous number of cores, and
thus to the number of blades produced,

The chipping of obsidian blades was done in the same
manner in the islands of the Eastern Mediterranean, but
neither cores nor blades reached large dimensions ; the biggest
nucleus never exceeding 20 centimetres in length (Fig. 71).

146 EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

year, it is extremely difficult to recognize their position. In
Egypt, the conditions are quite otherwise ; there the neolithic
people opened up mines in the desert where the ground
remains still in the state in which they left it more than six
thousand years ago ; we still see the mounds of rubbish
(Fig. 74) left by the work of the miners around the pits, and
these heaps extend in infinite number along the edges of

FIG. 76. The "Pierre aux dix doigts," Villemaure (Aube)

certain valleys known in those times for the rich flint-con-
taining beds existing below the Quaternary drift. These
extensive workings must have been contemporaneous with
the flint- working industry of Egypt in its heyday ; that is to
say that they probably commenced to be worked before the
appearance of metal, and continued to be exploited under the
kings whose remains repose in the necropoles of Nakadah
and Abydos.

Long before he began to polish flint, sedimentary and
crystalline rocks, Man had carved and polished bone and
ivory, together with certain stone utensils ; he was not
ignorant, then, of this method of treating his material, but
for reasons that escape us, he did not employ it, and it was
not till very late that he used it.

The implement, after being knapped with great care, took
its final form before it was polished. For flint tools as much

THE WORKING OF HARD ROCK 147

as possible of the too prominent ridg-es was taken off by
minute trimming skilfully done ; and for other rocks the
implement was given its form by chipping it with a pointed
hammer-stone of very hard rock ; it was then ground by
friction on some harder substance, and probably the project-
ing ridges of the concavities were taken off by the aid of
sand and water.

This operation was carried out either on a rock or on a
large stone brought into the encampment, and to which we
give the name of rubbing-stone. We are familiar with

FIG. 77-

Bas-relief of the Sixth Egyptian Dynasty.
Making stone vases.

rubbing--stones of the Aurignacian, 1 Magdalenian, 2 and
Azilian 8 industries ; but these stones only served for the
polishing of bone and ivory and for the making of needles
and pins. Stone-polishing came in with the neolithic phase,
and was applied only to a few implements, such as axes,
adzes, gouges, chisels, and tomahawks throughout the world,
and to knives and bracelets in Egypt alone ; even then
implements were often only polished at the edg*e. We should
notice that in the south of Europe, in Italy, Greece and
Spain, polished flint axe-heads do not occur, 4 nor are they
found in North Africa, or at least they are extremely rare.

The rubbing-stones are usually of hard sandstone ;
they are also known, however, in granite, quartzite, and
other hard rocks. In the Dordogne slabs of flint 6 were
frequently used. One of the most remarkable is that known
as the " Pierre aux dix doigts" (Fig. 76) from Villemaure in

the Aube. 6

But in addition to these immobile polishing-stones on

* Cornbarelles Cavern.
4 XXVI, I, 512.

* Trilobite Cavern.

* Mas-d'Azil Cavern.

5 Dr Testut, V (1888), 77.
fl A. deMortillet, I*es polissoirs de ViUemaure (Aube), JX (1906), 44, Figs. 26
and 27.

148

EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRIES

which the implement to be finished was rubbed, there are a
good number of hand polishers and sharpeners which cer-
tainly were not intended for polishing stone tools, but must
have been used for bone, ivory or horn. "We find them in
great numbers in neolithic stations; some even are holed
and could be hung at the belt.

The neolithic industry at its zenith included implements
that were perforated to receive handles, such as axe-heads,
hammers, clubs, tomahawks, etc., found all over the world.
These weapons are^almost always made of very hard stone,
such as diorite, serpentine, etc., and were in use a long time,

FIG. 78. i to 5, Stone vases. El Amrah (Upper Egypt),

for we find them frequently with bronze implements ; but we
should be quite wrong in considering them to be representative
of an epoch 1 for eneolithic industry cannot be considered of
the same antiquity in all the widely different regions where they
are found. In Egypt and Chaldea, maces of various shapes
are extremely ancient and their use is preserved up to our
times in Mesopotamia. The tribal Arabs, in fact, are still
armed with an instrument consisting of a short stick furnished
at one of its extremities with a large ball of bitumen.

The boring of the hole for hafting was done as it still
is in our days by the rotation of a circular drill, generally
hollow, worked either by hand or by the aid of a string
bow, operating on the stone to be pierced ; wet sand played a
great part in this work which also permitted vases in hard
stone, such as rock crystal, obsidian, cornelian, etc., to be
hollowed out. Certain bas-reliefs of the old Kingdom in
Egypt show us labourers occupied in this work (Fig. 77).

From the times of the chipped stone industry, Man had

* As does Dchelette, XXVI, I, 519.

THE WORKING OF HARD ROCK 149

worked in wood ; in the closing periods, those which preceded
the appearance of metal, he cut down great trees whose trunks
he hollowed to make pirogues, 1 a sort of elongated trough,
rounded or square at either end. He also cut and trimmed

346

FIG. 79. Stone vase. Abou Zedan (Upper Egypt).
Eneolithic. H. de Morgan's researches.

to a point the piles of his lake villages and the beams of his
houses. This work certainly required patience, as we our-
selves know, having seen the Indians of South America
engaged in it ; still they achieved their objects, just as well
as if they had had metal axes* Time was the prin-
cipal factor in all this work, as it still is among primitive
peoples ; the Indians of Alaska polish walrus ivory by
rubbing it for weeks and months in the hollow of their hands
and thus obtain a lustre that a more rapid process could
never produce.

1 Moringen and Robenhausen (Switzerland), Saint- Anbin-en-Charollais (Satae-
et-Loire), etc.

PART TWO

THE DAILY LIFE
OF PREHISTORIC MAN

PART Two

THE DAILY LIFE OF PREHISTORIC MAN

CHAPTER I

His DWELLING-PLACE

WE know nothing of Man's dwellings earlier than the
evidences of Moustierian industry. The caverns, however,
were open to him, for in most of them, we find, at the lowest
level of the deposits silting them up, remains bearing witness
to their occupation by wild animals. Hence we are led to
believe either that the country was not inhabited before the
coming of the Moustierians, or else, as we have said earlier,
that the Chellean and Acheulean industries were con-
temporaneous with the Moustierian, that they responded to
needs that the troglodyte population did not experience, and
that the Chelleans and Acheuleans built themselves huts in
districts where there was no natural shelter. It is impossible,
in fact, not to believe that these people would take shelter in
caves if such were at their disposal.

The caverns, preserving, as they have done, traces of
succeeding generations inhabiting them, furnish the most
precise information as to the life of palaeolithic and archseo-
lithic Man. In the Grimaldi caves (grotte des Enfants) the de-
posits that filled them had accumulated before the excavations
to a depth of about ten metres. The lowest layer contained
hyaena coprolites, and above it there were superposed nine
distinct floor levels, all Quaternary. The lower layers were
characterized by the presence of bone fragments of Rhinoceros
mercki^ nor do the Grimaldi caves constitute an isolated
example, for all our caverns have been inhabited in the same
manner, more or less consecutively. Some, however, provi-

* Cf. LXIV : Historique et description, by the Chanoine de Villeneuvc ;
Anthropologie, by Dr Verneau, Glologie et Paltontologie, by Marcellin Boule.

158

154 DAILY LIFE OF PREHISTORIC MAN

sionally abandoned by Man, once more became the haunt of
carnivores ; then they were reconquered, and floors yielding-
evidences of habitation succeed the sterile layers in which the
products of industry are absent.

We really know nothing* whatever of the dwelling-places
of men other than caves during- Quaternary times ; the first
traces of huts built in the open appear with mesolithic in-
dustries. The Danish kitchen middens and the Campig-nian
stations reveal to us that Man was then constructing shelters
of interlaced branches daubed with mud and clay. As a rule
these huts were grouped in villages, and were usually protected
by natural means or by palisading. These primitive houses
were low, circular, and at most 2*50 metres in diameter. In
certain cases, one hut would be used for habitation, and
another as kitchen. 1 Usually these villages were situated near
running water ; for we must not forget that, although occupied
in cattle-raising and cereal culture, the mesolithic and neo-
lithic populations still depended on hunting and fishing for
a large part of their subsistence. A good many of these
settlements were in the neighbourhood of the more important
beds of flint or of obsidian, and, later, of metal ore, leading
to the establishment of veritable manufactories catering for
export trade. The land had to support these groups, which,
being small, easily produced all that was needed in the
vicinity of the villages.

The manner of their life in those days did not, as a rule,
lead men to build actual cities, although certain agglomera-
tions may be dignified by the name of towns, such as the
Camp de Chassey, in the Cote-d'Or, covering no less than a
dozen hectares, and that at Campigny (Seine-Inferieure),
where the huts spread over three or four square hectometres.
Further down the river, in the valley of the Bresle near the
village of Incheville, there was a Campignian encampment
on a plateau, probably fortified ; this camp measures several
hundreds of metres in length. We may further mention
the townships of Catenoy (Oise) ; Camp-Barbet, at Janville,
in the same department; and Peu-Richard, in the commune
of Thenac, Charente-Infferieure.

The manufiactories of stone implements varied in kind
H(Mtaiion$ *Uthiques du plateau dts Hautes Bruytrts ( Villejuif),

HIS DWELLING-PLACE 155

according- to the nature of the soil and the demand for
exportation. In many localities weapons and tools of every
shape and form were fashioned, whilst in others only certain
types were produced. In Normandy and Champagne they
polished axe-heads ; in Calvados and Seine, they chipped
scrapers. Grand Pressigny, we have seen, was a centre for
the manufacture of large flint blades.

But it is not only in France that we find remains of human
settlements of the latter portion of the Stone Age. In the
province of Li&ge, in Belgium, there are traces of numerous
villages of this period. 1 In Italy interesting discoveries
have been made in the Abruzzi, in the province of Reggio,
and in the provinces of Mantua, Brescia, etc. 2

What we know of the huts of Germany shows us that
the manners and customs responsible for the mode of their
construction differed from those of the inhabitants of France.
The German huts were rectangular, constructed on a
framework filled in with trellised branches plastered with
pis6 which was decorated with geometric designs in
various colours. 8 In Bohemia, Hungary, Bosnia, Tran-
sylvania, and as far as Roumania, traces of neolithic villages
have been discovered ; but if we compare these discoveries,
we note perceptible differences, either in the construction of
the shelters, or else in the pottery or stone tools, though the
underlying principles are the same.

It is very difficult to distinguish between neolithic dwell-
ings and those of peoples who knew the use of metal ; tastes
differed according to locality and the various materials at
Man's disposal. Further, the date of these dwellings can only
be determined by the objects found among their ruins. The
houses of Megasa and Phaestos, considered by Dawkins and
Mosso to be neolithic, are, without the slightest doubt,
eneolithic from the evidence of the objects they contain as
much as from their method of construction. In the same way
the constructions at Orchomenos, with stone sub-foundations
and walls of unbaked bricks, belong to an already well-
advanced civilization, in which metal was certainly known.
Schliemann wrongly attributes them to neolithic culture.

i Cf. Marcel dePuydt, U (1888 to 1903).
a Cf. Pigorini, XXI (1875), 175-
*Cf. LXXIV.

156 DAILY LIFE OF PREHISTORIC MAN

Europe at that time was peopled by tribes belonging to
diverse races of very different manners. Variations in
customs, which were to make themselves felt still more after
the appearance of metals, are the best proofs of this.

In the fertile plains and valleys where game was abundant
Man had to be on his guard not only against wild animals
but also against his neighbours ; conflicts between tribes
were incessant in those days, as they still are to-day among
nomads, either for the possession of hunting and fishing
grounds, or for pasturage and agricultural land. Security
was only relative. Do we not well know that before they were
practically annihilated by the Europeans, the Indians of the
United States were constantly at war one with another?
Thus we see nearly all neolithic villages surrounded by
defensive walls. Unfortunately, since these sites continued
to be inhabited long after the appearance of metal, it is
impossible to attribute to neolithic people with any certainty
the fortifications whose remains we recognize.

Constantly in search of more favourable conditions of
existence, the neolithic populations of the lake regions sought
refuge from their enemies by building their dwellings on
the water. In spite of the rudimentary means at their dis-
posal, these men felled the forest trees and made them into
piles, which they drove into the mud of the lakes ; on these
piles they constructed more or less broad platforms on
which they built their houses. This procedure, unknown
in France before the appearance of polished stone, is
still in use in both the Far East and in Oceania. The bay
of Singapore affords a striking example : there an entire
Chinese settlement, consisting largely of fishermen, still lives
thus on the water.

We can enumerate in Switzerland to-day over two hundred
pile villages. 1 Stations of this kind are common in our
French Alpine lakes, and they are found from the Jura to
Scotland, and in Russia.

Elsewhere construction on piles is not limited to dwellings
built over water. Throughout Malaysia the houses are built
on piles, and their platforms are raised several metres above
the ground ; it is thus that the natives protect themselves

1 LXVHL

HIS DWELLING-PLACE 157

from marsh mists and dangerous animals. The terramaras
of North Italy were constructed on the same principle. x

The construction of the crannogs of Ireland and Scotland
spring from the same idea, but the same principle of defence
by water developed on different lines from those of the pala-
fittes. Crannogs are small artificial islands produced by
the building up of shallows, which are under water in winter
and are dry in stimmer.

It can be readily understood that the inhabitants of the
palafittes threw their daily refuse into the water and that very
often useful objects fell in by mistake. Thus from the
forest of stakes still standing in the mud and marking the
position of these villages, the drag brings up the various
household and personal articles of those times ; stone, metal,
trimmed bone and wooden implements, pottery, even pieces
of cloth, nets and ropes preserved by the peat, pirogues
hollowed from tree trunks, nuts and berries in short, every-
thing which in those days had a place in the everyday
existence of the inhabitants. Thanks to these many relics
we have a thousand and one details of information on the
intimate life of the lake village populations.

The piles which have stood in place for so many centuries
permit us to estimate the size of the various settlements
and to determine their plan and shape.

At Robenhausen (in Switzerland) on Lake Pfaffikon the
area occupied by the village was nearly a hectare and a half
and it stood about three thousand paces from the shore of the
lake. A long bridge connected the village with the mainland.

The ancient method of constructing human habitations
persisted in our part of the world long after the appearance
of metals ; Roman bas-reliefs, particularly those on the
column of Trajan, supply some very conclusive representa-
tions in this regard ; and some of the funerary urns from
Etruria and Latium (Fig. 80) give us an exact reproduction
of the huts of those days in those countries. It was only
much later that Man thought of constructing walls for his
dwellings ; his first care was to use stone in order to preserve
the bones of his dead ; it was only long afterwards that he
took pains to protect his own life by raising up ramparts for

1 C O. Montelius, after L. Pigorini, Civ. prim. Ital.

158 DAILY LIFE OF PREHISTORIC MAN

defence. Nevertheless, we should note that in the Eastern
Mediterranean the local populations had built the walls of
their houses of dry stone ever since the coming in of neolithic
industry ; and that in Asia they made use of clay briquettes
of different sizes for prehistoric ramparts, at Susa amongst
other places, and that this method of construction was
rapidly transformed in Egypt, developing into the brick-
work of which the tombs of the Thinite dynasties were built ;

FIG. 80. Hut-shaped funerary urns (Etruria).

the royal tombs of Nakadah and Abydos are built of un-
baked brick. A little later they even used these materials
in the construction of ramparts for the protection of their
towns. The walls of El Kab are an excellent example of
primitive military architecture. Later still, under the twelfth
dynasty, the pyramids of the Usertesens and Amenemhats
still consisted of a huge core of unbaked brick, faced with
stone ; and, many centuries after, under the Achsemenidas of
Persia, everything was built of large unbaked bricks
houses, palaces and ramparts, although baked brick had
been known at least since the time of the Patesis of Elam.
In Gaul, in Greece, throughout Europe, and even in Egypt,
baked brick only appears and comes into current use at the
time of the Roman conquest.

The nomads of our times live in tents, shelters made of
skins or of a coarse haircloth, which they pack on their
animals as soon as the pasturage is exhausted around their
encampments ; for they stay only a few weeks in one place.
It was no doubt thus in prehistoric times ; the nomadic
hunters or herdsmen packed up their tents and departed,

HIS DWELLING-PLACE 159

either when the game was exhausted, or the grass all con-
sumed by the flocks. These constant changes of site leave
no durable record ; in a few days rain and wind scatter the
ashes of the camp fires, so that only a few semi-calcined
stones and occasional forgotten or abandoned objects remain
on the ground* Thus may be explained the discovery, in
all countries, of innumerable isolated objects whose presence
cannot be corroborated by similar finds.

Prehistoric settlements differ much in size in different
countries ; we have seen that the palafitte of Robenhausen
measured about one and a half hectares superficies. These
proportions reappear in several primitive cities ; at Murcens
(Lot), and at Mont Beuvray (Saone-et-Loire) the dimensions
of the town or citadel are equal to those of Robenhausen.
Alesia (C6te-d'Or) occupied an area of 9700 ares ; x Gergovia
7000 ares; and Palatine Rome covered 1320 ares; while
Tiryns was only 200 ares, Athens 250, and Mycenae 300 in
extent.

It is to be noted that the custom of settling on high
ground and of constructing an acropolis surrounded by walls
seems to have been brought in by peoples comingfrom Siberia,
for all the great towns founded by the old stock are in valleys
on the banks of rivers. Thebes, Abydos, Memphis, Ur, Uruk,
Babylon and Susa, are situated in the plains ; whereas Rome,
Athens, Ecbatana, Alesia and many other towns and villages
founded by the new-comers (Aryans) have an acropolis, or
are entirely built on heights. In Gaul there are innumer-
able examples of the choice of heights. The occupation of
islands and the construction of lake cities and crannogs is
due to the same need of natural protection for the settlement.

i An are equals 119-6046 sq. yards.

CHAPTER II

HUNTING, FISHING, ANIMAL DOMESTICATION
AND AGRICULTURE

Hunting. Primitive peoples to-day, as in the past, are de-
pendent on hunting, fishing 1 , and the gathering of wild
plants and berries for their subsistence, and it was
thus in the oldest prehistoric phases. The debris met
with in the drift yields no information on this point about
the life of the men who chipped the Chellean and Acheu-
lean " coups de poing". In the Moustierian levels of
the caverns, however, the numberless fragments of bones
of wild animals then inhabiting the plains, valleys and
mountains, leave no doubt as to the doings of the
troglodytes. They were hunters, and no doubt fishermen
also; the capture of game and fish was their principal
occupation.

Life, however, was not so easy as might be thought,
for throughout Quaternary times Man had to measure his
strength against terrible adversaries, no matter whether he
struggled with them for his subsistence or to defend his
own life. It was certainly not by his rude flint weapons
alone that he was able to master the pachyderms, rhinoceroses,
bisons, and other great herbivores on whose flesh he lived,
nor that he vanquished, as he did, even bears and lions.
Undoubtedly, he made great use of snares and traps, like
many modern savages, and of pits such as are still used in
Indo-China to capture the royal tiger, and he must also have
made formidable weapons, such as spears, of hard wood,
perhaps with poisoned points. A boxwood or oaken stave,
properly prepared, becomes a most formidable means of
attack in the hands of a skilful and vigorous man.

Among modern savages this kind of weapon is frequently
used, and varies in shape and design according to the use
intended. Pikes, javelins, and spears pointed with flint,

160

HUNTING AND AGRICULTURE 161

bone or horn, or merely tapered, are the principal hunting-
weapons of primitive men, and in prehistoric times as in
our own day they could be turned against man just as well
as against wild beasts.

The bow and arrow certainly appeared in our part of
the world before the advent of neolithic industry, and was
a great improvement on the throwing-stick, for the pro-
jectile could cover great distances four or five hundred
metres, (in the Roman epoch), making it possible to hit

FIG. 8 1. Hunting scene. Bas-relief from the tomb of Mera, at Sakkarah

(Sixth Dynasty).

an enemy or game without giving the alarm. Thence-
forward men could fight against lions and bears with less
risk of life than in the past. In hot countries, however, the
hunter had not only to deal with the great carnivores : in
Egypt* crocodiles coming- out of the marshes by night
entered villages in search of prey, just as alligators do to
this day in Central America, and neither arrow nor spear
would have the least effect on their armour. These monsters
sometimes attained enormous dimensions, and while the
inhabitants sought refuge within their palisades, and dared
not venture forth, lions would leave their desert haunts
and prowl around the huts and the cattle enclosures. In
Chaldea the memory of such conflicts with the king- of
beasts was kept alive for centuries, as the carvings and
sculpture bear witness, whereas Egyptian bas-reliefs of the
earliest historic period for the most part (Fig. 81) demon-
strate more pacific exploits qf the chase, such as gazelle and

I,

162 DAILY LIFE OF PREHISTORIC MAN

antelope hunts, or water-fowl hunting in the marshes.
Archery and netting play a great part in these hunts.

In the kitchen middens of Egypt and Europe and in
the caves considerable heaps of broken bones are found,
remains of meals that the men of those days did not trouble
to move far from their dwellings ; this d6bris varies at
different periods, thus providing for each a list of the wild
animals Man used for food. At Solutre there have been
found the remains of no less than one hundred thousand
horses, whose bones had been heaped up around the ancient

FIG. 82. Hunting falcons : i, jessed ; 2, free.
Second Iron Industry.

Russian Armenia.

dwelling-places. Whereas in regions outside Europe we
see rock drawings of men in pursuit of game, such repre-
sentations are non-existent with us in Quaternary times,
though our caves are covered with paintings. They occur
later only, contemporaneously with neolithic industry. This
observation has a significant bearing on the spirit in which
the Magdalenian representations were done.

The general introduction of cattle raising and agriculture
did not put a stop to hunting, but thenceforward the taking
of game, no longer indispensable to existence, became
a secondary occupation. It would appear that the neolithic
people lived as much on wild animals as on theif herds, if
we may judge by the fragments of bones found in the mud
beneath the lake villages. It was not till much later in
historic times that hunting became an agreeable pastime,
a luxury that the greatest kings did not scorn. With the
advent of metals, however, weapons became more formidable,
game grew scarce, and a number of species disappeared.
It was thus that the Roman cavalry of Julian the Philosopher
exterminated with their arrows the last ostriches of the

HUNTING AND AGRICULTURE 163

Euphrates desert, that the lion disappeared from Continental
Greece and Asia Minor at the very outset of historical times
in these countries ; and that bos urus of Western Europe was
exterminated in the first centuries of our own era.

At the date of the iron industry, we first see the falcon
employed for hunting (Fig. 82) in Transcaucasia, and this
sport, so dear to the knights of the Middle Ages, has been
pursued vigorously by the Orientals up to our own day.

FIG. 83. Harpoons and fishing implements: r, Ivory; 2,

(Abydos) ; 3, Flint (Helwan) ; 4, The hafting of No. 3 ; 5, Deer u^x*
(Lake of Neuch&tel) ; 6, Robennausen (Switzerland) ; 7, Pinewood float,
Robennausen (Switzerland). (Nos. 5, 6 and 7 after A. de Mortillet.)

Fishing. If Man was a hunter of game, he certainly did
not neglect the abundant fish in the lakes and rivers of those
days an abundance unknown now except in new countries
where modern methods of fishing have not yet been applied.

There is no evidence available to inform us what methods
of fishing were employed in the early days contemporaneous
with palaeolithic industry. The advent of the harpoon at
the opening phase of archaeolithic industry, however, pro-
vides certain proof that the predecessors of the Gauls hunted
fish. No traces of fishing-lines, however, have been found,

164 DAILY LIFE OF PREHISTORIC MAN

FIG, 84* Fish-hooks: Nos. i to 8, and n to 13, Swiss lake cities;
No. 9, Susa ; No. 10, Egypt.

FIG. 85. Fishing scenes. Bas-reliefs from the tomb of Mera, at Sakkarah
(Sixth Dynasty). Above : i, Mera goes fishing in a boat ; a servant
gives him to drink; in the bow another servant splits the fish for
drying. 2, Fishing boats picking up fish-traps. 3, Two boats with
hoop-nets; fishing-birds are seen underneath. Below: Eighteen
fishermen landing a seine full of fish under the orders of their leader.

HUNTING AND AGRICULTURE 165

but it may be remarked that fish-hooks could be made from
splinters of bone or hard wood bound together to form an
acute angle ; the geometrical microliths (Tardenoisian or
Tourassian) would seem to have been made for fishing.

The harpoon (Fig, 83, Nos. i to 5) in use towards the
close of Quaternary times is present in all later industries
down to our own day* It is made of bone, ivory, or metal,
and certain small flint implements found at Helwan (Egypt),
among other places, are probably harpoon points.

Fish-hooks (Fig. 84, Nos. i to 10) similar in form to those

FIG. 86. Cattle of the Ancient Empire (oxen). Bas-relief from the
tomb of Mera at Sakkarah (Sixth Dynasty).

in use to-day are found in large numbers in all the copper
and bronze industries.

Nets (Fig. 83, No. 6) appear in the lake villages with
neolithic industry ; or, rather, it is in the lakes that the oldest
specimens of net yet known have been found.

The netting seems to have been more often of the simple
square pattern known as " thumbs" than of the more com-
plicated " finger" pattern. Pieces of light wood (Fig. 83,
No. 7) served as floats, while pierced pebbles (Fig. 84, No. 1 1)
or the large holed discs of baked clay, called fusaroles or
spindle- whirls (Fig. 84, Nos. 12 and 13), took the place of
our sinkers for lines as well as nets.

In certain districts rich in lakes and streams, or situated
by the sea, fishing was the principal means of livelihood ;
the Danish kitchen middens furnish proof of this, and the
bas-reliefs left us by the Egyptians of the early dynasties
show numerous representations of scenes of fishing with
nets in the Nile or in the lateral marshes of the Nile valley
85). The kitchen refuse of the Egyptians, moreover,

166 DAILY LIFE OF PREHISTORIC MAN

contains a great deal of fish debris ; and some of the verte-
brae of these fish indicate that in those days veritable monsters
of two or three metres in length were sometimes caught in the
sacred river.

In Chaldea, a country of rivers and marine marshes,
fishing was also held in great honour, and according
to the archaic texts the legendary kings engaged in it. In
Japan, China, Polynesia and even in certain parts of Europe,
fishing still supplies the inhabitants with a large measure
of their daily food.

Cattle-raising. The domestication of certain kinds of

FIG. 87. Domesticated animals of the Ancient Empire : antelopes,

gazelles, hyaenas, and jackals. Bas-relief from the tomb of Mera at

Sakkarah (Sixth Dynasty).

animals begins in our part of the world at a time when
rnesolithic industry was flourishing. The earliest domesti-
cated animal seems to have been the dog, the hunter's com-
panion and guardian of the hut, whose skeleton is found in
the Danish kitchen middens, Hypotheses attributing the
breaking in of horses to the Solutreans rest on no
substantial base, nor can we seriously consider suppositions
relating to domestication in Quaternary times.

Apparently it was at a much later date that Man made
animals his auxiliaries and kept them for reserve food.

Pigs, horses, cows, goats, sheep and dogs had been tamed
in the period of the pile-dwellings ; wild Boar, Fallow-deer,
Red-deer/ a large Ox, Elk, Beaver, Cat, Fox, Wolf, Polecat,
Marten, Badger and brown Bear, existed in the wild state.
Man, ever a hunter, usually brought back to his dwelling
only the most useful parts of the game, dismembering it
where it had fallen. This custom, which we see practised

HUNTING AND AGRICULTURE 167

from Quaternary times, and which has been perpetuated by
savage tribes to our own day, has enabled zoologists to
distinguish between beasts slain in the chase and domesti-
cated animals killed in the villages. Thus we find every
part of the skeleton of the domesticated animals among
the remains in the vicinity of the dwellings, but when we
are dealing with game, 1 always the same bones.

FIG. 88* Antelopes, from a Medum fresco (Third Dynasty).

We do not know where animal domestication originated.
Certain authors 2 without any supporting proof pronounce
for the Orient ; but it would be more credible that such
domestication had taken place in a number of different
localities. The Peruvians, as Reinach observes, had
domesticated the Llama, and the Aztecs the Turkey, before
the Spanish conquest, 8

While exploring the kitchen middens in Egypt, I found
not only traces of the domestication of animals among the
remains of habitations, but also the enclosures where the
pre-pharaonic people kept their herds at night. These herds
were composed, for the most part, of antelopes (Bubalis
buselaphus)^ gazelles (Gazella dorcas and isabelld)^ goats

1 Cf. XXVI, I, 341-

2 Cf. Zaborowski, JL'origine des animaux domestiques en Europe et les
migrations aryennes ; XIII, Grenoble (1905), II, 1034.

3 LXI, 13-

168 DAILY LIFE OF PREHISTORIC MAN

(Hircus thebaicus), sheep (Ovis longipes), and bearded and
ruffled moufflons (Ammotragus tragelaphus).^ The ox was
also known, for its remains are found in the kitchen d6bris,
but we do not as yet know whether, at that period, it was
wild or domesticated.

Among- the herds which appear on the bas-reliefs of the
Ancient Empire, we notice certain cattle (Bos macroceros and
Bos brachyceros) as well as the Asiatic sheep. Their skeletons
are constantly met with in the kitchen middens of Ttikh.
Such live-stock was probably imported 2 at a very early
period. We have nothing whatever to go by which might

FIG. 89. Rock painting at Cogul (Spain), after H. BreuiL 8

help us to determine the date of animal domestication in
other lands ; for instance, we are ignorant of the epoch in
which the reindeer, so important an item of food at the
close of the Quaternary period, first became the servant
of man.

Agriculture. To appreciate the conditions of prehistoric
agriculture we must seek information from the period
of neolithic industry in the Swiss lake villages, because the
mud of the lakes has preserved for us in good condition the
substance of plants, whereas in the other stations such traces
have disappeared.

Dr Herr, 4 whose work on this question deserves every
confidence, has established the fact that the inhabitants of
the lake' villages harvested hazel-nuts, sloes, strawberries,

*IJ.

LXVH ; Pi&trement, les chevaux dans Us temps prthistoriques, I (1906), 658.

'The human representations are more recent than those of the animals.
H. Breuil (in Hit. Jan. 10, 1923). The relation between the two subjects is thus
illusory.

4 Die Pflanzen der Pfahlbauten. Neujahr. naturf. Gesellsch., 1896.

HUNTING AND AGRICULTURE 169

apples, -water caltrops, beech - nuts, acorns and grapes
as food either for themselves or for their herds ; and
Neuweiler 1 recently drew up a list of nearly 120 different
sorts of prehistoric fruits, without including cereals such
as rye, barley, wheat, and oats, which abound in the
pile-dwellings either in grain or ear. Sir John Lubbock 2
tells us that the inhabitants of lake villages cultivated three
kinds of wheat, two of barley, and two of millet.

FIG. 90. i, Wooden statuette (Third Dynasty), Dahshur;
2, Monsheim (Rheinhessen) ; 3, Susa.

It is impossible to tell whether all these sorts were
indigenous, or whether they had been imported from other
countries such as Mesopotamia, where graminaceous plants
are common : we can only state with certainty that the
Egyptian wheat (Triticum turgidum), and the six- rowed
barley (Hordeum hexasticori), a variety which the people of
antiquity cultivated in Greece, Italy, Egypt and Western Asia
have been found in the Swiss lake dwellings. In every land
Egypt, Chaldea, Italy, and Hellenic countries from the
earliest times of the polished axe, we find hand milling-
stones (Fig. 90), common also to mesolithic and neolithic
stations, and lake cities. These hand mills consist simply
of a large, flat nether stone of hard rock and an elongated
grinding stone flattened on one surface. With this primitive

2 IX, 4th edit., I, 204.

170 DAILY LIFE OF PREHISTORIC MAN

FIG. 91. i, Wooden sickle armed with flint, after W. M. Flinders Petrie,
Illahum Cahun and Gurob, pL III, Fig. 27; 2, Section showing the
method of mounting the flint, and the bitumen cement ; 3, Hieroglyphic
from a Medum fresco (Third Dynasty). The handle is painted green
and the teeth white ; 4 to 8, Sickle pieces ; 9, Flint still showing the
bitumen cement and the marks left by the wooden handle.

FIG. 92. Abuchal, near Carmona (Spain), after G. Bonsor.

HUNTING AND AGRICULTURE 171

implement, still found to-day among some backward peoples,
the lake-city populations ground the coarse flour with which
they made their loaves. A good many specimens of these
have been found at the bottom of the lakes, a sort of flat,
unleavened ' ' bap/*, analogous to those made by many African
and Asiatic peoples to-day.

The . most curious discovery of recent years relating to

FIG. 93. Bronze sickles : i, Moringen, Lake City (Switzerland) ; 2,
Corcelette ; 3, Gu&vaux ; 4, Athlone (Westmeath) ; 5, Jura ; 6, Hungary ;

7, Caucasus.

prehistoric agriculture is that made by Flinders Petrie in
Egypt. He found a wooden sickle armed all along its cutting
edge with serrated flint blades (Fig. 91). Up till then these
flint implements, extremely common in all neolithic and
eneolithic stations in Egypt, had been thought to be
saws. This it is evident they are not, and it is possible
to recognize on almost each blade of this kind, now
scattered abroad, a peculiar polish on the teeth that has been
caused, not by friction against a hard body but by some
pliant substance, such as straw, rubbing away the pro-
jecting ridges. In Chaldea (at Yokha), in Elam (at Susa),
and at the lowest level of all the tells, we find these

172 DAILY LIFE OF PREHISTORIC MAN

sickle pieces in great quantities ; almost all of them are
worn like the Egyptian ones, and are covered with a
patina produced by weathering since their abandonment.
They are also found in Syria and Spain (Fig. 92).

The existence of this wooden implement armed with flints
shows how important it is to be prudent in our assumptions
regarding the use of chipped flints whose method of mount-
ing is unknown.

With the coming of metals we see the form of the sickle
changing ; it differs slightly in different countries, but it

FIG. 94. Cultivator and his plouglu Rock carving from
Bohusland (Sweden), after A. Montelius.

is always a curved blade, furnished with a stouter back

(Fig: 93).

The date at which the plough made its appearance (Fig. 94)
is impossible to fix, because at first this implement had no
ploughshare and consisted only of a hooked piece of wood, one
of whose branches was attached to the yoke, while the
other penetrated into the soil ; it was later only that the plough
was armed with metal. A considerable number of iron
ploughshares are known. In Egypt, however, we find very
large chipped flints which are supposed to have been used
as ploughshares.

Chariots are found in Chaldea, Egypt, Italy, Greece, and
in almost all Mediterranean countries during the bronze
industry. In the north and west of Europe they are quite
common from the time of the Hallstatt culture (Fig. 95),
though they had existed much earlier, as the Scandinavian
votive-chariots prove.

All this progress came about gradually, either as the
result of native inventions or through contact with more
advanced peoples. Thus Man, clinging to the soil he had
cultivated, modified his manner of life and from being a

HUNTING AND AGRICULTURE 173

hunter became sedentary. In many mountainous districts,
however, the needs of his herds obliged him to con-
serve somewhat of his old nomadic existence, and to seek

FIG. 95. Vehicle, with horses harnessed to it, incised on a clay
vase (Iron industry) Odenburg (Hungary) .

pasture according to the season. It is thus that most of the
Kurdish and Tartar tribes of Asia live to-day. For the most
part their villages are built in the midst of the cultivated
lands and the winter pastures ; but when the heat comes,
they go up into the mountains, returning to the village
for a short time in the summer for the harvest. Then they
go back to the mountains till the snow drives their cattle
from the upper pastures.

CHAPTER III
DRESS AND ORNAMENT

ACCORDING to the rare representations of Man dating- from
the Quaternary period, it would seem that in Western
Europe in those days he went naked, or did not need cloth-
ing* ; for even if in the cold season he covered himself with
the skins of animals killed in the chase (which is not in-
dicated, however, in representations of him) this did not
prevent him from exposing- himself to wind and weather.
Perhaps Nature, with forethought in this regard as in the
case of the pachyderms, had provided him with a fleece
certain graving-s on reindeer horn at least suggest it.
If this was so in cold climes, a fortiori it could not
be otherwise in hot. Thus, in Egypt, even in the days
of neolithic industry, Man does not seem to have been
clothed. The most ancient drawings show him naked or
protected simply by a sort of loin-cloth, which is the case
to-day with most savage communities in hot countries, and
even with some in lands such as Patagonia where the cold
is intense.

In the caverns, at the floor level of archaeolithic industry,
a number of bone and ivory needles are met with, from which
we may draw the . inference that the people of those days
sewed furs to cover their bodies in winter, as, the Kamcha-
dales do to-day. It would not be safe, however, to attribute
to them any knowledge of textile fabrics.

However this may be, it is during the course of neolithic
and eneolithic industry that we first definitely find cloth.
The proto-Susians made a linen cloth of quite fine texture.
It is even probable that under the early dynasties of the
valley of the Nile the people wore those cotton stuffs of which
we find samples, so well-preserved, on the mummies from
the third dynasty onwards. Since the burial-places of the
first princes of Upper Egypt were given to the flames, all

174

DRESS AND ORNAMENT

175

the perishable materials they contained have disappeared ;
and in the graves of the common people not a trace has been
found of any textile fabric, which, moreover, had it already
existed, would have been a luxury.

In Western Europe the lake-city people spun and wove
flax, but did not yet know of hemp ; but this was not the flax

FIG. 96. i to
Roumania) ; 4

we cultivate to-day, but a narrow-leaved species (Lznum
augustifolium) which still grows wild in Mediterranean
countries, and which in early days they probably gathered
wild.

The custom of going naked, however, would seem to
have persisted for a long time after, for the practice of tattoo-
ing and painting the body was continued up to historic
times in Europe and Africa, and assuredly in Asia also. It
will suffice to cite the figurines discovered in Roumania
(Fig. 96, i to 3) and those of Upper Egypt (Fig. 96, 4

176 DAILY LIFE OF PREHISTORIC MAN

and 5) representing dancers ; they all belong to neolithic,
or at the latest to eneolithic industry.

Corporeal decoration is effected in two ways : by indelible
tattooing- (done with a needle which injects the colour under
the skin), and by superficial painting. These two processes
are still in use among all primitive peoples; but it is im-
possible to distinguish them apart in the drawings left to us

FIG. 97* i and 2, Mycenae ; 3, Knossos.

by prehistoric Man. In Egypt and Chaldea these customs
seem to have almost gone out at a very early date. Similarly
in the -^Egean wprld, as in Crete, if tattooing and corporeal
painting existed at all, it would appear to have been excep-
tional. Painting the person, in all ages and in every land,
was incidental, and practised, as a rule, in connection with
religious rites, or on certain days only.

The characteristic costume of different peoples has been
extremely varied from the time when clothing first came into
use, up to the beginning of the nineteenth century to which
belongs the melancholy honour from an artistic point of
view of having begun its unification. Dress in prehistoric
times, however, is alnfost a sealed book to us, because we

DRESS AND ORNAMENT

177

can judge of it only by the rare representations that have
come down to us, and by archaic figurines, whose costumes
bear witness only to the fashions in dress of one or two
districts (Fig-, 97). For other regions we are reduced to

FIG. 98. Stone industry amulets and necklace. x to 6, Grotte des
morts (Gard). 7, Aveyron. 8, Steatite : dolmen of Aigueze (Gard).
9, Scallop shell: dolmen of Gamat (Lot). 10, Shell (Dijon, Cote-d'Or).
u, Shell, bone and schist: dolmen of Vinnac (Aveyron). 12, Luzarches
(Seine-et-Oise). 13, Camp de Chassey (Sa6ne-et-Loire). 14, Dog's
canine (Lake Constance). 15, Callais: dolmen of Carnac (Morbihan).
1 6, Steatite : dolmen of Vayssifcres (Aveyron). 17, Lignite : dolmen of
Bessoles (Aveyron). 18, Alabaster: dolmen of Montaubert (Aveyron).

conjecture based on the objects found in tombs, which,
however, throw more light on the jewelry worn by the men
and women of those days than on their costume.

Assuredly men and women decked themselves with
ornaments from the time of the Quaternary industries ; but
even their most primitive ornaments are still almost unknown
to us.

178 DAILY LIFE OF PREHISTORIC MAN

It is among* the remains of neolithic industry, in the
burial-places and lake villages, that we first find any number
of amulets and beads from necklaces (Fig*. 98). In neo-
lithic and eneolithic graves in Egypt, necklaces of beads
or shells, pendants and bracelets of ivory, alabaster, mother-
of-pearl, and even of flint, marvellously chipped (Fig. 99, 5),
are constantly met with ; but real jewelry only begins with
the bronze industry.

The most interesting ornament from the point of view

FIQ. 99- Bracelets, i to 3, Frignicourt (Marne). 4, Alabaster (El
AmraJbi). 5, Yellow flint ( Abydos). 6, Mother-of-pearl (El Amrah).

of its variety is the fibula, which appears with the bronze
industry and is still used to-day. Before the fibula was
known, however, and in countries such as Egypt, where it
was never in use, there were other means of fastening to-
gether two pieces of cloth. In Russian Armenia, in the
sepultures of the first iron industry, all the graves contain a
large pin ; and in one of these graves, by a lucky chance,
the pin was still fastened in the remains of the cloth,
and bound around with the string which held it. 1 Thus a
pin satisfactorily took the place of a fibula, and we may

1 Cf. J. de Morgan,

VH, I. Muse*e de Saint-Germain.

DRESS AND ORNAMENT 179

therefore assume that pins found with products of archceo-
lithic industry were used in a similar manner, either to hold
skins tog-ether, or to fasten the folds of woven garments*
Later still came the button, a small piece of metal with a
ring* attached.

In Egypt, as in Elam, the fibula does not seem to have
been generally used even in historic times. It is never
found in the pre-pharaonic or proto-EIamite tombs ; and
there are none in the deposits at the foundations of the temple
of Shushinak. It is found, however, at Muquyyar and at
"Warka in Chaldea, in sepultures which are supposed to be
very ancient, though their date is uncertain.

The primitive type of fibula is the safety-pin (French
" archet" *= " bow"), in which the metal stem does all the
work ; folded back on itself, it forms pin, catch, spring, and
back which soon becomes highly ornamental. Thence-
forward the fibula is made up of several parts adjusted to a
central motif that is often very complicated.

In the Eastern Mediterranean world the fibula would
seem to have made its appearance at the same time as the
peplosj of which it was the indispensable complement ; for
this feminine garment, as it was not sewn, had to be held
on each shoulder by a brooch. This ornament appears only
towards the end of the Mycenaean period, and was but little
in use up to the time of the Dorian invasion, when it became
general. One may assume, therefore, that the peplos and
the fibula came into Greece from the North ; but originally
the fibula was not peculiar to the peplos. From very ancient
times it was in use among the people of North Asia and
"Western and Central Europe. It appeared, for the most
part, contemporaneously with the late bronze industries
in both Italy and Gaul. In Transcaucasia and the north-
west of Iran, it came in with iron. Its absence in Egypt and
Susa supports the opinion that this ornament is of central
Asiatic origin.

Other prehistoric ornaments have but the sihgle purpose
of adornment necklaces, diadems, bracelets, anklets, rings,
ear-rings, pendants and metal pieces sewn or attached by
hooks to the clothing-, and finally belts, which in certain
countries served also as defensive armour.

The most ancient necklaces are made of small objects

180 DAILY LIFE OF PREHISTORIC MAN

strung together. These are usually mineral beads of
turquoise, callais, chalcedony, agate, cornelian, haematite,
amber, etc., marine or river shells, hard berries, beads of
ivory or bone, or in metal such as gold, silver, copper or
iron, varying with the locality and period, and finally glass
beads which appear in Western Europe at the time of
the bronze industry. Generally an amulet or conspicuous
pendant like the Egyptian breast-plate, was suspended from
the centre of these necklaces, and hung on the breast.

During the metal phases there were more of these and
they alternated with beads all round the necklace ; they are
occasionally made of stones, but usually of gold, silver,
copper, lead, tin, antimony, etc.

Then comes the rigid metal collar, of which the most
perfect and at the same time the most ancient type is the
torque, frequent in all epochs and in most localities except
Chaldea, Elam and Egypt. Later it becomes elaborated by
having a hinge in the centre.

The bracelet, common to all districts and probably of
very ancient origin, presents highly diverse forms. Some-
times, like the necklace, it is composed of beads ; sometimes
it is in one piece and rigid, made of mother-of-pearl, lime-
stone, or even flint (Egypt), jet, ivory, horn, pottery, metal
or glass. It was worn, in different countries, on the wrist,
the ankle, or the forearm.

The ring appears only with the metals. In early times,
and for long afterwards in certain countries such as Elam,
it was nothing but a more or less ornamented circlet. Else-
where, in the JEgean world, for example, the gem and
its setting become prominent and covered with designs.
Then it became a seal, and replaced both the Chaldeo-
Assyrian cylinder and the Egyptian scarab, which, during
pharaonic times, was not mounted in a ring. In Western
Europe the ring does not seem to have become prominent
as an ornament before the spread of Mediterranean taste.

The ear-ring is at least as old as the metal industry. At
first it was simply a metal stem, tapering at its extremities,
later it was bent into a circle ; but soon this ring supported
pendants which were often large, especially in the Hellenic
world.

In the examination of burial-places we sometimes find a

DRESS AND ORNAMENT 181

single loop of this sort, and one is tempted to think that
these single rings were worn in one of the ears only, as is
the custom amongst certain of our maritime populations
to-day. It must not be forgotten, however, that among
many Asiatic peoples, in India for example, the women
wear a single ring in one nostril. It is possible that this
was a practice in Western Europe and many other localities
in prehistoric times.

The diadem also played a great part in the ornament of
Mediterranean peoples, and it may have been a symbol of
authority in very early times. In Egypt it was of capital
importance, and thence the custom may have passed on to
the Hellenic countries, and subsequently into Italy and
Spain. The adoption of the crown as the emblem of
sovereignty grew out of this practice.

The belt, which at first was a simple band of leather 01
cloth, soon became ornamented in metal, and then became
entirely covered with gold, silver, or bronze leaf. Thus it
developed into a protection for the vital parts, hence the
idea of forging a cuirass to cover these organs. Metal
belts are numerous in certain of the burial-places of Trans-
caucasia, . but we find them also, though less frequently,
in the Mediterranean world. They came, no doubt, into
our part of Europe from the northern Orient, for they are
found neither in the valley of the Nile nor in the land of
the Tigris and Euphrates.

Sequins on clothing vary greatly in all countries, but the
Asiatic love of display made the most of them. We find little
evidence of them in Europe except among the Mycenaeans.
In general they consist of small leaves of cut metal, plated
over and pierced with holes to permit of their being sewn
on to cloth. The zenith of this fashion of dress decoration
was in Byzantium at the time of the Basilii.

Every people brought to the manufacture of its ornaments
not only care but all its artistic genius. The craftsmen
sought therein to achieve the ideal of contemporary taste, and
thus we see in jewelry an infinite variety of form and orna-
mental motif. The general form was obtained by casting
or beating metal. The artist then took it over and finished
it either with a burin or by the addition of filigree work,
and later encrusted it with gems.

182 DAILY LIFE OF PREHISTORIC MAN

We have seen that graving- was already known and even
practised with considerable skill in our own lands from the
time of the Magdalenians ; but the processes of the caverns
did not give birth to the arts of the sculptor and graver of
modern civilization. All the peoples of Asia practised them
when the Occident was still in the barbaric stage of artistic
taste demonstrated by neolithic populations. In Egypt, how-
ever, as in Chaldea, these arts do not seem to have been
applied to metal from the inception of the bronze industry.
It would even seem that for many centuries after, copper
did not attract the attention of artists, for neither in Elam,
nor in the Valley of the Nile do we see metal implements
ornamented with fine graving. It seems probable that a
taste for this work was brought in by races who, in very
ancient times, settled to the east of the Mediterranean, leaving
behind them on the Continent their congeners who were
inspired by the same artistic tastes, or, at least, who were
familiar with the same processes.

Filigree comes much later, demanding a more advanced
technique necessitating a knowledge of soldering. It was
known in Egypt from a very remote epoch, and in the twelfth
dynasty it reached rare perfection. In Susa it figures in
very ancient foundation-deposits, so that we can assert, with-
out fear of exaggeration, that in Chaldea, as well as in the
valley of the Nile, this type of work was quite common in
the thirtieth century before our era. These countries trans-
mitted it to the ^Egeans, who, in turn, introduced it into
Western and Central Europe through Greece. Certain
peoples, however, coming from Central Asia by way of the
steppes of Russia, seem to have received it when at a fairly
recent date they came into contact with Iran, together with
the arts of setting precious stones and of enamelling jewelry,
the latter being a process which is only a simplification of
the incrustation in metal of coloured or sparkling minerals.
But this elaborate jewelry only came among the Northern
peoples long after the Occident had learned filigree work
from the Greeks and Etruscans.

PART THREE

INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT AND
INTERCOMMUNICATION

PART THREE

INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT AND
INTERCOMMUNICATION

CHAPTER I

THE ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES

IN the study of artistic production two distinct elements
of entirely different order must be envisaged technical pro-
cess and artistic conception though both render mutual aid
and influence one another. Technique depends on a people's
industrial knowledge, whereas artistic taste is inborn and
peculiar to each human group, being part of its heritage.
Artists in expressing themselves take advantage of the prac-
tical processes evolved from the industrial development of
their national group.

Both in technique and artistic conception the native
tendencies of a given group are frequently influenced by
foreign ideas and methods, but none the less does the genius
of the race remain individual in the sum of its productions.
It was thus with the Greeks who, though they had borrowed
many of their ideas from Egypt, followed their ancestral
tendencies, broke away from the rules of Asiatic and Pharaonic
art, and, returning to Nature for their inspiration, attained to
the summit of art ; whereas other less gifted peoples sprung
from the same stock, remained their inferiors from the artistic
point of view, though they had undergone the same foreign
technical influences.

Before we begin to study the art forms of different nations,
something should be said of the processes involved in the
artistic expression of thought, because we have to bear in
mind that the production of a work of art has ever been
limited by the available means of execution. In the course
of centuries the technique of this expression has advanced

185

186 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

among* different nations along with the development of g-eneral
culture. It was dependent at first on very simple means,
which have continued to be elaborated up to our own day,
when according- to their development they have permitted
artists to realize their ideal more or less adequately.

Drawing, graving, painting, and sculpture are the
principal branches of art. The first three are intimately
connected with one another, and the third, though also
evolved from drawing, is yet independent. Indeed, there
are not wanting sculptors, who, although mediocre drafts-
men, execute impeccable works in relief.

The impulse to draw, whether in the decorative or
naturalistic manner, is innate in every people and is to be
met with in every age and in all parts of the world ; and
although the execution varies in success, the procedure is
always the same. The artist makes an outline with colours
that are either darker or lighter than the surface on which he
is working. Charcoal, ochre, and chalk were in use from
very ancient times. These colours were applied either dry
or wet, and, when put on wet, constitute Man's earliest essay
in painting.

It would seem that from the remotest epochs, in the
caverns, on the Nile banks, and in the Eastern Mediterranean,
a drawing was done in two stages, just as it is to-day first,
a sketched-in outline roughly giving- the form, then a
definitive drawing, worked-up from the sketch, in a different
colour.

Graving- followed as a means of fixing the finished draw-
ing ; this was done by inscribing the line with a stone or
metal graving-tool. Sculpture in bas-relief developed from
graving, the intention being merely to give an impression of
relief, and though it is often scarcely more than a sug-gestion
of form, it was enough to please the eye and give satisfaction
to the spirit of the artist.

Painting is another means of achieving relief, but in the
primitive arts it did not play this part, being- limited to render-
ing- the colour of the object in the flat. It was later only that
the artist thought of depicting shadows, and thus giving to
his creation an apparent relief. In Greece and in Egypt,
colour used to be applied to bas-reliefs and statues. The re-
presentations covering the walls of the mastabas of Pharaonic

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 187

times, and the statues themselves, were painted in con-
ventional colours, approaching- as nearly as possible to
nature. The material of these sculptures was of importance
only in the degree of its hardness, which might thus ensure
for the image a longer preservation. The graving of cave
drawings seems to have been done in the same spirit in an
effort to resist deterioration. Among the Hellenes, as in
Egypt, bas-reliefs, statues, and architectural motifs were
coloured.

With the arrival of metal, the processes of figuration
developed. From that time the graving instrument or burin
became the artist's principal tool ; jewels, bronze weapons
and belts, and divers utensils were engraved with this
instrument, while the art of statuary, which had been very
crude in the time of the stone industries, began in certain
lands to feel its wings during this period. The general
form of metal implements and figurines was obtained easily
enough by casting, then the object was finished with a chisel
and inscribed if it was to be thus ornamented.

We can easily imagine how arduous was the work in
hard materials when Man still had nothing at his disposal
but stone tools. The troglodytes sawed up pieces of ivory,
bone and horn, and it was thus that the general form of the
subject was rough-hewn. The work was finished by means
of scrapers, graving-tools and polishers. But when the
metal chisel appeared, not only was the work itself more
rapid, but the sculptor had every facility for making his tool
amenable to his will.

To those hard materials on which the earlier artists
exercised their talents, there were added later others whose
plasticity permitted modelling. The invention of pottery
gave to the artist a new and effective means of self-
expression.

From the day that Man first knew fire, he must have
hovered on the discovery of ceramic industry. The clay
of his hearth hardened by the fire taught him that earth
once baked is no longer friable under the action of water.
Nevertheless, as we have seen, it was only at the time when
mesolithic culture came in that pottery was actually in current
use, although it was already known to the Magdalenians of
Belgium.

188 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

These first essays in the ceramic art are extremely crude,
if we may judge by fragments found in the caves near
Li&ge, but the principle had been discovered and applied;
With the Campignian culture we are in the presence of
a more carefully thought-out manufacture. The numerous
potsherds found among the hut foundations of the Bresle
Valley are occasionally of carefully-chosen fine earths, but
usually the p&te is coarse. Geometric designs are frequently
incised on both. The potter's wheel was still unknown at
this epoch, and does not appear until later, in the polished
stone phase, and even then only in certain countries.

In the study of pottery, three elements must be sharply
distinguished as independent one of the other, though
together they constitute ceramic art, whether advanced or
crude. As all three are susceptible of numerous variations,
the general study of pottery becomes extremely complicated.
First of all the technique of the manufacture of the vase,
the plastic material of which it is made, the preparation of
the pate, and the degree of baking must be taken into con-
sideration, since pottery can be hardened beside the fire,
baked in an oven, or vitrified at a high temperature.

Then comes the decoration which is both a technique and
an art in itself. The technique comprises the processes of
inscribing, glazing and enamelling, and these methods,
of great variety, follow in a general manner the progress
made in the different industries of a given district. The
actual form of decoration depends on the tastes of the people,
being modelled on their art, and simply translates into a
special medium the aesthetic conceptions of the locality and
the time.

In all the different countries the technical processes of
vase decoration follow a general order in their appearance
throughout the entire prehistoric period. First, incision, with
or without filling the depressions with white or coloured pate ;
next the glossing of the earthen paste of the vase itself, or
the addition of a clay glaze ; then the imprint by mechanical
means of a design, followed by moulding and the addition of
ornament in relief, and finally cold painting with colours
mixed with fat or glue, fast painting, done on the unbaked
or baked paste, and then burned in by fire, culminating in
enamelling. Over and above these processes, all of which

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 189

were in use at different dates and in different countries during
prehistoric times, there are to-day a great many other methods
thanks to recent discoveries which there is no occasion to
mention from the prehistoric point of view. It should be
noted, however, that porcelain made from a hard paste was
unknown, that certain colours such as blue, green, and violet
were not used, and that the ancient pUte, except in rare cases,
was always a natural one that is to say, colouring matter
was not mixed with it. Colour, then, was generally superficial,
and obtained with iron and manganese only. The Egyptians
discovered porcelain very early, but they employed a soft
paste, covered with a glaze which vitrified at a low tem-
perature. This was the process employed in the ancient
potteries of China. In Elam and Chaldea the employment
of a vitrified glaze is seen from the time of Naram-Sin, and
was continued up to the Sassanid and Arabian epochs.

Sometimes, but very rarely, the potters encrusted their
vases with sparkling or transparent minerals either before or
after firing. Certain vases of the iron industry of Russian
Armenia have at the bottom a flake of obsidian fixed in the
soft clay and fired with the paste.

In the earliest days the potter had only a utilitarian object,
and the vase's shape was determined by its use. Therefore
but few varieties are met with in the shapes of primitive vases,
and these were evolved spontaneously in every land. But
little by little, as local taste became refined independently
of other districts, local characteristics both in form and in
decorative subjects appeared among each people. Then
certain centres more favourable to progress, where culture
was more highly developed than in the neighbouring dis-
tricts, influenced the taste of these backward populations, so
that to local progress was added external influence, and thus
so many ceramic schools sprang up that it would be quite
impossible to review them all, even summarily, without over-
stepping the limits of this book. We shall mention only
those most worthy of interest, either on account of their
antiquity or because of their intrinsic importance.

Pottery really appears contemporaneously with mesolithic
industry, and from its earliest essays it exhibits incised
decoration on the lines of the bone decorations of archaeo-
lithic culture. Such work proved easy in the soft paste, as

190 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

the graving-tool cut deeply into the clay, and to give more
prominence to the design the incisions were often filled in
with a white or coloured paste.

Handling- the soft potter's earth naturally put into the
artist's head the notion of fashioning- figurines. Thus was
born the art of modelling-, which became of still greater
importance on the appearance of metal. At first modelling
was done in wax, then statuettes were done in cire perdue.
Moulds were made, in which it was only necessary to press
soft clay in order to turn out figurines in great numbers.
It was thus that votive offerings, pendants, and sacred and
funerary statuettes were made in Chaldea, Elam, and Egypt.

In some countries, however, as in the valley of the Nile,
Susiana, Syria, and the Eastern Mediterranean, the pottery
was not only decorated by the incised designs but was also
painted before or after the paste was baked. Thus arose the
highly specialized art that among the Greeks and Italiotes
reached such technical and artistic perfection. Gradually
these processes spread to Central and Western Europe, but
here, for a long time to come, the crude painting of pottery
was secondary to the incised decoration.

Far from Europe ceramic painting also evolved in the
Americas. Mexico and Peru excelled in this art.

In the early days of every metal culture, the metal was
simply cast and hammered, beaten into repouss6, embossed
or engraved, and the various parts were bolted or riveted
together, for soldering did not appear until very much later.
The method was used for bronze and gold at a date that has
not been determined. Then, in jewelry, filigree appeared,
of which the jewels of twelfth dynasty Egypt and Elam
are remarkable and antique examples. The Greeks and
Etruscans produced incomparable works of art by these
procegses, at a time long posterior to their appearance among
Orientals. Filigree then penetrated the north of Europe,
and constituted the foundation-technique of the jewelry of
Scandinavia and the Germanic tribes.

This brief glimpse of technique renders it possible to
follow the evolution of art-crafts as the media of man's artistic
self-expression. We must note the facts at this point that
certain peoples who had but the most primitive technical
processes at their disposal nevertheless left highly remark-

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 191

able works of art denoting- wonderful purity of taste and close
observation of nature, whereas others who had every advan-
tage in technical means never rose above mediocrity in their
aesthetic inspiration. Thus, even though technique counted
for much, its influence on the development of the arts was
not decisive. It was the individual aptitude of a given
human group that created this or that promising artistic
school*

This said, we may pass in review the varying manifesta-
tions of the aesthetic spirit, ranging them in the epochs giving
them birth, and with due regard to their milieux, pointing
out their several characteristics, and so far as is possible
estimating* the foreign influences at work in each school.
In such a study ceramics take their place as aesthetic mani-
festations for they are inspired in the same way as the other
arts, differing from them only in the nature of the material
decorated and in the technical processes of design, and so,
contrary to the usual custom in works of this nature, we
shall not treat ceramics in a chapter apart, but grouped
together with other artistic products. Nevertheless, we shall
often be obliged to refer to technique, because of its influence
on the artist's work.

The earliest works of art so far discovered are found
amongst the debris of archaeolithic industry. No trace of
artistic effort has yet been met in association with the different
phases of palaeolithic industry, and yet, when we do meet
the evidence of aesthetic feeling, it would seem as though
it must have been cultivated for a long time, for it is no
longer in its infancy.

It is true that, so far as Aurignacian culture is concerned,
the relics of the work of Quaternary artists we possess
are few and far between. But until we are better informed
we must consider this culture as having seen the dawn of
art. Thanks, however, to the magnificent discoveries of the
past few years, we are comparatively rich in regard to later
Quaternary times.

Are we to believe that Magdalen ian art evolved from
that of the Aurignacians ? Many reasons lead us to reject
this hypothesis. The two schools differ notably in character
and tendencies, and Solutrean culture has left us too few
evidences to enable us to establish the transition. The

192 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

various tribes responsible for the two different schools were
probably of different ethnic origin, hence their aptitudes
were also different* It is probable, however, that the
Aurignacian efforts were not without their influence on the
cave populations succeeding- them, at all events in so far as
technical processes were concerned. Art, in fact, is the
characteristic mark of the times in which archseolithic
industry flourished. Its manifestations, in so far as we
know them, show that it had already attained a high degree
of perfection ; of its masterpieces we are ignorant. It has
been held by some that the artistic taste of the period was
born in Western Europe under the influence of foreign
civilization. Sophus Muller 1 has gone so far as to suggest
that we should recognize in our Quaternary western art a
gleam projected by the radiance of Egyptian pre-pharaonic
civilization. Nothing could render such a hypothesis legiti-
mate, for a supposition of this kind implies a chronological
agreement for which we have no authority.

It would seem quite unnecessary to torture chronology
in order to link up our European civilizations with such
distant centres, for there is no reason whatever why aesthetic
feeling should not have come to birth in our part of the world
and there have developed in districts which have not yet
yielded up their secrets, nor that these artist populations,
wandering from locality to locality, should not eventually
have come to dwell in our caves. Thus through their influence
their arts would have spread from the territory they occupied,
or, when they themselves changed their habitat, they would
have left traces scattered over regions far greater in extent
than those they occupied at any one time. It would be some-
what rash at this time of day and in our present inadequate
state of knowledge to dogmatize on the place of origin of
this culture, just as it would be premature to attempt to
classify definitively these Quaternary works of art, whether
according to the nature of their execution, their relative age
or geographic distribution. Each day brings new discoveries,
which sometimes upset all the theories previously held. In
regard to such questions we are still at a stage in which
science must content itself with placing the evidence on record.

i T.XXT, 8.

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 193

Piette, as we have seen, 1 proposed the establishment of
a glyptic period, because in his excavations at Bassempouy,
at the Aurig-nacian level, he found a g-ood many ivory
statuettes, mostly representing- women in the nude, but these
observations were purely local, and we ought not to deduce

Flo. 100. Quaternary statuettes, i, Willendorf (Austria) : Auiignacian

or Splutrean ; Vienna Museum. 2 and aa, Bassempouy (Landes)* 3-5,

Aurignaco-Solutrean. 3 and sa, Grotte de Grimaldi at Mentone. 4 and

4a, Man (?), Bassempouy (Landes). 5, Rochebertier (Charente).

from the almost complete absence of other artistic works
that sculpture in ivory only was customary at the epoch
characterized by Aurig-nacian industry. Graving was not
entirely absent from Aurignacian and Solutrean levels.

Quaternary art, says Dechelette, 2 consists of two distinct

See above, p. 54.

2 XXVI, I, 213.

194 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

phases : an archaic or primitive style, and a free or evolute
style. Realistic and naturalistic from its inception, it retains
the same character throughout its development, although
degeneration of the typical motifs gradually introduces con-
ventionalized forms into its creations, and the schematism of
these forms is occasionally obscure.

Fio. 10 1. Graven human representations, i and 2, Laugerie Basse

(Dordogne) : graven on reindeer horn. 3, Mas d'Azfl (Arfege).

4, l*a, Madeleine. 5 and 6, Marsonlas (Haute-Garonne) : on rock.

It seems to me to be impossible to follow D6chelette in
this classification, for the artistic character of the Aurignacian
figurines appears to be the result, not of archaism, but of
ideas about the fertility of -woman analogous to those of the
primitive Chaldeans, whereas these ideas would seem to
have no place in the inspiration of Magdalenian artists.
The motives inspiring the artists of these two epochs are
therefore very different.

The Aurignacian figurines present a marked steatopygous
character (Fig. 100, Nos. i and 3) linking them on the one
hand very closely with the ceramic statuettes of the valley

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 195

of the Nile and Chaldea, and, on the other hand, with
the physical form of the Hottentots. We thus find
ourselves dealing- either with conceptions of a religious
character or with faithful representations of nature. Never-
theless, slenderer models approaching the normal feminine

FIG. 102. Mammoth (Font de Gaume).

form (Fig. 100, No. 4), have been found in the same layer
at Bassempouy , as also a figurine of a young woman with
long hair (Fig. 100, No. a). These sculptures, especially
the head of the young woman, Show genuine talent. They
are much superior to the human representations left by the
Magdalenians (Fig". 100, No. 5), for in their times we find
only crude pictures graven on bone, ivory (Fig. 101, Nos. i
to 4), or rock (Fig. 101, Nos. 5 and 6). It will be noticed,
moreover, that both men and women appear to be covered
with long fur 1 and that their hair does not seem to be
crimped as in the Willendorf Aurignacian statuette. Hence
the ethnic types serving as models were not identical.

Among' the numerous Magdalenian drawings and sculp-
tures on bone and ivory which we possess, there are very

1 II. Breuil (in lit. Jan. loth, 1923) thinks that this is simply hatching and
does not represent hair.

196 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

FIG* 103. Bison (Altamira).

Flo. 104. Rhinoceros tichorinus (Font de Ganme).

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 197

few in which the human form is represented, and these few
are highly barbaric. The Magdalenian, who, as we shall
see, was a past-master in the representation of animals,
showed himself extraordinarily unskilled in the anatomical
drawing of man. Therein, perhaps, lies the explanation of
the extreme rarity of human figuration.

Except for a few deer in stone discovered at Solutre, all
the animal representations known at present belong to
Magdalenian culture, and are sculptured, graven or painted.
In the first case, they decorate the implements in common

FIG. 105. Bear incised on a pebble. Grotte de Massat (Artege),
one-hali natural size,

use and are of small size ; in the second, they are either of
medium dimensions, outlined on plaques of stone, ivory,
bone, or horn, or they are graven on rocks, and are of all
sizes up to life-size, even when large animals are represented.

The number of these animal sculptures, gravings, and
paintings already known is considerable thanks largely to
the wonderful finds of the Abbe Breuil and Obermaier and
almost daily new caves are discovered whose walls are
covered with paintings. In the gravings and the paintings
the figures are generally done one on top of the other, the
artist failing to respect the subject already outlined on the
surface he had chosen. This results in frequent confusion
of different subjects. Elsewhere the subjects are isolated,
just as in sculpture. Compositions are also known in which
groups of animals are associated, and in which the individuals
no longer belong to a jumble of different drawings. 1

The Mammoth, which is found sculptured, graven on
ivory, and painted on the cavern walls (Fig. 102), is repre-
sented with a thick fleece and armed with powerful tusks.

1 Cartailhac, VI (1903), 180.

198 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

The squat form is generally exaggerated in the drawing in
order to give an impression of massiveness.

The Bison, very frequent in the caves (Fig. 103), usually
represented in natural size, and sometimes in large herds,
is generally very cleverly done. The great neck with the
small head sunk into the shoulders, gives the impression of
tremendous force. The horns are menacing, and the slender
legs are marvellously expressive of the agility and rapidity of

FIG. 106. Wild boar (Altamira).

movement of this great ruminant, which was the favourite
game of the Magdalenian hunters.

Next we have the Rhinoceros (R. tickorinus) (Fig. 104),
which is more rarely depicted, but whose form is skilfully
rendered. With its long body, its short limbs, and its two
long horns, this denizen of the forests is to this day a terrible
fighter. The skin of the Rhinoceros was proof against
bullets till recent improvements in the rifle, and we may
well wonder how Quaternary Man, scantily armed as he
was, mastered this dangerous beast.

The Bear, though common in those days, seldom figures
in the caves (Fig. 105), but the rare examples of incised
drawings of it that we possess are none the less most exact.
The salient characters of the animal are rendered in a few
strokes, and even its highly characteristic attitude is
reproduced with surprising fidelity.

The wild Boar (Fig. 106) is not very common in the

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 199

cave painting's. The example we reproduce, after H. Breuil,
is painted in the Altamira caves, and shows the animal
charging or running- away. The proportions are happy,
and the action very cleverly rendered.

Cervus elaphus (Figs. 107, 108), abundant at that period,
and a great resource for the hunters, appears on a multitude of
objects, sculptured or incised, and painted on rock walls.
This animal is always admirably rendered no matter in what
position, and a modern artist would have difficulty in giving
to it the living quality we find in most of the Quaternary
drawing's.

The Roe-deer (Fig. 109) is rarely represented, but in such

FIG. 107. Cervus elaphus (Altamira).

drawing's of it as we possess, the proportions are happy and
the attitude good.

The Horse, one of the most widely distributed animals of
the period, sometimes does duty for decoration of very nearly
an entire cavern. It is seen under every aspect, in repose
and galloping* (Fig. no), alone or in herds, and in every
case it is drawn with accuracy. In sculpture (Fig*, in), it
cannot have the same movement as in drawings, but its
proportions are well kept. A head from the Mas d'Azil
shows a horse neighing- (Fig*. 112). This piece of sculpture
is one of the most remarkable among the art objects of
Quaternary times which have come down to us.

The Wolf, though rare, also figures in the caverns

200 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

(Fig*. 113), and is in no way inferior to the other representa-
tions of animals either in the accuracy with which it is
drawn, or in the rendering of its action.

All the larger beasts inhabiting France at this period
are represented : JBos urus and Bison, wild Goat, Saiga,
Deer, Chamois, Goat, Elk, wild Boar, Bear, Fox, Glutton,
and Seal are incised on the rocks side by side with the
great pachyderms, the Rhinoceros and the Horse. These
representations on the cavern walls would seem to be more
or less contemporaneous. As new drawings, however, are
very often made on top of the old ones, we may well believe

Fig. 1 08. Cervus elaphus, Lor-
thet Cave. Piette collection
(Mnsee de Saint-Germain). In-
cised on reindeer horn.

FIG. 109.

Reindeer (Font de
Gaume).

that various types have been figured in succession, accord-
ing as they predominate in the valleys and the forests.

Fishes were not forgotten by these artists. We find
gravings of them (Fig. 114), and we recognize the Pike, the
Trout, and the Eel.

Plants (Fig. 1 15), on the other hand, are poorly represented
in the art of the caves. We can only quote a few rare incised
drawings figuring plants we are unable to identify. Further,
the artistic feeling of all primitive peoples finds expression
in the animal form, but very rarely in that of plants,
which, since they render to man but secondary services, and
could be got without a struggle, attracted less attention than
animals which had to be pursued and overcome before either
their meat, or the skins, ivory, horns, and other parts out
of which the utensils of daily existence were then made,
could be obtained.

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 201

FIG. no. Horse (Font de Gaume).

FIGS, iii and 112. Horses: i, Orotte des Espeluges (Lourdes),
Magdalenian ; 2, Mas d' Azil.

202 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

But the Magdalenians did not only copy nature ; they
went further in their artistic progress and introduced
geometric ornamentation into their decoration. This, in
a people acquainted with great art, is a product of con-
ventionalization (Fig. 116), but in those ignorant of how to
observe nature and to record what they see in a drawing, it
betokens the efforts of artistic infancy.

In this geometric ornament the spiral appears, and its

FIG. 113. Wolf. (Font de Gaume).

FIG. 114. Fishes (Lorthet).

presence in Quaternary times brings to nothing every theory
of its migration at later epochs.

Geometric decoration is not frequent, but it is found
incised on bone and reindeer antler, and probably entered
into tattooing, corporeal painting, and personal ornaments,
and it is likely that the skins these people wore as a
protection against the intense cold of the period were also
decorated with painted geometric ornament,

Here we are brought to a standstill in our knowledge of
Quaternary art, but before, leaving the subject we must add
a few words on the technical processes then employed in
sculpture, graving and painting.

The materials used for sculpture were (Fig. 1 17) mammoth
ivory, bone, the antlers of stags and reindeer, soft rocks,
such as steatite, gypseou$ alabaster, limestone, and other
substances easily inoised with a flint.

The workman made great use of the saw to cut bone and
detach from pieces of ivory those long splinters which he
transformed into needles, pins, bodkins or punches, and even

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 203

daggers. The scraper and the notched blades made this
work possible ; then he took his saw again to cut the
geometric ornament, and the graving-tool to incise curved
lines. A wide selection of implements of diverse forms was
necessary for carving hard material, but flint was there to
hand, and the workman fashioned it according to his
needs.

To-day we possess only those pictures outlined on cavern

FIG. 115. Plants: i and 2, Laugerie Basse; 3, I-e Veyrier
(Haute-Savoie) ; 4, Grotte du trilobite (Yonne).

walls, and thus protected from weathering. But it is probable
that the rocks outside and the cliffs also bore representations,
probably less confused than those of the caves, because the
artist, having large surfaces at his disposal, was not con-
strained, as in the caves, to draw on the top of older
representations.

These open-air works of art, common to all primitive
peoples, and traces of which are found in every country of
the world, are now lost in our part of the globe.

If we may judge by the representations of our caves, the
artist probably sketched in his subject in charcoal or ochre.
Then he fixed his outlines with a flint graving-tool without
inscribing them deeply, and finally he coloured his work with
a mixture either of red ochre or black manganese ore with
oil or fat, or even water. In these paintings there are only

204 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 205

two colours, red and black, which, when mixed, give brown.
We never see green or blue, which could, however, have
been obtained from copper ores ; but let us not forget that
the mineral colours only could have outlasted the ages, and
that all colours obtained from organic animal or vegetable
substances would have disappeared. We can therefore form
a clear idea of the art of drawing, but the colouring escapes
us. Such colouring must have played a considerable role
in the art of the cavern-painter for it permitted him to work
on a wall already covered with figures, which he could easily
have obliterated by washing and then covering them over
with bright colours. Thus is explained the confusion of
representations on the rock walls of the caves.

We know that all oriental rugs are coloured with dyes
of vegetable origin, and that even now in our dye industries,
in spite of the discoveries of chemistry, vegetable dyes still
play an important part.

It should be observed that the Magdalenians did not
content themselves with purely artistic works, but that they
adapted their art to the decoration of common objects, as did
the Chaldeans, the primitive Greeks and Egyptians, the
Mexicans, the Australians, the Mincopies, and the Hyper-
boreans. In fact barbaric peoples applied art for the most
part to the objects of daily life. We have obtained from the
caverns numerous implements and weapons in which the
artistic motifs, carefully executed, are often deformed and
cramped by the necessities of the use to which the objects were
put. Similarly, in most of the Japanese and Chinese ivories
the decorative subject either yields to the original shape of
the material or has to be adapted to the way in which the
implement is used. It is forcibly brought home to one that
these primitive artistic conceptions have all arisen among
the people who have left us evidence of them, and that,
inspired by a practical spirit, such conceptions have nothing
in common.

"With the close of Magdalenian industry the arts suddenly
disappear without our being able to ascertain the precise
cause. Very few further efforts remained to be made in
the study of the human form, or of forms belonging to the
vegetable kingdom, and the peoples of the European "West
might have achieved great Art; for they were certainly better

206 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 207

endowed than those peoples (Chaldeans, Egyptians, and even
Hellenes) from whom we have received the principles of
modern art. Not only did they possess in the highest degree
a genius for observation, but they had also arrived at the
conception of expressing form by processes simplified to the
last degree. Like the Japanese, the Egyptians, and especially
the Greeks of the great period, the Magdalenian knew well
how to render an impression by a single stroke. Detail,
which, both with the Orientals and ourselves, has been so
prejudicial to aesthetic expression, was for him secondary.
With these artists line and attitude were dominant. The dis-
appearance of Magdalenian art was a great misfortune for
humanity, which, without this disaster, would have progressed
rapidly, and the great period of the century of Pericles would
have arrived, possibly some thousand years sooner.

Hitherto our observations on Quaternary art have been
confined to Western Europe. It is probable, however,
that the area occupied by the Magdalenian artists was
not of very great extent, for the peoples occupying the
Mediterranean basin did not all belong to races susceptible
of profiting by the teaching and example of a more highly
gifted people. The disappearance of this already well-
developed school shows that, if, as appears probable, it
were due to invasion, the new arrivals were not capable of
assimilating artistic progress. Was it not the same when
the Germanic tribes precipitated themselves on the Roman
Empire? If, at that epoch, the arts did not entirely dis-
appear, it was because the great majority of that large
population remained Graeco-Latin in spirit.

Leaving Quaternary western European art, we must
go East to find again the arts, for in our part of the world
aesthetic feeling had disappeared, and the manifestations
so wanting in form which, after a long hiatus, succeeded
to the art of the caves, belong to the days of neolithic in-
dustry ; in other words, they are much later than the earliest
artistic manifestations of Chaldea, Elam, and Egypt.

As we have said, the first men who established them-
selves on the low hills that were later to be built over by
the great city of Susa, Elam's capital, had a knowledge of
copper and made weapons of it though they still chipped
flint and obsidian. These colonists were of an advanced

208 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

culture, for they wore textiles the oxide of the copper axe-
heads found in their tombs has preserved the imprints.
They were agriculturalists and cattle-raisers, and showed
themselves highly skilled in the manufacture of stone vases.
Not only steatite and both calcareous and gypseous alabaster,
but the hardest rocks yielded to their chisels. And, finally,
they were responsible for one of the finest of the ceramic
arts of human prehistory.

The proto-Susian vases, made of a fine paste, are turned,
and extremely regular and elegant in form. They are

FIG. 118. Bronze industry, human representations
(Italy).

covered with delicate paintings, black or brown according
to the degree of baking, the subjects being highly con-
ventionalized (Fig. 119, Nos. i to 7), animals and plants, and
thus removed by many centuries of time from a primitive
naturalism. All the sepultures of the primitive necropolis
of Susa contain these vases but no other kind of pottery.
However, the deepest layers a few metres only above the un-
disturbed gravel beds, often contain shreds of incised pottery
(Fig. 119, Nos. 8 and 9), decorated with those primitive
geometric designs we are accustomed to classify as belonging
to neolithic industry, and made of coarse half-baked paste
Evidently the proto - Susians had retained the old-time
models for everyday use, but they did not consider them
sufficiently precious to accompany their dead into another
hfe. It would seem likely that the conventionalized animals
and plants on these sepultural vases were done with some
religious or magical intent ; we shall return to this subject
later when considering philosophic conceptions (Ch. XIV)

It was neither in Susiana nor Chaldea that this interesting-
ceramic art was born. It arrived on the banks of the Kerfcha

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 209

already fully developed, and does not depict animals which
at that time frequented Mesopotamia, such as the Hippo-
potamus, Rhinoceros, and possibly the Elephant. Its princi-

FIG. 1x9. Nos. 1-7, first phase of Susian painted pottery;
Nos. 8 and 9, rustic incised pottery,

pal motif is the long-horned mountain Goat unknown in
Chaldea and the Elamite plain, but still common in all the
mountain ranges of Western Asia. We must therefore con-
clude that the first rudiments of this proto-Susian art had
their beginnings elsewhere, in a mountain district. But in
what district we do not yet know. Nevertheless, the presence
of copper indicates the northern massif. The mountainous

210 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

district comprising* Anatolia, Armenia, and Transcaucasia,
in our opinion the cradle of metallurgy.

This beautiful pottery is succeeded by that of quite
another school. The paste is coarser, the painting- less fast,
but in two colours, red and brown ; and naturalism is again
in evidence side by side with geometric decoration. W"e still
find conventionalization (Fig-. 120), but brought to such a
pitch that the subjects become incomprehensible (cf. Fig*. 120,

FIG. 1 20. Second phase of Susian painted pottery.

rig-ht-hand vase). These vases are occasionally of great size,
and we find them both at Susa and Tepeh Aly Abad in the
Pusht-i-Kuh.

After this second phase, ceramic painting- slowly but
surely disappeared for ever from Elam. At the period of
its birth, history was not yet, and it was only in the layers
at a much higher level in the ruins of Susa that the most
ancient texts of the Patesis 1 appeared.

The first phase of this pottery would seem to have been
peculiar to Elam, but we find traces of the second phase in
Chaldea, in Luristan, in Bactria, and as far as the tells of
the south-west of the Iranian plateau* Apparently it was

1 King-Prieit*,

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 211

widely distributed, for, towards the west, it appears at least
to have influenced Palestine (Fig. 121) and Phoenicia.

"What was the cause of the disappearance of these arts ?
We do not know, and are reduced to conjecture. No transi-
tional phase, linking- these two schools of painted pottery,
has come to light, and the final school dies out gradually
only and does not altogether disappear until after the dawn
of history. Pottier, however, considers the second to be
derived from the first. "When we come to the subject of
writing we shall find that another custom peculiar to Elam
was to survive for a few hundred years more namely, the use
of proto-Eiamitic signs that, little by little, was supplanted

FIG, I2T Painted vase,'Palestine.

by Semitic writing, a fact suggesting that the second ceramic
school died out on the arrival of the Semites in Lower
Chaldea and Elam. The Semitic conquest took place at a
very remote epoch, because it occurred when polished stone
was still used in Elam, along with copper and occasional
bronze.

If in Elam painted vases of the second phase ceased
to be made, it was otherwise in the rest of Western Asia,
where the art was widely distributed. "We find traces of it
in Assyria, 1 Palestine and Syria, 2 Cappadocia, 8 and in the
-^Egean Islands. Herein lies a knotty problem only to be
solved by chronology. Did the technique of painted vases
come into Syria from Chaldea, or from Crete as many
archaeologists believe?

Considerable indecision prevails in the chronological
estimates made for the early history of Egypt, Chaldea, the

1 Cf. Helbig, 1875. Ann. de I'Instit. de Corresp. archtol., p. 221 ; XT.TTT,

' 1 885*

* LXV, ch. v, 297.

8 According to J. Garstang.

212 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

Asiatic coast, and the islands of the Mediterranean. Putting
on one side all the debatable dates, are we not justified in
thinking that an art so widely distributed as to reach in the
east the region of Ispahan and Hamadan, could never have
originated in the centre of the Mediterranean, and that we
should rather seek its birthplace in Susiana? The pottery of
Palestine and Syria, moreover, presents greater affinities
with the ceramic industry of prehistoric Elam than with that
of the Islands.

Thus ceramic art in Elam is highly conventional from
its inception and presents a character peculiar to the
country. It has its roots in naturalism, and is embellished
with certain geometrical motifs ; but the greater number of
these may be but conventionalizations whose origin we do
not grasp.

In the valley of the Nile 1 we meet in neolithic and
eneolithic industry a pottery that is quite as remarkable
as that of Elam, not for its paste, but by reason of its form
and decoration. The technique of the Egyptian painting-,
however, differs completely from that of Susa. Here the
vase is no longer covered by a fired glaze, but is cold painted,
doubtless with colour ground and mixed with oil, fat or glue,
and the organic materials having been destroyed by time,
there remains but a powdery layer. It must not be for-
g-otten that these vases were destined for sepultural and not
household use. The decorative subjects are of great variety.
Certain types, whose form is modelled on the stone vases so
common in Egypt at the time, are sometimes speckled in
imitation of the crystals of hard rocks (Fig. 122, Nos* i, 2
and 3), or decorated with spirals suggested by nummulitic
limestones (Fig. 122, Nos. 4 and 8), or with veins suggesting-
agate and cornelian (Fig. 122, Nos. 12 and 15), common
minerals of the desert. But more frequently the funerary
vase paintings represent the ship of the dead (Fig. 122,
No. 18; Fig. 123, Nos. i, 2, 3 and 9), ritual dances (Fig^ 123,
No. i), libation vases (Fig-. 123, Nos. 8 and 9), or scenes
from daily life. Thus we may see the first steps taken in that
artistic practice which was to develop into the decoration of
the mastabas of the old Empire.

1 Cf.

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 213

FIG. 122. Pre-dynastic Egyptian Pottery,

214 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

But ceramic art in Egypt went further than this. In
neolithic and eneolithic graves, as in the kitchen middens,
we find glossed red vases, with black borders, in great
numbers, and others, thickly coated with a smooth red glaze,

FIG. 123. Pre-dynastic Egyptian painted Pottery.

and having- a white painted decoration fired on a process
also seen in the Mediterranean Islands. Finally, we find the
paste incised, both with and without any filling- of the in-
cisions ; such vases, though rare, are still found in the time
of King- Seneferu ; that is to say, up to the close of the third
dynasty.

With the appearance of the first Pharaohs, the red-painted
pottery suddenly ceased. We have called attention to a
similar happening in Elam where the second phase of
painted vases is succeeded by a crude pottery. The working

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 215

FIG. 124. Ivory handle of flint dagger, showing the fauna of Egypt at
the beginning of the Pharaonic regime (discovered by Henri de Morgan
at Hassaya, near Edfu). Hows, beginning at the top: i, Elephants;
2, Ostriches and Giraffes ; 3, Panthers ; 4, Goats ; 5, Jackals ; 6, Ante-
lopes; 7, Porcupines; 8, Oxen; 9, Hippopotamuses; IP, Antelopes;
n, Elephants and Salmon; 12, Goats; 13, Panthers; 14, Goats and
I>og; 15, Asses; 16, Antelopes; IT, Dogs and Jackals; 18, Oxen;
19, Hogs or Wild Boars ; 20, Oxen.

216 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

of hard stone dominated Egypt at the beginning- of the
Ancient Empire ; it was at its zenith about the time that
painted pottery ceases to be in evidence. The tomb at
Nakadah and those at Abydos contain veritable marvels of
lapidary art little vases in rock crystal, milky quartz,
cornelian, agate, and even in obsidian, a substance no longer
used to-day because of its extreme fragility but all, unfor-
tunately, in fragments. These tombs contain no painted vases.

We saw that the pre-pharaonic people had great skill in
the working of ivory and stone, and that they ably sculptured
and graved a number of animal and human figures. We
need only mention here the ivory handle of a flint dagger
discovered by Henri de Morgan in the necropolis of Hassaya
near Edfu. The entire surface of this magnificent piece is
covered with animal figures, and the entire fauna of the
Egypt of those days is portrayed (Fig. 124).

If the people of Egypt in eneolithic times were experts in
the working of rocks and ivory, they were equally skilled in
metal work. Another stone knife, with its handle covered
with sheet-gold, proves that they were skilled in gold re-
poussd work (Fig. 125).

All these early Egyptian works of art demonstrate great
freedom of style, but with the passage of time they get
further and further away from nature. The explanation
lies in the freedom of the artist of neolithic and eneolithic times
from the religious canons which gradually shaped the highly-
specialized art of the times of the Pharaohs* This evolution
took place early, and was already accomplished in the third
dynasty ; thenceforward, both drawing and sculpture were
governed in the minutest detail by immutable laws. This
convention, peculiar to Egypt, became more and more
accentuated up to the time when Rome became mistress of
the valley of the Nile. Thus the more natural and broadly-
conceived works of art belong to the Ancient Empire.

We meet again in the vases of the Mediterranean Islands
the same technique described in connection with Elam
and Egypt, always excepting the fragile red painting of the
Upper Nile valley. In the Islands these different varieties
of pottery are associated with neolithic industry, which
would seem to have been the stage of culture arrived at by
the first inhabitants of Crete, Cyprus, and all those lands

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 217

o.

Flo. 125. Knife in yellow flint with gold-leaf repoussg handle.
Necropolis of Saghel-el-Baglieh (?), Upper Egypt (Cairo Museum).

218 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

which were later to become the domain of the Hellenes.
They bear witness to a potter's craft still in its infancy (Figs.
126 and 127), and here, too, the first artistic essays began
with metal. But if the technique of the Mediterranean world
was the same as that of Asia and Egypt, from the very earliest
phase of ceramic painting (Fig. 128), its artistic taste was
quite different.

Although the ^Egaeo-Mycenaean world had been largely
influenced by Egypt and Asia, it showed, nevertheless, a
well-marked individual taste. Naturalism was the basis of
most of the artistic work, but its tendencies were peculiar,

FIG. 126. Incised Pottery : Cyclades.

differing not only from those we have described above, but
totally foreign to those of Quaternary times In Western
Europe. We shall not here enlarge on this subject, which
will be treated in full detail in another volume of this
series. These arts played a great part in all Mediterranean
countries, in Italy, Spain, and Gaul, and even in Central
Europe*

Before speaking of Europe, let us glance eastwards once
more at Northern Persia and Transcaucasia, regions in which
ceramic art differs completely from that of Chaldea, El am,
Phoenicia, and Greece, but regions, also, which share the
artistic ideas of the northern peoples and have considerably
influenced European culture. And this independently of
Mediterranean influences, because many of the Caucasian
peoples, and still more, the Asiatic peoples, once formed
part of those groups, portions of which invaded Europe,
while others settled by the way.

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 219

When we leave the Mediterranean to penetrate into the
heart of Asia in northern Persia, Transcaucasia, and Siberia,
we are confronted with two quite distinct artistic concep-
tions, one corresponding- to the copper and bronze industry
of the dolmens of northern Iran, and having- only a simple
geometric decoration, the other having- animal figures as its
principal decorative motif. This latter art is met with in
Ossethia (Fig. 131), in the Russia and Persian Talish, and
in Russian Armenia, in association with iron (Fig. 132). The
spiral now becomes prominent, and the swastika more
common than in earlier times.

In the Siberian districts of Minusinsk and Krasnoyarsk,

FIG. 127.

towards the frontiers of Mongolia, in the Altai, and as far
as the Ural and the Volga, localities where copper ore is
common, there have been found, both isolated and in the
burial-places, numerous objects in which animal figures pre-
dominate in the decoration* These figures are either moulded,
forming part of the implement or weapon, take the form of
statuettes, or are engraved on the metal of such objects as
axe-heads, daggers, vases, and metal belts. Artistic taste
and technical manner are identical with that evidenced in the
work of the Persian engravers of to-day. We are tempted to
see in the appearance of this highly-characteristic art which
came to supplant geometric decoration an indication of the
arrival on the Persian plateau of the Iranians among those
peoples of unknown origin of which the texts of the kings
of Assur speak.

220 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

We have to recognize that this naturalistic art would
seem never to have penetrated into Chaldea, Assyria, Egypt,
or the western world. There is no question, therefore, of
its intervention as an influence in the development of
Mediterranean naturalism (Fig*. 129).

But if we compare its general artistic aspect with that

FIG. 128. Vase from Karri ares (Crete).

which developed in western lands at the beginning of the
iron industry during the period to which the Hallstatt
label has been given we are struck by the number of
analogies between the naturalistic art of the Orient and
Occident. The forms of weapons and implements are fre-
quently identical ; and the decorative subjects and method
of their application, especially engraving, are so similar
and are specialized to such a point that we cannot help
associating these two arts, which, according to discoveries
in the Danube basin and in the Ukraine, would appear to
join up north of the Caucasus by way of the Russian
steppes.

In Transcaucasia, this iron civilization was preceded by
another, more simple, whose art belonged to the geometric
system, a civilization which would seem to have been

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 221

derived from a bronze culture, whereas in the west the
Hallstatt phase directly succeeded the bronze by a rapid
transition.

These considerations would lead us to suppose that iron,
long- known in Asia prior to the arrival of the naturalistic
artists, only penetrated into Europe with the Hallstatt
people, who came from the Orient by way of the Russian
steppes and the valley of the Danube.

We must, nevertheless, take into account those Mediter-
ranean influences which at this epoch probably helped to

FIG. 129. Dog and wild boar, from a fresco in the palace at Tiryns.

modify considerably the customs of the naturalistic artists
from Asia.

This industry, with some likelihood, is generally attributed
to the Celts. Thus it follows that the Celts, before they
came to Europe, must have inhabited or sent colonies
into the countries south of the Caspian, either by way of
Derbent or Dariel (Ossete districts) from the North, or
else from the Transcaspian country, skirting the Elburz
mountains, to the Araxes districts. Then the southern branch
of the race would either have been absorbed, or would have
retreated northwards, leaving their taste and their natural-
istic methods still in force to-day among the Persian
gravers as a legacy to Iran. The very characteristic
Hallstatt art would then have been effaced in Western
Europe by a more cultured taste that of the Mediter-
ranean peoples, which becomes dominant from the La T&ne
period.

The beginnings of the Hallstatt industry in Europe is
placed at the beginning of the first millennium before our era.
It must, then, have been earlier still, perhaps by only a few
centuries, perhaps by a millennium, that this art appeared in
Transcaucasia. Thus the eastern * * Hallstattians " in all pro-

222 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

bability would have come by the knowledge of iron in
Transcaucasia, since it existed in that country before their ad-
vent. This would make the Ossete burial-places merely
the witness of the passage of the " Hallstattians " through

FIG. 130. Ossete iron industry. Animal figures.

the Great Caucasus, a country where copper in the natural
state is much more abundant than iron thus explaining
the rarity of iron in the necropolis of Koban.

These are but conjectures ; still, the wide diffusion of so
specialized an art as that of Hallstatt cannot be considered
the result of mere coincidence.

Hitherto, unfortunately, research has made but little

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 223

FIG. 131. Figures engraved on bronze'belts'from the necropoles of
Russian Armenia. Iron industry.

224 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

progress either in Transcaucasia, Persia or Central Asia.
Excavations have been made in Ossethia, in Russian
Armenia, and in the Russian and Persian Talish but there
our researches end for the moment. Nevertheless, we
have discovered that the peoples of the North lived in
complete isolation from those of the South, and that the
flourishing" civilizations of Babylon, Susa, Nineveh and
Ecbatana did not influence those peoples whose graves we
have discovered in the necropoles of the North.

In the north of Western Asia we find a few rare traces of

FIG, 132. Incised pottery. Djonu Necropolis (Russian Talish).

a specialized painted pottery in tombs containing- iron
weapons. Pottery ornamented with designs made by a
polisher predominates, and incised ornamentation is fairly
common (Fig. 130). With the appearance of iron, we meet
with numerous vases in the forms of animals, such as horses,
oxen and birds, but here, as with the engraving, we are in
the presence of a specialized style of Altaic origin if we
may judge by the discoveries made in Siberia during the
last few years.

In Western and Central Europe the earliest stag-e of
ceramic art shows us vessels which are generally wide-
topped, flat-bottomed and irregular (Fig. 133), made of a
coarse paste, and ill-baked on open hearths. The sherds
of this pottery are generally composed of two brownish
exterior layers, and a central greyish portion, scarcely baked ;
the earth of which has hardly been worked into a paste
and is mixed with grains of sand.

Later on, as neolithic industry was perfected, the technique
of ceramics gradually improved. Forms were elaborated

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 225

(Fig. 134) and became at times quite elegant, and decoration
appeared. It had already been met with in the shape of
incisions during the Campignian industry, and now it
was elaborated by means of dotted depressions (Fig. 134,
Nos. 9, 10 and 12). Rope-marked vases then appeared
(Fig. 134, No. 12); that is to say, the vases were decorated
with the impression of a cord twisted round the vase
while the paste was still soft; next, the potter used little

Rough pottery : i, Tertre
(Seine-et-Miarne) ; 2, Dolmen
f Cli&teau-Larcher (vienne) (after
A. de Mortmet).

133.

(S

FIG. 134. Neolithic vases: i to 3 and

5 to 10, Chassy (Sa6ne-et-Loire) ; 6,

Bohemia; 4, n and 12, Brittany.

pellets of clay pressed into the soft vase to make designs
(Fig. 134, Nos. 5, 7 and 8). This was exceptional only, for
in nearly every country incised ornament predominated ; at
times it became very artistic, as in Scandinavia, where it was
particularly remarkable from the days of polished stone.
With the advent of bronze, pottery improved still further ;
the potter's wheel had then long been in use, and gradually
the shapes of the vases became inspired by those of the
Hellenic world. In southern Italy, Sicily, Spain, and even
southern Gaul, the Mediterranean arts had exercised great
influence on the West ever since the Cretan zenith, and
Mycenaean forms (Figs. 138, 139) spread overland into Central
Europe. So much was this the case that, from the time
when iron appeared, the vase forms, the subject of the
designs, and the technical processes had become hybrid,
deriving both from native culture and from Mediterranean art.
Vases were painted, but without the skill of the Hellenic
peoples, and, as a rule, these efforts of the potter were merely
rather unstable colour tracings over the incised decoration.

226 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

FlQ. 135. Neolithic decoration on pottery.

FIOK 136. i, 2, Cyprus; 3, Hissarlik; 4, Isle of Moen fDenmark) ;

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 227

The Mediterranean influence made itself felt throughout
Europe in later proto-historic times, but it was exercised
on peoples highly diverse in origin and artistic feeling, hence
a multitude of schools and innumerable varieties resulted,
the study of which is further complicated by the migration
of populations. In Gaul alone we can recognize a number
of different areas, and successive schools for identical
districts, the phases of which correspond to the migrations

FIG. 137. The iron industry in Transcaucasia. Vase decoration
(Helenendorf, near Yelisavetpol).

of populations, the opening of new commercial routes,
military events, and a host of other causes that often
escape us* "

In the West and in Northern Europe, the prehistoric
era came to an end during the development of the
iron civilization associated with the La T&ne industry.
Thenceforward, the arts are the product of native taste
largely influenced by Grseco - Etruscan and Greek art.
The ancient motifs and processes are still seen on the
incised vases ; but ceramic painting and sculpture are both
stamped with a special character derived from Hellenism,
which, in the northern districts, survived until the Middle
Ages.

On the whole, outside of Elam, Egypt, and the Greek
world, where we meet with genuine artistic schools,
sharply characterized both by their technique and their
expression, the artistic taste of the Ancient World was

228 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

FIG, 138. Buchheim (Duchy of Baden}*

. 139. Burzenhof (Wfcrtemberg).

ARTS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES 229

still most confused, the reason being that nowhere do we
find among the numerous peoples of whom we have any
trace, the same originality as in the great centres of the
East.

But the New World must not be neglected, for certain
regions of America Mexico and Peru had schools no less

FIG. 140. The arts of the La Tfcne industry : i, Turoe (Galway, Ireland) ;
2, Kermaria, near Pont-1'AbbS (Finist&re) ; 3, Hoch-Redlan (Prussia) ;
4 Betheny (Marne) ; 5, Glastonbury (Somerset) ; 6, Roanne (Loire) ;
7, Marne ; 8, Roanne (Loire) ; Qa, Matzhausen (Palatinate) ; 9, animal

frieze on 9a.

remarkable than those of Asia and Egypt. Here we are
dealing with a world apart, cut off from relations with the
rest of the universe and evolving independently. This
evolution produced the same results as in the Old
World, because in America we find an incised and polished
ceramic art showing all the varieties of the old world
and culminating in painted pottery- The technical pro-
cesses are the same : the artistic conceptions alone differ.
We can make no reliable estimate of the date of this
work.

230 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

^ What has happened in the New World demonstrates how
necessary it is to be wary in our hypotheses relating to
influences, especially when processes of a simple order
are concerned. The same idea may have come to any
number of peoples at different times. The characteristics
of primitive unpainted pottery cannot be considered con-
clusive from the chronological point of view where different
peoples or diverse regions are involved.

Moreover, we are still very ignorant of everything
relating to the arts, and of ceramics in particular, in the
major portion of the Old World. We have seen that for
Transcaucasia, Persia, and Russia we possess vague in-
formation only, and that limited to a very few districts
and peoples but beyond that, further eastwards, our lack
of knowledge is complete.

CHAPTER II
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS, TOTEMISM, AND MAGIC

Two principles would seem to have swayed the minds of
men in those far-off days when as yet the Occidental folk
of Europe were in the palaeolithic and archaeolithic industrial
phase : respect for the dead, implying a belief in an after-
life ; and, probably, totemism applied, as among modern
primitive populations, to the issues of mundane existence.

In the Grimaldi caves, and in many others, the dead
have been found buried beside their hearths, surrounded by
the objects of their intimate daily life. This custom, which
remained in vigour up to the close of the polished stone phase,
and which was even more marked after the appearance of
metals, undoubtedly shows that the early inhabitants of
France already cherished a cult of the dead and believed
in a future life and hence in a superhuman power. Nor was
this notion peculiar to the races inhabiting the Western
Europe in Quaternary times ; it was universal* But it
would appear to be in our caverns that the earliest testimony
to such a belief has so far been discovered.

Their totemism is more debatable. Nevertheless, the
study of cave paintings and their comparison with the
collected data regarding the practices of contemporary
uncivilized populations, has led archaeologists to consider
that the Magdalenians were not prompted to cover the walls
of their dwellings with paintings from a single-minded desire
to satisfy their aesthetic tastes, but that these representations
had a religious significance. 1

" Both in Australia and America," says Dchelette, 2
"a tribe or group believes itself to be under the pro-
tection of a tutelary being, usually an animal that has to
be propitiated in the interests of the common weal. Hence
the animal totem becomes the object of a regular cult.

1 ffi Reinach, I' Art et la Magie, VI (1903), 257 ; id., LX, I, Paris, 1905.

2 XXVI, I, 268.

281

232 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

Totem groups display representations of their totem on
their arms and shields. By the intervention of magic
the totem can bestow fecundity, so profitable to the com-
munity. Spencer, Gillen and Frazer have described the
strange ceremonies performed with this object by the
Australians at the foot of rocky walls covered with
zoomorphic representations. A number of details in these
magical practices are easily correlated with facts observed
in the caverns of the Pyrenees and Perigord." We must
not strain totemism too far, however, by seeking- to find
its traces everywhere. We do not know all the motives
that inspired men's actions in those far-distant days.

The European cave painting's are sometimes placed in
corners or on inaccessible parts of the rock, and it has been
supposed that they were thus placed because they were
forbidden (Taboo} to women, children and to uninitiated
persons in general.

This is but a plausible hypothesis, but one that it would be
as rash to develop as that regarding totemism, for we cannot
deduce from the superstitions of modern savages ideas that
were current in times so far distant from our own.

The belief in larvce, that is to say in spectres and ghosts,
which we meet with in the Italian peninsula from the earliest
historic times, is certainly not a conception peculiar to
European peoples. It existed in Egypt under another
form, but the fear lest the ghosts of the dead should return
to disturb the calm of the living undoubtedly had great influ-
ence on the respect with which men would always seem to
have treated burial-places ever the object of mysterious
dread, unformulated, but intense in primitive peoples, and
still extraordinarily vivid in the minds of many highly-
developed persons of our own day.

With the appearance of neolithic industry the cult of
the dead was emphasized under a number of forms, for
the interments of the period, greatly in evidence in every
land, are at the same time highly diverse in character.

Simple burial in the ground without any protective
wrapping for the body is uncommon in Europe. It is
met with, however, in the department of the Marne among
others, at Dormans : the bodies, squatting or doubled up,
were laid in small graves oriented north south.

RELIGION, TOTEMISM, AND MAGIC 233

This, the simplest of all modes of sepulture, was customary
in the valley of the Nile during the period of neolithic and
eneolithic industry (Fig. I4I). 1 We often find the skeleton

FIG. 141. Neolithic interment, El Amrah (Upper Egypt).

enclosed in a wrapping sewn into an antelope or gazelle
skin nor does the coming of copper alter this usage. In the
deepest deposits of the Tell of Susa the graves present the
same general character*

In Germany this method of inhumation is more frequent
than in Gaul.

We have seen that in Quaternary times the dead were

i Cf, XXIX.

234 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

frequently interred in the caverns close to their dwelling-
place. In neolithic times these caves, uninhabited for the
most part at that date, were used as cemeteries, as, for
example, the cave of the Homme Mort in Lozere, where an
extensive ossuary was found. Often a wall of dry stones
blocking* the cave entrance protected the bodies from beasts
of prey.

As, however, natural caves do not exist in every country,

Fio. 142. Graves from the necropoles of Russian Armenia. Iron industry.

men had to dig artificial shelters in the ground. The
form of grave can best be studied in the department of
the Marne. The valley of the Petit Morin contains a large
number. 1 They are veritable hypogea, dug with great
precision in the chalk, and made up of one or two chambers,
closed in former times by slabs of stone or stout wooden planks.
A trench made in the outer debris and the drift formation
enabled the diggers to reach the out-cropping chalk. A
large number of skeletons were laid carefully one on the top
of the other in two rows with a passage left between. 2

1 Baron de Baye, Sur les cavernes sfpulcrales dans le department de la
Marne (Congr. internal, arch., Brussels, 1872) ; XXII, 1st edit., 1879*

2 These artificial caves, which are very rich in polished flint implements, contain
also some traces of copper ; they thus belong to the Eneolithic and not to the
Neolithic.

RELIGION, TOTEMISM, AND MAGIC 235

Certain of these artificial caverns are considered by
archaeologists l to be either funerary chapels intended for the
celebration of ritual ceremonies, or tombs reserved for
personages of high rank.

Hypogea are fairly common throughout the greater
part of Europe, in Mediterranean countries, Egypt, and

?IG. 143. Crypt orCoisard. *Valley of FIG. 144. Crypt of Courgeonnet. Valley
he Petit Morin (after Baron de Baye). of the Petit Morin (after Baron de Baye).

Western Asia ; all are inspired by the same feeling of respect
for the dead and desire to protect their remains from beasts
and men. The tombs of the Pharaohs at Thebes, and the
Achaemenidsean sepultures of Persis are artificial crypts of
monumental proportions. The excavation of such hypogea
must have entailed great labour only to be undertaken
for a very few persons, hence as a mode of burial it must
be considered exceptional. The same is true of dolmens,
large chambers built of blocks of stone and then, usually,
covered over with earth.

A dolmen 2 (Figs. 145 and 146) is a stone monument of
varying dimensions, composed of vertical walls formed of
great blocks set on end with one or more large slabs forming
the roof. Some dolmens consist of one rectangular chamber
only (Figs. 145 and 146, Nos. t, 3 and 4), others of several

* XXIV, 157-

8 From ^o/ table and m*J= stone (in Breton).

236 INTELLECTUAL JDEVELOPMENT

(Fig. 146, Nos. 5 and 7) ; whilst still others have shorter or
longer galleries, of varying width and height, leading into
them, and constructed on the same principle (Fig. 146, Nos. i,
3 and 7). Occasionally the lateral walls are inclined and
give the dolmen the appearance of a truncated pyramid
(Fig. 145, Nos. 4 and 5) ; galleries are even known in
which the covering stones are supported on one side only,

FIG. 145. Dolmens : i, Brautdme (Dordogne) ; 2, Table des Marchands
(Locmariaquer, Morbihan) ; 3, Krukenn (Plouharnel, Morbihan) ; 4 Lauzo
(Orgnac, Ard&cfce) ; 5, Gramoat (near Lodfcve, HSrault) ; 6, Trie-Chateau

(Oise).

giving the alley a triangular section. Quite a number of
these monuments are known that consist only of a long
gallery without any definite chamber (Fig. 146, Nos. 2 and
6). In some countries, Ireland among others, the covering
stones are replaced by corbelled vaults, constructed of small
flat stones (Fig. 146, No. 7). In France dolmens are often
floored with slabs of stone (Fig. 148, Nos. i and 6).

In many cases dolmens are covered over with mounds of
earth of smaller or larger size, but we cannot say for certain,
that every dolmen was covered by a tumulus, nor that those

RELIGION, TOTEMISM, AND MAGIC 237

FIG. 146. Dolmens in plan and section.

238 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

that are now uncovered were denuded of their mounds by
cultivation or rain. In dolmens complete with tumulus, we
observe about the circumference of the mound, a circle of
large stones intended to circumscribe it. These circles of
isolated stones are often seen without a dolmen in the centre.
The greater number of such circles are merely the ruins of
ancient mounds, but we must not confound them with

FIG. 147. Geographical distribution of dolmens in the Old "World,

cromlechs, 1 monuments of unknown purpose, whose dimen-
sions are much greater.

The appearance of dolmens 2 in Western Europe seems to
coincide |with the second phase of the neolithic industry of
France and Switzerland, but this appearance is apparently
illusory, since the most ancient among them, whose funerary
furniture consists only of stone implements made of hard,
imported rocks, contain traces of metal copper and gold*
Others are clearly eneolithic.

The geographical distribution of dolmens is very wide,
(Fig. 147). We find them from the south of Scandinavia to
Algeria, and from Portugal to India and Japan. 8 In the
north of Western Asia (Russian and Persian Talish) they
all belong to the local copper and bronze age. It follows

1 From crowcircle and /*6*Astone (in Breton).

2 Cfl A. de Mortniet, VIH, XL

* Of. JUULV11, 153, and note* 2, 3 and 4.

RELIGION, TOTEMISM, AND MAGIC 239

that if the practice of constructing- such edifices came into
our part of the world from Asia there would have come
with it the knowledge of metals, and this seems to have been
the case, since although in Western Europe these tombs
contain funerary furniture of neolithic appearance, this is
certainly due to the scarcity of copper among* their con-
structors. The hypothesis that dolmen building spread in

FIG. 148.

Builded dolmen, Namin, Ardebil province (Persia)
(Author a Researches).

the opposite direction is untenable, for it would postulate an
inception of the metal industry in Caspian countries posterior
to its beginnings in Armorica, which is an impossibility
because Asiatic civilization goes back much farther than that
of the West.

It remains for us to suppose that the idea of constructing
these huge tombs was born at different dates in different
countries, since the cult of the dead is far too ancient and
widely distributed for us to explain its general acceptance by
propagation from any one centre. Apparently the solution
of the problem must come from a combination of hypotheses,
for it is impossible to connect the monuments of Japan,
Madagascar, and South America with the great group of
Asiatic-European dolmens.

240 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

In all countries the earliest dolmens are built of large
unhewn blocks of stone. Then the blocks used for the
vertical walls gradually diminish in size, until the earlier
lateral blocks are replaced by a built-up wall of undressed
stones, it is true, but carefully laid. The great roof-slabs
alone persist (Fig. 148), * and, as the monument becomes
smaller in size, the cist is finally arrived at.

This is not to say that the practice of burying the dead
in stone cists is posterior to the dolmens. The two methods
of sepulture were certainly in use at the same time in the
same countries but the principle of these funerary con-
structions is the same. Further, the conception of the
dolmen with its tumulus, interpreted by peoples of advanced
culture, produced in certain districts veritable colossi
witness the royal pyramids of the Ancient and Middle
Egyptian Empires.

The dolmens are not the only megalithic monuments of
prehistoric antiquity. In many districts we also find traces
of religious or superstitious beliefs as yet unexplained con-
nected, perhaps, with the cult of the dead, and manifesting
themselves in the form of standing stones (menhirs) * (Fig.
149) ; trilithons somewhat rare, and composed of two up-
rights and a lintel , and finally of alignments of monoliths
(Fig. 150), usually associated with cromlechs. The dolmens
themselves sometimes present inexplicable peculiarities.
Some are divided into several chambers communicating
with each other by a circular hole pierced through the
partition (Fig. 145, Nos. 5 and 6 ; Fig. 146, No, 6).

In France menhirs are even more numerous than dolmens.
A. de Mortillet counted 6192 of them, including align-
ments and cromlechs; 8 their distribution, however, does
not altogether coincide with that of dolmens. The greatest
of these monuments is the Men-er-Hro^ck (Pierre de la F6e),
now fallen and broken, which measured 20.50 metres in
length. This monolith recalls the obelisks of Egypt in its
dimensions ; that of Hatasu at Karnafc, however, is much
larger, its height being 33.20 metres. We soon become lost
in conjectures as to the primitive purpose of these monu-

i XXXVI, IV, ist paurt, 13 ff.; XXXV, VIII (1905), 251 ff.

3 Afn=stone, and &*y=long (in Breton).

* A. de Mortillet, Distribution des ntigalifhes en France, VIII (1901), 40.

RELIGION, TOTEMISM, AND MAGIC 241

ments, but up to the present time none of the proposed
hypotheses have rested on scientific bases.

The same holds true for the alignments, long parallel
lines of menhirs planted in the earth at almost equal
intervals, a remnant of which still may be seen in the depart-
ments of Morbihan and Finist&re. Formerly the alignments
stretched much further, but, even what remains of them is
still very impressive.

Cromlechs are large circles of 50 or 60 metres in diameter

v x 1Si ~' Menhir of Krou6zel at Porspoder (Finist&re) ; 2, Gant de
KercUf, Carnac (Morbihan) ; 3, Penmarch (Finist&re), 7 metres high.

formed of menhirs. These megalithic monuments are
widely distributed in France, the British Isles, Sweden
and Denmark. We meet with a few in Western Asia. So
far the interpretations given all belong to the realm of
phantasy.

The number of Quaternary burials hitherto discovered
is too small to furnish us with much information as to the
rules then governing inhumation, and there are no indica-
tions for that epoch to throw light on the practice of incinera-
tion, which was frequently resorted to by the neolithic
population of Europe. With the appearance, however, of
polished stone, there is much more to guide us. In certain
districts, such as Scandinavia, the neolithic burials were all

242 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

by inhumation, whereas in France, and especially in Brittany,
the dead were frequenty burned. 1 In the departments of the
Marne, the Aisne, and the Gard, and in many other parts of
France incineration -was also the rule. 2 This custom of
destroying* the body by fire was also in force in the same
period in Thuringia and in Western Prussia, 5 whereas in

FIG. 150. Alignments of Menec at Carnac (Morbihan).

the British Isles, in Italy, and in Switzerland no traces of
incineration in the corresponding epoch have yet been found.

In historic times, moreover, both cremation and inhuma-
tion were practised by Latins and Etruscans. It was only
in the East, and especially in Egypt, that the destruction of
the body would appear to have been avoided. Nevertheless,
the burning of the primitive royal tombs of Nakadah and
Abydos suggests that in the earliest times incineration was
practised in the case of important personages, and not only
incineration of their bodies but of everything that had
belonged to them.

Judging by the colour on the bones, it would seem that
ante-sepultural excarnation had been practised from Quater-
nary times.* For more recent periods there are numerous
traces of the custom in Western and Central Europe, in
Russia, and, it would seem, even in Northern Caucasia.

1 Cf. XXIV, 270.

9 Olshausen, Lcickerverbr*nnune t XX (1892), 163-

Piette, VI (1896), 386,

RELIGION, TOTEMISM, AND MAGIC 243

Flos. 151 and 152, Iron Industry Burials, Djonu (Russian Talish)
The author's excavations*

244 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

During the course of the bronze industry, in our part of
the world, the ancient customs of neolithic times persisted.
Dolmens, however, gradually ceased to be built, those that
remained being often used as ossuaries. Thenceforward,
burials were effected in cists, in graves with walls of rough-
hewn stone, and in chambers (Figs. 151 and 152) over which
a tumulus was raised, sometimes attaining considerable
proportions. That of Saint-Menoux (Allier) measured no
less than 25 metres in diameter ; x it contained four skeletons.

At this epoch, cremation was also practised In Europe,
but, as in earlier times, Asia did not adopt it, or at least we
have not yet encountered any trace of it in the Orient. There,
in certain districts, such as the north-west of Persia, the
various transition phases from the large dolmen to the cist
can be followed, while the funerary furniture is seen to im-
prove in proportion as the architecture of the tombs becomes
elaborated.

If the primitive inhabitants of the mountains bordering
the Caspian on the south-west did not actually burn the
dead, together with their wives, as was done in India, it
would seem that a man at least took them with him into the
other world. A burial that I had the good fortune to discover
at Veri (Russian Talish) in 1890, is explicit in this regard.

A cist of irregular contour (Fig. 153) contained four
bodies. 2 At the right were the man's remains (No. i) accom-
panied by his arms a long and slender sword, four daggers,
several lance-heads, and a considerable number of arrow-
heads. His personal ornaments consisted of a torque, some
beads and small golden discs. To the left of the man, in
the middlf of the tomb, were two women's skulls (Nos. 2
and 3) surrounded by beads and gold discs ; each skull
had its torque and bracelets, but no weapons. To the left
is another female skull (No. 4), surrounded by the same
ornaments, and, not far away, a metal mirror. (In Fig,
153 the vases have been taken out, in order that the position
of the objects and of the skeletons may be better appreciated)*

An examination of the grave goods shows very clearly
tht the three women had accompanied their master into
the tomb. The position of the ornaments, the orderly

2 All the ejects found in this tomb are at the MusSe de Saint-Germain.

RELIGION, TOTEMISM, AND MAGIC 245

FIG. 153, Bronze industry burial, Veri (Russian Talish) ; the author's
excavations. (The vases have been taken out).

manner in which they are distributed, and the fact that not
a vase was broken, proves that these women had been put
to death before the closing of the sepulchral chamber. Here
the ascertained data comes to an end, but they are important
in regard to the funeral ceremonies of the bronze period in
this district, for they open the way to comparisons with
India, where the same rite of sacrificing- the women has
existed in another form from very remote times. This tomb
recalls those of the Scythians of which Herodotus tells us.

The manners of those days were highly diverse and were
often horribly barbaric. Thus Stolpe, a Swedish authority,
who studied a cave on the island of Stora Carlso (Gothland),
bias established the fact that the inhabitants of that island in
neolithic times were cannibals, 1 and we also find mention
3f cannibalism in Europe in historic times, 2

The neolithic people indulged in still other practices on
te bodies of the dead, and these customs have left their
;races. They cut circular portions from the skulls trepanned
;hem, not with any surgical end in view as in this operation

* LIT 20.

* /&, p. 20, and for Switzerland, LXVHl, 150.

246 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

to-day, but in order to obtain fetishes, for these circular
pieces were pierced with holes that they might be suspended
or worn as part of a necklace ; the Gauls also indulged in
this practice. 1 In the oppidum of Stradonitz in Bohemia a
fragment of a brain case, decorated with engraved geometric
designs, has been discovered ; this is evidence of a custom
that exists to this day in Oceania.

Thus, as we see, funeral customs in prehistoric times
were extremely varied ; we possess but scant information on
most of them, and many escape us completely.

In Persia, Mazdaism put an end to earth burial, and in
the north of Iran coffins for the exposure of the bodies
succeeded the graves of the iron industry period** It is only
with the coming of Islam, that is to say, in the seventh
century of our era, that graves reappear. As it is now gener-
ally agreed to place the appearance of the Zoroastrian doctrine
in Media in the fifteenth century before our era, this would
then be the date, within a few centuries, of the disappearance
of the sepultures of the iron industry in that country if,
indeed, the men of the iron industry, whose sepultures have
been found, ever were converted to Mazdaism.

The cult of the dead was not, of course, the only religious
belief of prehistoric times. There were a multitude of others,
but this question of the philosophical ideas of prehistoric
peoples is most obscure, because we have practically no such
evidence as would support even a hypothesis. Except for
the funeral rites which, as we have just seen, show that in
all countries man was preoccupied about a future life, we
are nearly always constrained to turn to historical sources,
and to go back, in thought, across the ages, with the feeble
assistance of such rare prehistoric objects as seem to lend
themselves to an interpretation, ere we can have any idea as
to what these primitive cults consisted in. Such an excursion
into the historic origin of beliefs reveals to us religions that
are infinitely varied, which still further complicates the task
of the prehistorian. In truth, if we have evidence that at
the beginning of the historic era the peoples of even a single
region possessed a variety of beliefs, what are we to think

1 Of. G. de Martinet, Trepanation prthistorique* I. (1882) 144.
* Cf. Reck, archfol. (1896), 13-125 ; XXXVJU IV.

RELIGION, TOTEMISM, AND MAGIC 247

of those that successively jostled each other in this same
district in earlier times?

Religions are born, prosper, are sometimes very widely
distributed, then become decadent and die. Only those
based on g-enuinely philosophic principles survive. But the
further we go back in time and the further we get away from
higher conceptions, the more deeply we penetrate into the
practices of superstition and magic, because the human being,
faced with the impotence of his efforts against incompre-
hensible phenomena, and being guided on the one hand by
fear, and on the other by hope, necessarily attributed most
of what he saw and all such experiences as passed beyond
the bounds of his intelligence, to a host of different causes.
Thus an infinite variety of practices grew up : " Man at first
populated space with free, sentient forces, susceptible to
prayer and pity/' 1 The idea of the one God came only
much later, since it demanded a generalization of causes that
a highly-evolved mind alone was able to conceive.

The domain of the incomprehensible, at first of vast
extent, became gradually limited in proportion to intellectual
progress. The primitive divine pleiad, born of the multi-
plicity of phenomena, was provided with a master, and in a
few rare and refined souls was born the conception of a force
superior to and containing all other forces. The concept of
a unique deity was now formed, but in many religions this
higher conception remained a secret of the priesthood* Such
was the case in Egypt, and probably also in Chaldea ; and
it is very probable that the Hebrews got their idea of Jahveh
from these sacerdotal ideas. But in no oriental religion
were the ancient gods entirely sequestered from office ; the
priests retained them for a long time to come, because the
people were not sufficiently advanced to be made to renounce
their superstitions.

Among* all the peoples whose religious origins we have
been able to study, or where, at least, we have been able to
go far back in the examination of their beliefs, we meet
with polytheism. Egyptians, Chaldeans, Elamites and
Hellenes all possessed an elaborate pantheon. The same is
true of those races which, by our geographical discoveries of

i Kenan, Hist, du Peupte d'lsratt, I, 97.

248 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, we were able to sur-
prise in the actual possession of their prehistoric civilization.
Among- the Semites of Chaldea, the Akkadians, we find
from the beginning that the idea of divinity is connected
with the stars, whereas for the Sumerians, the ancient inhabi-
tants of Mesopotamia, the incomprehensible power belonged to
the forces of nature conceptions, which, though differing in
form, sprang from the same spiritual need to address oneself
to someone or something by which to conjure ill-fortune.

FIG 154. Religious emblems and tribal crests on Egyptian pre-dynastic

painted vases. 1-13, Nakadah and Ballas ; 14, El Amrah and Abydos ;

(15-21, after Schweurfurth).

These two primitive religions had nothing philosophic about
them. Self-interest was their motive power, and superstition
their guide.

In Egypt it would appear that there were two cults, that of
the Libyan stone chipping aborigines, and that of the invaders
who brought with them the knowledge of copper. Out of
this mixed cult was evolved the pharaonic religion. The old
customs survived, however, to Greek and Roman times.
Everything in nature had formerly been deified, and each
nome retained its god up till the early centuries of our own
era. This was a survival some four or five thousand years
old dating from the division of the country between those
tribes whose distinctive badge or crest we noticed on the
painted prehistoric vases. In Egypt, as in Chaldea, every

RELIGION, TOTEMISM, AND MAGIC 249

divinity had its emblem, its animal, or its privileged object,
and this primitive cult of animals, the last trace of the early
totemism, was preserved by the pharaonic people. Cats,
dogs, jackals, crocodiles, and oxen were mummified, as
though they themselves had been the divinity.

But Asiatics, both Semites and those of the ancient races,
also venerated nature trees, springs, rivers, and mountains
and this cult would seem to have been the oldest among

FIG. 155. Impression of a seal (Palace of Knossos). Goddess appearing
on a mountain top between two mastiffs, and a worshipper.

every people. We meet with it in Western Europe and
among uncivilized peoples to-day, and more extended research
cannot fail to bring us proof that in every land it was the
basis from which all other cults were elaborated.

In the study of prehistoric religion we must thus reject
any idea of a unique divinity and recognize that naturism,
whether it concerns the astral bodies or confines itself to
terrestrial phenomena, is at the root of all early religion.
The sun, moon, stars, thunder, tempests, rain, wind, heat
and cold have everywhere at some time been considered
divine. So also have springs, lakes, rivers, mountains
(Fig. 155) rocks, and trees, and the beasts of the field and
birds of the air. These cults have varied greatly, however,
according to place and time. We must content ourselves
with gleaning from this infinite variety a few about which
definite testimony has come down to us.

First of all we will contrast with the cult of the dead and
the conception of terrestrial annihilation, the cult of life,
creation, fertility, abundance and good fortune personified
by the Chaldean goddess Nana, only another form of the
Astarte of the Hellenes.

250 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

Right down to those deeper deposits of Chaldean and
Susian ruins in which the painted vases of eneolithic
industry are at last reached, we find crude figurines of this
goddess (Fig. 156, No. i), and also of her symbol (Fig.
156, No. 2) in a form which in later historic times is con-
stantly in evidence as a votive offering in clay (Fig. 156,
No. 3). In Egypt, we again find either the actual image
(No. 4) symbolizing fertility, or symbolized (No. 5) in a

FIG. 156. Representations of the goddess Nana (Astarfce).

purely Egyptian fashion, for it never appears in Chaldea

under this form. It disappeared from the valley of the Nile

from the time of the establishment of pharaonic civilization*

It did not, however, emigrate from Mesopotamia to Egypt

alone, for it is also found at Hissarlik, in the ruins of the

second city (No. 7) ; in Cilicia, at Adalia (No. 9) ; in the

-3g-ean Islands at Cyprus (Nos. 6, 10, n, 12) associated

with objects of neolithic industry, and even at Klipevac in

the Danube basin not far from Belgrade (No. 13). The

entire East and some European countries worshipped the

Mother goddess, the giver of fertility to the fields, and to

man and beast.

RELIGION, TOTEMISM, AND MAGIC 251

The gods had representations made of them and temples
and altars raised to them, both in Asia and Egypt, whereas in
the west and north of Europe such images were apparently
forbidden by the laws governing religious cults. At all
events we have no evidences of religious sculpture in neolithic
times or the period in which the bronze industry flourished.
A single rock painting from Spain (Fig. 157), which, in my
view, has mistakenly been approximated to Magdalenian art,
shows us for the neolithic, or some later period a ceremony
of sorts, perhaps a dance by women which would appear

FIG. 157.

Ritual dance, Hock painting from Cogul (Spain).
After H. Breuil.

to have some connection with the cult of Priapus. These
women are depicted as wearing long skirts and strange head-
dresses, with breasts bared ; their costume reminds us of
Cretan representations of a ritual dance (Fig. 158). These
paintings, however, are situated in Spain, a country which,

FIG. 158. Gold Ring from Isopata (near Knossos). Ritual dance.

according to H, Breuil, had not been subjected to
influences. We must therefore consider this to be either a
purely native scene, or else of African origin,

252 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

The solar cult, very ancient in Chaldea and Egypt, shows
itself, in Europe, from the time of the bronze industry, but the
objects Wearing- witness to its existence in France accord so
nearly with the Greek myth that we are led to believe that
the ritual implements were inspired by the Hellenic world.

We know that according to the ancient myth the sun
made his daily journey across the heavens in a chariot drawn
by horses (Fig. 159, No. 2), and that when he had to return
from the place of his setting to the place of his rising-, the
god left his chariot (Nos. i, 2 and 10, solar disc and chariot),
and was conveyed in a boat on the river Ocean (Nos. 3-7,
solar ships).

At Trundholm in Scandinavia, a bronze ritual chariot
has been found, drawn by a horse and carrying the disc ;
and in both Ireland and England several solar discs in
gold have been disc6vered (Fig. 159, Nos. 8 and 9, the swan).
These same northern countries furnish examples of rock
gravings (in Scandinavia), of knife blades with graven repre-
sentations of the solar ship, and finally of a votive bark in gold
(Jutland). Thus the myth was fully developed in Scandinavian
countries. Montelius considers that the Trundholm chariot
belongs to the second Scandinavian bronze phase, which he
places about the year 1300 B.C., and at that period the Hellenic
peninsula had long had commercial relations with the Baltic
countries, thanks to the trade in amber.

But if the Horse was associated with the daily solar
journey, it was the Swan that drew the divine bark on the
return voyage, and even if no representation of the Swan
thus harnessed to the divine ship has yet been found, at
least the Swan itself figures constantly as a decorative motive
in France, the north of Italy, Central Europe, and the
Scandinavian countries themselves, from the time of the
local bronze industries right up to iron age times just prior
to the historic period. So much so that, according to the
most competent prehistorians, the solar cult must have been
in honour throughout Europe for fifteen hundred years at
least. It extended throughout the Hellenic peninsula,
Egypt, Chaldea and Arabia, and was thus distributed all
over the ancient world. Further east still, in Media, it took
a peculiar but not, as has been claimed, an exclusive form,
since the doctrin e of Zoroaster admitted of secondary divinities,

RELIGION, TOTEMISM, AND MAGIC 253

and centuries later, although they were fervent Mazdeans,
the Sassanid kings described themselves in their protocol
as minutchetri men yezddn, that is to say, as the rt issue of
the gods/'

FIG. 159. The Solar Attributes: i. Silver band from Syros (^Egean
civ.) : 2, Solar chariot from Trundholm (Sweden) ; 3 and 4, Solar boats,
graffiti in Sweden ; 5 and 6, Scandinavian knives bearing solar boat ;
7 Votive boat of gold from Nors (Jutland) ; 8, Bronze belt from Falerii
{Italy) ; 9, id. from Poggio Burtone (Italy) ; 10, Disc from. Staadorf
v y) (Upper Palatinate).

The solar cult in Persia, however, was certainly much
older than Zoroaster, for the disc, the swastika and other
symbols recognized to-day to be merely conventionalizations
of the sun have been met with in the earliest burials. The
swastika appears on the earliest Indian money stamped
ingots attributed to the seventh century B.C.

254 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

FlG. 1 60. Pu

Egyptian

barks painted on
ynastic vases.

FIG. 161. i, Votive axe-hea
in bronze (Susa) ; 2. Voth
axe-head in stone (Hissarlik

RELIGION, TOTEM1SM, AND MAGIC 255

Ships (Fig. 160) figure frequently on the painted funerary
vases of primitive Egypt ; but these representations must not
be confounded with the barks symbolizing the sun's nocturnal
journey, for these ships would seem to be the first witness to
the pharaonic custom of transporting the dead to his last
abiding-place by river. This custom was still in force up
to the twelfth dynasty, and funerary ships, as my excavations
at Dahshur have shown, are unquestionable proof of it.
Furthermore, the Egyptian bas-reliefs of every period bear
witness to this rite.

We must again draw attention to the ritual importance
attached both in the Orient and in our own land to the single
or double-headed votive axe (Fig. 162), and the bull, whose
image is rendered in full or represented quite often by its
horns alone. These two symbols are often combined, hence
they must have figured, if not the .same idea, at least beliefs
that were very closely related.

Thus, in a number of instances, primitive naturism
gradually became transformed, and the early notion of gods
under their actual form gave place to emblems symbolizing
them. For example, we see the god or his symbol figuring
indifferently on the Chaldean koudourrous (boundary stones).
It was thus that the Egyptian, Greek and Italiote pantheons
likewise originated.

Such, in general outline is the sum of our knowledge
regarding men's religious beliefs in the days before History.
Magic and divination, developing out of naturism, played a
great part in the rites of those days, but we are quite ignorant
of the details of such practices ; the evidence is still to seek.

CHAPTER III

THE WRITTEN WORD

WHEN men got beyond the purely material stage, and their
minds were stimulated to reflection, they began to experience
a need to place their thoughts on record that they might be
conveyed to others by signs intelligible to all. The first
means they found by which to do this was to represent in
drawing the simple ideas conceived, and from this first essay
pictographic representation was born. But as the limits of
detailed pictography were soon felt to be too narrow to
respond even to the simplest abstract ideas, conventional
pictographs were evolved whose outlines rapidly took a
hieroglyphic form. Thanks to Man's intellectual develop-
ment, and to the progress that he daily achieved in all
branches of thought, his needs soon outstripped even this
writing, because certain spoken words could not be expressed
by the figures at his disposal, and he was unable to create
for them any means of graphic expression. It was thus
that, neglecting the representative signification of certain
signs, he accorded to them a phonetic value instead, just
as we do with a rebus to-day. Hence arose hieroglyphic
writing properly so called fhat is to say, the hieroglyphs
of Egypt, primitive Chaldea, the Hittites, Crete, China,
Mexico, etc., composed as they are either of representative,
ideographic, or phonetic signs, all used side by side.
From these was evolved, by successive transformations of
the phonetic signs, syllabic writing such as Chinese and the
cuneiform of the Achaemenidae ; and it was from these
systems again that the alphabetic conception derived.

Such was the rational evolution of writing. Only certain
peoples passed through all these successive phases. Side
by side with writing there also grew up among many
tribes a purely conventional mnemonism, but since it was
conventional, the key to it disappeared together with the
men who made use of such methods,

THE WRITTEN WORD

257

In Quaternary times, graving and painting- in many cases
probably served for simple pictographic writing, though
we cannot be sure of it. But alongside of these possibly
ideographic artistic representations, there were also a variety
of memory-aids, of which traces are frequently found. The

FIG. 163. i to 12, painted pebbles from the Mas d'Azil (Azilian) ; 13 and
14, engraved bones, Lorthet cavern (Hautes-Pyr6n6es) (Magdalenian).

painted pebbles of the Mas d'Azil (Fig. 163, Nos. 1-12), and
the engraved bones of Roche-Bertier (Charente), and Lorthet
(Hautes- Pyrenees) (Fig. 163, Nos. 13 and 14) are undoubted
examples. 1 Thus from the close of the Quaternary period
the men of our regions used the same mnemonic means still
employed by the uncivilized tribes of Oceania, and which
-were also used by the Indians of the New W^orld. But the
custom seems to have disappeared with the coming of
mesolithic industry, or, at least, we see no further traces of it
from the moment when the Campignian industry appeared,
nor throughout the bronze phase of the west of Europe.

Hieroglyphics do not seem to have been known in our
part of the world. This system was evolved in the Orient,
in Central America, and in China. We find it established

FIG, 164. Miinsingen in-
scription (Switzerland) on a
glass bead found in a dis-
turbed tomb of the La Tne
industry (epoch uncertain).

in Egypt from pre-pharaonic times ; it must have come into
the country tog-ether with the knowledge of copper. In
Chaldea and Elam it already existed in eneolithic times as

* Piette> Efrute d' ethnographic prtkistorique, VI (1896), 385.

258 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

a precursor of cuneiform signs. We see it completely
developed among* the Hittites at the epoch of the Rames-
sides, but we know nothing of its beginnings. The same is
true for the ^Egean hieroglyphs. 1 These systems of

FIG. 165. Figurative Mexican painting
with descriptive legend in hieroglyphics
(alter L. de Rosny).

writing, in which phonetization undoubtedly plays a great
part, did not extend beyond the countries in which they
corresponded to the local idiom. Even when communication
between Orient and Occident became easy, they were never
adopted in Europe, and did not even inspire analogous
systems. No alphabetical system was known in the Occident
before the appearance of Hellenic writing. As an example

* Cf . JLJLVUU 42A ff.

THE WRITTEN WORD

259

of the sole attempt independent of Greece, so far discovered,
we may instance the inscription of Miinsingen in Switzerland

<

00%

n

ty

FIG. 166. Chinese characters of different epochs.

FIG. 167. Pictographic repre-
sentation on rock at Skebber-
vall (Bohusland, Sweden).

FIG. 168. Pictographic representations
on the rocks of the river Irtish (after
Spassky).

(Fig, 164), on a glass bead dating- from the beginning- of the
iron industry. We know nothing of its origin.

Among essays at figurative inscriptions which remain
without sequel we may mention those on the Bohusland rocks

260 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

in Sweden (Fig. 167), those in Siberia (Fig. 168), Upper
Egypt (Fig. 169), and Mane-Lud at Locmariaquer (Morbihan)
(Fig. 170), as among the more characteristic of this kind of
idea-record.

There are several hieroglyphic systems which have had
a long career and whose transformations have led to much
more complete systems of writing. The most important are

1fl "

FIG. 169. Graffiti scratched on the rocks of Jebel Hetemat
(Upper Egypt) (discovered and drawn by <5. Legrain).

those of Chaldea, Elam, Egypt, China, and Mexico; we
can easily follow the stages of their progress.

In the Chaldeo-Elamite countries we find ourselves, from
the very earliest times, in the presence of two parallel
systems the native system of Elam, and the Chaldean
which would appear rather to be of Semitic origin, and which
finally dominated the whole district.

A very ancient cylinder-seal discovered at Susa (Fig* 171)
bears a clearly hieroglyphic text, and the clay tablets in-
scribed with the most archaic texts of that country frequently
bear the stamp of hieroglyphic cylinders (Fig. 172).

The proto-Elamite writing (Fig. 173) seen on these
numerous tablets is transitional between representative or
else ideographic hieroglyphic characters, and the purely con-
ventional signs. This writing was used not only on clay
but on stone (Fig. 173), and preserved the same aspect in
both cases.

In the Chaldeo-Elamite countries, soft clay was the
usual medium for writing, but as clay did not lend itself to
the drawing of curved forms, the writer, except where he
could stamp circles and ellipses, was generally reduced to

THE WRITTEN WORD

261

FIG. 170. Figures outlined on one of the stones of the chamber,
tumulus of Man6-Lud, Locmariaquer (Morbihan).

FIG. 171. Impression from a hiero-
glyphic cylinder found at Susa
(Mem. D&eg. en Perse, Vol. II,
1900, p. 129).

FIG. 172. Stamp of a cylinder,
bearing a hieroglyphic inscrip-
tion, on a proto-Elamite tablet
(id. Vol. X).

FIG, 173. Proto-Elamite inscrip-
tion on a clay tablet (id., Vol. VI,
pL and).

FIG, 174. Lapidary inscription
in proto-Elamite characters of the
Susan Patesi, Karibou-Sha-Shu-
shinak. Vol. VI, pi, ii), 27th
century B*C,

262 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

transforming the curves into more or less regular polygons
when he had only the triangular point of his stylus to
depend on.

In spite of the physical difficulties he had to overcome,
the writer of those early days frequently retained, in his
signs, the general form of the subjects he intended to
represent, even while he translated them by irregular strokes.
We give (Fig. 174) facsimiles of some of these signs ; first,

*n**tfu m
m A^ v sl>

FIG. 175. Proto-Elamite writing.

those in which it is easiest to recognize the original shapes ;
and then (Fig. 175, Nos. 49-61) the late cuneiform equivalent
of some of these groups* By studying this figure, the reader
will be better able to grasp the evolutionary process that took
place in Elam than by any detailed description* It should
be noted that such hieroglyphs on clay could only be a
copy of more complete signs, obviously foreign to Elam,
for it was not by making their first essays on clay that the
scribes had found themselves in a position to work out
such representations.

One of the most interesting of signs in this regard, is that
which represents a man (Fig. 176). The silhouette of

THE WRITTEN WORD 263

a more perfect and ancient model is preserved, but, except for
the head, it is represented by simple cuneiform strokes.

The use of the proto-Elamite system, however, was to die
out. "We see the Chaldean linear cuneiform (Figs. 177 and
178) introduced into Elam at a very early date, and replacing
the native writing.

This Chaldean writing also was hieroglyphic in origin
(Fig. 179), but these hieroglyphs, when they made their
appearance in Elam, differed from those of Susa since they

FIG. 176. Proto-Elamite FIG. 177. Chaldean Hn-
writing: representation ear cuneiform (Yokna,
of Man Chaldea) .

FIG, 178. Chaldean lin-
ear cuneiform (Susa).

started from different bases although following the same
principles. It would seem certain that the Chaldean
cuneiform was already much more advanced than the
writing of the proto-Elamites. The two peoples aimed at
analogous results, and the more advanced writing prevailed.
In Egypt it was quite otherwise, because there clay was not
the medium used for writing on, but the soft or hard stone so
plentiful in the valley of the Nile.

In the earliest burials, however, and in those graves only,
we find cylinders similar in every way to those of Susiana,
and covered with representations and primitive hieroglyphs
(Fig. i So), This type of seal is common in the tombs of
the first dynasty, at Nakadah and Abydos, In these two
localities we also find imprints of these cylinders on the large
clay stoppers closing the big vases.

264 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

The Chaldeo-Elamite seal thus had its day in the valley
of the Nile, but it did not long- survive, for it was soon re-
placed by the real native seal, prototype of the scarab.

It was during the time that the cylinder was in use that
hieroglyphs were definitively formed (Figs. 181 and 182), a
process of writing which continued in use at least until the
third century of our era. The materials which nature had

FIG. 179. Fragments of a tablet discovered at Nineveh, giving
the explanation in cuneiform characters of the primitive

hieroglyphs.

set to the hand of the scribes of Egypt and Chaldea were
thus the means not only of preserving the hieroglyphic
system in the valley of the Nile, but of forming the cuneiform
in Asiatic regions.

It was not only in Egypt, however, that hieroglyphs
were in vogue. They were also used by the Hittites (Fig,
183), in Crete (Fig. 184) from the time of the third Minoan
period, in China, Transcaucasia, and Mexico.

Then, in certain districts systems of writing appeared
that were derived from a simplification of the hieroglyphic
signs, such as the Egyptian hieratic and demotic, and
possibly the Cretan writing.

THE WRITTEN WORD

265

FIG. 180. Pre-pbaxaonic cylinders (Egy^t): i. Soft limestone (Cairo

Museum, No. 14518; Quibell. Archaic objects); z, Kitchen midden of

Adimiyeh: steatite (Cairo Museum) ; 3. Thebes : black stone (Cairo

Museum) ; 4, Hierakopolis, steatite.

266 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

We know the Hittite hieroglyphs only from the rock
inscriptions of Cappadocia, and we are ignorant both of their
earlier development and of their origin. Opinions are
divided about the hieroglyphs of Crete. Some consider
them to be native to the island, while others and we our-
selves are among these believe that they originated else-
where. In China, the hieroglyph is the source of the signs
still in use in the greater part of the Asiatic Orient. In
Central America they survived up to the time of the

FIG. 181. Arcliaic Egyptian Hieroglyphs. Schist tablet.
(Cairo Museum).

Spanish Conquest. Other attempts do not seem to have left
any traces in more recent systems of writing.

It is not our province to enter here into the origin and
relationships of certain of these primitive systems. It is
interesting, nevertheless, to note that the cradle of all writing
is in Western Asia, and that it was thence that this knowledge
was first carried to the Mediterranean by Phoenicians and
Hellenes, while the peoples of Europe and Centra! Asia,
Western Europe and East Asia were deprived of this great
lever of progress. It was only much later, barely a few
centuries before our era, that the use of writing spread slowly
among the barbarian peoples. Etruscan, Iberian and Runic
inscriptions appear only in centuries quite near the time of
Christ, and sometimes not even until the first centuries of
our era. This readily explains why, for several thousands
of years, Chaldea, Assyria, Egypt, the coasts and islands of
the Mediterranean and Western Asia remained undisputed
mistresses of civilization.

THE WRITTEN WORD

267

\\Then we consider humanity's efforts, as a whole, to record
the spoken word, we see that this necessity has arisen in
many places, and among* many peoples at very different times.

FIG. 182. Ivory tablet from the royal treasure of Semti's tomb,

representing King Ten, or Semti, dancing before Osiris (First

Dynasty, about 4266 B.C.)

We also find that in most cases these attempts remained
unfruitful, and that only in three centres did a more or less
complete success crown these efforts. Finally, we see that
Western Asia and Egypt alone succeeded in overcoming

FIG. 183. Hittite hieroglyphic inscription from Djerablus (after Wright,

The Empire* pi. x).

every difficulty. It was from these two centres, thanks to writ-
ing, that the light of knowledge spread throughout the world.
Certainly, even in this limited area, every attempt did
not meet with the same reward* Cretan, Hittite, and proto-
Anzanite hieroglyphics disappeared without leaving any
descendants. Cuneiform writing, after a long and useful
career, became extinct in its turn* The Egyptian method

268 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

alone survived, not in the pharaonic form, but through
others derived from it, whence, from the Phoenician
characters, the ancestors of our present writing- are believed
to have been developed.

Certainly the five families of Oriental hieroglyphics, like
the languages of the people who used them, are independent
of one another. Can we admit, however, that, in a space
so limited and among peoples dwelling so closely together,
these varied attempts had no common origin? It is un-
believable. We cannot avoid seeing, in these very early
periods, a common pictography, of which each people would
have taken advantage, according to the needs of their
particular language, and following their individual genius,
quite independently of their neighbours.

FIG. 184, The Pha&stos disc (Crete).

CHAPTER IV

INTER-RELATIONS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLES

THERE can be no question of the commercial relations
that existed in Europe from the days of the palaeolithic
industries ; exchanges both as between different clans and
different tribes certainly took place, but these transactions
have left no trace* It is only with the appearance of
neolithic industry that we have evidence, in the ddbris
of daily life found on the sites of former habitations, of
materials . foreign to the locality and which must, there-
fore, have been imported. Thus the resinous -looking
flint of Grand Pressigny is met with in prehistoric stations
throughout the centre and east of France and even in
Switzerland. Towards the close of the Archaeolithic, both
ocean and Mediterranean shells, used for ornament, become
more and more frequent, in association, in the caves
of Central France. These discoveries, however, are not
conclusive in regard to the existence of actual trading, for
in those days there was constant inter-tribal warfare, and the
presence of these marine shells among populations living far
from the coast might well be due to booty taken from the
conquered enemy.

But it must have been otherwise with neolithic objects
met with at great distances from the geological beds furnishing
the material of which they were made, because we know of a
number of manufacturing centres undoubtedly established
with a view to the exportation of the implements there made.

Beyond doubt the trade in flints was considerable
though the field for exportation was naturally limited to
districts poor in stone that was capable of being satisfactorily
worked* Other minerals were used as the raw material for
personal ornaments, such as callais, 1 turquoise, and gold

1 The callats of Pliny is a hard translucent mineral, often marbled with white,
blue, or brown veins.

270 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

nuggets found among the grave goods of the dolmens, 1 and in
some of the caverns in the west and centre of France, as also in
Portugal. These minerals are not found in Central Europe
nor in the pile-dwellings ; but they certainly came from beds
in our own part of the world whose location is no longer
known to us, and they were the object of a limited trade in
Western Europe.

Certain archaeologists 2 consider that callais was brought

FIG. 185. Map of the trade routes of the Ancient World.
The heavy dotted lines indicate the natural obstacles such as mountains :

the lighter dotted lines the principal land and water-ways.
(Au=*gold; cu*=copper; $b=*lead; ar=*si?v*r / $t=*tin ; fe

from the Orient, but this cannot be the case, because, if it had
really been transported from distant lands, it would have
been met with on the route of the caravans which it is not*
The same holds good for turquoise. Native gold, however,
exists in quite a number of the rivers of France, Spain,
Austria, Hungary and other countries, more especially, as
regards France, in the basin of the Rhdne. It is not
surprising, therefore, to find it along with callais in the

* Cf. DSchelette, Manuel, I, 621.
2 Cazalis de Foudoucc among others.

INTER-RELATIONS 271

dolmens of the south of France nor as far as Brittany, 1 and
Portugal 2 .

Amber was far more commercially important than the
materials just mentioned. It does exist in France, and is
collected on certain low hills in the Seine-Infrieure where it
is associated with the diluvium pebbles, but the beds where
it was found in abundance were on the Scandinavian and
German coasts of the Baltic and North Sea. These were
the deposits mentioned by classical writers, and the source
alluded to by Herodotus, who, while he admits ignorance of
Northern European geography, assures us that he has heard
it said that amber came into Greece by way of the river
Eridan (the Elbe, or the Vistula).

The earliest example of the use of amber in Western
Europe is found in the cave of Auresan (Hautes-Pyr6nees),
contemporaneous with the Reindeer, but the amber of that
period must have come from France itself.

During neolithic times amber was still rare in Gaul, but
it was common in North Germany, Sweden, and Denmark,
the countries of its production. This was because a market
had not yet been established. With the appearance of
bronze, it soon became the object of a considerable commerce,
and was distributed throughout Europe and the Mediterranean
countries. This traffic reached its culminating point in the
iron age, and amber continued to be used long after the
Roman occupation of Gaul, because there is not a Prankish
necklet but has its yellow amber beads.

Amber seems to have been unknown in the southern parts
of "Western Asia, though it was used in Egypt from the twelfth
dynasty. It should be noted, however, that the amber of
the Egyptian tombs is more reddish in colour than Baltic
amber, and did not therefore come from the Northern countries,
but from some other undetermined source. Furthermore,
during the times of the Amenemhats and the Usertesens,
Europe was still sunk in barbarism. A certain number of
peoples were just entering on the metal industry phase, and
the Egyptians, who were very powerful in Africa, were

1 Cf. Pitre de Lisle, "Notice sur les fouilles du tumulus de la Motte Sainte-
Marie (Loirc-Infcrieure) " in the Bull, arcMol. 1891, 38.

* Cf. E. Cartailhac, Les Grottos artificielles styulcrales du Portugal, V (1885),
1 6.

272 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

pushing- their expeditions far towards the South. It was from
the Sudan, also, that they probably brought the amethyst
beads of the necklaces of the twelfth dynasty princesses,
stones of a deep wine-coloured violet, whose provenance is
unknown and which are not met with in modern commerce.
I have never found the slightest trace of a trade in amber in
my excavations in Western Asia, either in the dolmens of
the copper and bronze phases, the graves of the iron industry,
or in the ruins of the city of Susa. Therefore, no relations
existed between the Baltic countries and Western Asia. Nor
is amber found in ancient times in Siberia or India. Thus is
brought to nought not only those hypotheses attributing- a
European origin to peoples of Aryan speech, but any hypo-
thesis postulating- an eastward migration for western peoples.
At least this holds gx>od from the times when neolithic and
eneolithic industry had become established in Western
Europe. It also rules out Europe altogether as a birthplace
of metallurgy. Further, what holds good for Baltic amber
does so equally for callais.

There are still other materials whose presence in Western
Europe has long- been attributed to commerce. From the
period of the Breton dolmens and the Swiss lake dwelling's,
precious materials appear in the form of axe-heads that are
unknown for earlier prehistoric implements, such as nephrite,
jadeite, chloromelanite, and saussurite. 1 The source of
these minerals is not easily explained, and their origin
has been the subject of much debate. For a long time
opinion was at one that these precious rocks had been
brought from the East from Siberia and China. However,
certain discoveries in Switzerland of strata bearing these
minerals proves that they exist in Europe, and that it is
therefore profitless to seek their provenance so far from home.
It should be noted, moreover, that jade is not found in
prehistoric times in any part of Western Asia, nor in the
valley of the Nile, and that if this stone had come into
Europe from the Orient it would have penetrated also into
lands more advanced than ours where rare stones were
greatly esteemed. Even in the flowering time of the historic

1 Cf. A. Damour, XIV, LXI (1865). Meetings of the zxst and a8th of Aogost

INTER-RELATIONS 273

period, when pharaonic lapidaries diligently sought for rare
material, jade is never seen in their jewelry. Nor did the
Persians make use of it.

Still another material played a great part in the polished
stone civilizations and in the early days of metal : this
was obsidian, or volcanic glass. It is met with in volcanic
ranges as a molten substance in beds of pumiceous tufa.
It may be dark green (Mexico, Columbia), blackish and
almost opaque (Greek Archipelago), almost colourless, or
simply smoked, and it is sometimes veined with opaque
red streaks (Alaghiz, Russian Armenia). It is almost
always translucent, and sometimes as transparent as window-
glass.

The natural beds of Auvergne, Bohemia, Hungary, the
JEolian Isles, and the neighbourhood of Naples appear to
have been but little exploited, and used only for local needs ;
but the obsidian from the Isle of Melos, in the form of
knife-blades, not unlike the flint knives of Grand Pressigny,
but much smaller in size (the obsidian cores from Melos
rarely reaching ten centimetres in length) formed the base
of an important trade.

Thanks to the red veins so often present in the Alaghiz
obsidian, we can follow its commercial exploitation right
into Susiana. In fact, fragments and flakes of this rock are
common in the oldest deposits of the tells of Elam, Pusht-i-
Kuh, Luristan, the Bactrian province and all the western
part of the Persian plateau. Even in the relatively recent
period of iron weapons, very fine arrow-heads were made of
it in the Little Caucasus and the Talish.

In the New World obsidian was made into beautiful
implements not only in Mexico and Columbia, but also for
export, and there does not exist an Indian encampment in
the southern territories of the United States that does not
contain arrow and lance heads in obsidian.

A large number of the Japanese neolithic implements are
of obsidian, and there its use persisted long after the intro-
duction of bronze. It should be noted that both in Europe
and the Eastern Mediterranean, obsidian has apparently
been in use only from the time of the eneolithic industries,
when it is found with metal ; at the foot of Alaghiz in the

Mount Ararat massif, however, it was apparently employed

ft

274 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

for chipping archseolithic implements, because no flint existed
in those parts. 1

In Egypt obsidian was imported either from the Islands
or from Arabia, for there were no volcanic hills nearer the
valley of the Nile, and we find it in the form of small vases
in the Nakadah tomb. It was never used like flint in Egypt,
for it was not employed for the fabrication of weapons and
implements.

Thus we see that the instinct for barter was strongly
developed in all lands from the times of neolithic industry,
though at first the materials of exchange were few and means
of communication absent. Travelling was either overland or
by river in pirogues, and, whatever may be the opinion of
many archaeologists, the people of those times ventured little
on the high seas, except for fishing. Their vessels were
far too unstable to warrant the risk of long voyages along
coasts that were often very inhospitable. The Mediterranean
was much more inviting to navigators than the wide ocean.
Thus it should not surprise us to see the first steps in
navigation made on this inland sea long before the great
expanse of the pathless ocean was ventured on.

With the appearance of the metals, however, the con-
ditions of travel were swiftly modified. Sanchoniathon tells
us that the first navigators of Tyre, 2 having cut down a great
tree and stripped it -of its branches, rolled it into the sea,
and, mounting astride this hobby-horse, set forth to discover
the unknown. The men of the polished stone phase were
at all events less primitive than these legendary Phoenicians,
for they hollowed out pirogues, occasionally of great size,
but implements of metal permitted of more rapid and accu-
rate work, and the building of real ships was then under-
taken, whereupon a coasting trade developed all along the
sea-shore. A considerable extension of trade relations re-
sulted, whilst negotiable articles of merchandise became
more numerous from day to day. In this overland and sea-
borne trade metals occupied the premier place, then came
rock salt, for which, as for salted provisions, there was a
great demand on the Continent.

1 J. de Morgan, " Les Stations Pr6historiqnes de I'Alagheuz (Armnie Russe).**
Rev. de I'Ecole d'Anthrop., I9thyea.xv Vol. VI, 1909, pp, 189*203.

2 According to Eusebius, JPra*p. evang., I, X, 10.

INTER-RELATIONS 275

If we mark on the map those districts where bronze
ingots have been met with most often, it will be seen that
in France they lie on the Ocean and Channel coasts, in
the vicinity of copper mines and natural deposits of salt, or
near the passes leading from Gaul into Italy. The explana-
tion is that the transport of metals, which were brought from
Cornwall, was by sea, and thus the salt was paid for in
metal ; further, that the pre-Gauls supplied the North of
Italy, crpssing over the Alps.

Scandinavia, though rich in copper, had no tin, and we
are of opinion that tin was imported exclusively from the
British Isles in the form of bronze ingots, for it was bronze
itself that formed an article of commerce, not the separate
metals of which it was the alloy.

What did Gaul receive in exchange for its products, and
what did it give to the overseas metallurgists in payment for
their metals? Cloth, certainly ; for all primitive peoples
rate it highly : and those manufactured articles that we find
both in the lake dwellings and in sepultures, such as gold
ornaments, daggers and helmets from Italy, quantities of
weapons from the Iberian Peninsula and Scandinavia, 1
implements and ornaments of every kind, glass beads
undoubtedly of Mediterranean origin, and weapons of
Hungarian pattern. Since we find this diverse merchandise
on the Continent, we may reasonably suppose that it also
went across the Channel and so reached the mining districts. 2

The Gaulish trade in metals was not exclusively with the
Western peoples. The Greek world also brought its quota
by ever-nearing stages. We have proof of this in the weight
of certain pigs of metal found both in France and the north of
Italy. These ingots present, as a rule, the form of a two-
edged axe, and their weight, which is practically constant, is
that which was customary in the Hellenic Mediterranean.

These general considerations have regard only to the
Western portions of Europe, and to comparatively late
periods, since relations between Gaul or England and the
Hellenic world can scarcely go further back than the second
millennium before our era. They have no bearing on the

1 Cf. O. Montelius, V (1880), 86. , , v , ,

* Cf. E. Chanel, "Note sur une pe en bronze trouve"e 4 Beynort (Am), Bull.
arch. (1908), 309 ; L&YJUU, 237-

276 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

commerce of Western Asia or Egypt in pre-dynastic times,
at a period when the Greek world had not yet emerged into
the light, and the Semites of the Phoenician coast were far
from dreaming of a passage through the Pillars of Hercules.

A people who had come down from the mountains had
then recently occupied Chaldea, a land newly risen above
the waters, and they brought with them copper, the know-
ledge of which they passed on to Egypt. But whence came
these men ? It was not from the Iranian plateau, uninhabited
in Quaternary times, nor from Transcaucasia. Probably
they came from the mountains of Armenia and Upper Assyria*
Be that as it may, they knew how to make bronze with
tin a few hundred years after they had established themselves
in Elam and Mesopotamia. Egypt and Syria were with
them in this new way of metallurgy. "We have seen above
that, according to indications, we have not yet been able to
verify, there did exist in these districts natural deposits of
tin, and that these mines have been abandoned for centuries.
It would seem to be likely that the earliest bronze used in
Chaldea and in Egypt came from these mountains, for it is
impossible to believe that at this remote epoch the Orientals
could have obtained this metal either from Portugal or from
islands in mid-ocean. It would have been equally impossible
for them to have got it from Central or Southern Asia.

Though we may claim a number of discoveries for Europe
and in many cases should be justified in rejecting explanations
involving Central Asiatic influence, in regard to Chaldea
and Egypt we are obliged to seek in Western Asia itself an
explanation of the presence of tin in the early days of the
bronze industry.

Probably this traffic was not effected by caravans travelling
directly from the mines to Susa and the old cities of the
Tigris and the Euphrates. The precious metal was pro-
bably passed on from hand to hand, for direct barter would
have involved the introduction of Chaldean influence into
the mountainous regions of the North, and we have found
only fugitive traces of such influence in the iron industry
period, even when the metallurgists of Transcaucasia had
adopted the Assyrian weights for the metal they exported.

The traffic was very active at an early period between
Chaldea and the Phoenician coasts. The main route

INTER-RELATIONS 277

followed the Euphrates as far up as Antioch, turning then
towards the South. Another natural route along- the valley
of the Tigris brought the lower plain into communication
with the Ararat district, which, as we have seen, was rich in
obsidian. Here, extensive copper deposits were worked,
where the ore outcropped, and exploited for export, since, in
the Armenian iron age, ingots in the shape of rings a form
of currency of standard weight were made on the pattern
of the Assyrian mina and its subdivisions. 1

E S7P t traded chiefly with the Asiatics of Phoenicia and
Chaldea andwith the Libyans. Her ships visited all the islands
of the Eastern Mediterranean ; but apparently she did not
penetrate further into West Africa than the oasis of Ammon*
Her trade in barter was more particularly directly towards
Central Africa, whence she received gold, ivory, and also,
probably, those fine minerals which she knew so well how
to fashion into vases, amulets, and jewels. The Nile was her
natural highway a divinity to her merchants no less than to
her priests. But, so far as we know, the Nile did not bring her
the tin she needed for her hjponze metallurgy, nor did Egypt,
any more than Chaldea, go to seek it beyond the Ocean mists.
The Sinai peninsula, rich in turquoises but poor in
copper, furnished Egypt only with a very modest pro-
portion of metal, in spite of the many fables reported on this
subject. That is why the men of the Nile later went to
Cyprus for their supplies. The Sinai peninsula, none the
less, was the main bulwark of Egypt, and protected Pelusium
against an enemy coming out of Asia. Its reputation came
thence, and not from its copper deposits, which, as we have
seen, were of little or no importance in relation to the needs
of the Empire of the Pharaohs.

It would not seem that Egypt was ever in direct com-
munication with western Mediterranean lands. It was
through the Cretans, Phoenicians, and Hellenes that its
influence, and occasionally its products as well, gained access
to Italy, Southern Gaul, and Spain.

The ^Egean world lived on the water, and its trade routes
were those of its ships. In the north, as we have seen, the
continental Greeks had indirect relations with the northern

1 Cfc J. de Morgan, Mission scientifique au Caucase (1889), I,

278 INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

countries and Western Europe, but the islanders were limited
as regards their trade to the Phoenician coast and Egypt.
Hence they sought to traffic with new countries, and em-
barked on the quest of the Golden Fleece along the shores
of the Euxine, the coasts of Italy, Gaul and Spain, and in
the greater isles.

Undoubtedly certain Central Asian elements entered into
this commercial traffic. In any case -Egean trade is of much
more recent origin than that of the pre-dynastic Egyptians
and the proto-Chaldeans. The foregoing considerations are
singularly strengthened by the fact that, from the earliest
times of which history or tradition tell us anything, -we hear
of a regular flood of barbarian peoples who, coming out of
Central Asia invaded not only Europe but South-western
Asia itself. They all followed the same direction the course
of the sun. Why should we suppose that this great stream
only began to flow at the moment when history begins?
Why not admit that these peoples maintained some con-
nection with their land of origin and continued to trade with
it, importing from the Siberian plains, or possibly from even
more distant regions, such articles of merchandise as they
lacked in their new home, and that they distributed these
articles in Europe as well as in Western Asia and Egypt?
Not so long ago every invention and all commercial relations
were attributed to these foreigners. To-day we deny them
everything and even seek their cradle in one of our western
lands, though the concatenation of fact shows that they
came out of the very distant East, by successive waves, and
that even to-day many of these hordes are ready to recom-
mence this migration towards the setting sun.

It is necessary to consider these far-eastern influences
very carefully ; it is true that we cannot yet appreciate them
at their full value because the study of Central Asia has yet
to be undertaken. But let us not seek to attribute every-
thing to our own land just because documentation is wanting
for other regions. By doing so we lay ourselves open to
serious error. Is it not better to confess that sufficient
evidence is not yet at our disposal to warrant us in attacking
these problems, and that we are as yet unable to do more
than put forward certain hypotheses ?

SOME INFERENTIAL CONCLUSIONS.

IF we indicate on a map the data supplied by prehistoric
archaeology relative to glacial times, and if we fill in this
outline with the information furnished by geology as to the
extent of the Quaternary ice, we find ourselves face to face
with the most unexpected revelations. Unfortunately the
disclosures made by the study of such ground as. is now
accessible are incomplete, for we know nothing of the lost
continents, and only very little about the modifications
undergone by the coastlines of the land we now inhabit.
Be that as it may, such information as we have about those
portions of the earth's crust which are emergent to-day is
sure. And even if considerable uncertainty still reigns in
regard to the migrations of the earliest human colonies and
the influence exercised by one primitive tribe on another, we
yet have sufficient data at our disposal to outline the first
steps in human progress. I must observe, to begin with,
that, in all their works, prehistorians take as types of the
various industries the forms found in "Western Europe, and
that for the most part they make Western Europe the centre
of diffusion. This entirely unscientific procedure is due to
the fact that Western Europe is more fully explored than the
other parts of the world. We are still obliged to give to
Europe an importance disproportionate to the part it has
played ; but the day will come when it will be assigned its
exact provincial value, and the terms and nomenclature
employed to-day will then lose the illusory importance with
which we now credit them.

We have seen that palaeolithic industries the earliest
of which we have certain knowledge may be divided into
three sub-industries ; Chellean, Acheulean, and Moustierian ;
that apparently these three forms of stone- working are con-
temporaneous and dictated to Man by local needs. Chellean
and Acheulean implements, moreover, are found in many
parts of the world far removed one from another, and cer-
tain of these districts apparently had no contact with other
districts of the same industry (Fig. 186). We are led to

279

280 INFERENTIAL CONCLUSIONS

conclude, therefore, from the wide geographical distribution
of these types, that the same causes have produced the same
effects at various times in different regions, and that palaeo-
lithic industry originated not only in North America but in
India, in Australia where it is still extant in southern
Africa, Western Europe, and perhaps in many other places
beside.s. We note on the other hand that the "coup de
poing" is absent in a great many regions such as Siberia,
Eastern and Central Asia, Greece and its islands, Asia

FIG. 186. Glaciation, and the distribution of palaeolithic industry
(Chellean and Acheulean types).

Minor, South America, Mexico, certain parts of Central
Africa, North Africa, and in the Iranian and Armenian
plateaux districts that were covered with ice during the
greater part of the Quaternary period and were consequently
uninhabitable.

Western Europe was then separated from the Eastern
world by a veritable natural obstacle. In Russia the polar
glaciers descended as far south as the Ural, and the area
separating them from the I rano -Caucasian glaciers was
occupied by the Aralo-Caspian Lake whose waters covered
the Turkomans of our era, and of which the Caspian and
tl*e Se^ of Aral are but the l^st traces and the deepest

INFERENTIAL CONCLUSIONS 281

depressions. But if communication was cut off between
Central Asia and Europe, it was otherwise in regard to
the Mediterranean. There the way was open, easier to
follow even than it is to-day, for there were certainly land
bridges connecting our continent with the African coast at
that time. The Balearic Isles, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily,
and Malta are nothing but the remnants of those great *
causeways by which the animals of the north retreated before
the constantly increasing rigours of the European climate,
and which, perhaps, permitted Man to spread abroad his
first industrial discoveries. In those days it would have
been possible to pass from the valley of the Rhone to Africa
in a few short weeks, either via Italy, or through Spain as the
Germanic invaders did later, or by crossing over land that
has to-day disappeared.

The diffusion of palaeolithic industries throughout the
Mediterranean basin is thus readily explained by the
facilities for communication. Moreover, the diffusion of
Moustierian forms of implements, which were peculiar to
the Old "World, supports this hypothesis (map, Fig. 187),
for the habitat of those forms apparently centred around the
Mediterranean Sea. Nevertheless, the deduction we have
just drawn does not permit us to form any opinion regarding
those more distant regions where palaeolithic instruments are
found. Was there still, at that epoch, ^ continent joining
Somaliland to the Indian peninsula ? It is possible ; but
on the other hand, the Somalis were separated from the
pre-Egyptians by great spaces and high mountains which
were unfavourable to intercommunication between peoples.
And perhaps North America was linked to Europe by an
" Atlantis," a continent of which Terra Nova and Iceland
would be to-day but the highest points remaining above
water, and then covered with ice. This assumption of
communication via an " Atlantis " would seem to have very
little foundation, although it is based on the geographical
distribution of the seas in late Tertiary times.

However that may be, if a single centre of palaeolithic
culture ever existed perhaps in a land which has to-day
disappeared the propagation of these industries was not the
matter of a day, hence synchronism for the same industry in

regions cannot in any case be admitted*

282

INFERENTIAL CONCLUSIONS

What then are we to think about those lands in which
palaeolithic implements are not found, though these lands had
emerged from the water and were not covered with ice?
Were they uninhabited, or were the men who dwelt in them
still at the stage of homo stupidus? Greece, Macedonia, and
Asia Minor, to speak only of countries of the Old World,

FIG. 187. Distribution of Moustierian type.

had no knowledge of the " coup de poing." And yet these

countries are not far removed from Syria, Egypt, or the

Italian peninsula, where we have discovered some traces of

palaeolithic industry. In these regions, as in the islands

of Cyprus, Crete, and the Archipelago, the first colonists

were Neolithics, and often even Eneolithics. They polished

stone and made use of copper; they must, therefore, have

been foreigners, who had necessarily advanced to this degree

of culture in other lands.

INFERENTIAL CONCLUSIONS 288

Whether this great first industrial expansion had its origin
in distribution from one main centre or from many, it came to an
end, none the less, with the palaeolithic phase. Regionalism
became established after the post-Moustierian depopulation,
and we should seek in vain and, moreover, we have sought
in vain, for a generalization of archaeolithic types. From
that time forth each region had its own habits and customs

FIG. 1 88. Distribution of the Aurignacian industry.

adapted to its needs and local resources. The Aurignacian
(map, Fig. 188) is scarcely seen outside France ; the Solutrean
(map, Fig. 189) extends a little into the north-west of Spain
and Switzerland, and certain analogies have led us to believe
that it extended as far as Moravia and Russian Poland, but
this is still very doubtful. Magdalenian industry was of
greater extent (map, Fig. 190); it covered the north-west
of Spain, the south of England, all Gaul, and a part of
Central Europe, extending as far as the Ukraine. It is
permissible, nevertheless, to be sceptical in regard to the
homogeneity of the industries thus grouped, for similarities
in a few flint implements do not, of necessity, imply an
Identity of culture. The polished axe, the single or double
scraper, the awl, and the trimmed blades of the Egyptian

284

INFERENTIAL CONCLUSIONS

Neolithic recur in Spain, France, Algeria and many other
countries, but we cannot attribute an identical origin to
the men responsible for the civilization of these different
countries. A complete set of facts bearing- on all their
manifold applications would be necessary before we should
be justified in identifying two cultures.

The close of the Quaternary period saw the breaking

FIG, 189. Distribution of Solutrean Industry

down of the barriers that had hitherto shut off different
portions of the Old World. The glaciers gradually re-
treated to become limited to Polar regions and the summits
of high mountains. Lakes fed by the snows dried up, and
the gates of Northern Asia were thrown wide open. It
was a great reservoir of men which was to empty itself, if
we may judge by post-Quaternary events, in successive floods
throughout thousands of years into our part of the world,
where the appearance of mesolithic industry would seem to
have been its earliest consequence*

With the arrival of these new-comers we see cattle-
raising and agriculture appear, and cereals are henceforth
cultivated, but it is impossible to say whether these ad-
vances in culture were achieved by an autochthonous

INFERENTIAL CONCLUSIONS 285

race, or were brought in from distant lands by invaders.
Very little later, stone was polished in Gaul, in Central
Europe, and in Scandinavia, and the potter's art developed.
But the newly-arrived peoples, though they were probably
more highly developed industrially than the aborigines, were
but barbarians in matters of art and taste. The eclipse of
the fine Magdalenian school of sculpture and drawing

FIG. 190. Distribution of Magdalenian industry.

coincides with their arrival. The cavern representations
are generally considered to have had a mystical significance

a totemic value and therein probably lies both the reason

for their abandonment and the appearance of new conceptions
supplanting the old beliefs.

This epoch, which supplies the basis for our first sub-
stantial ideas in regard to the migrations of peoples, also
raises a problem of the highest importance. We have seen
that wide spaces on the map were left empty by palaeolithic
industry, and we know that European archaeolithic types of
implements occupied but a small portion of the ancient
continent. What happened in those blank areas? Certain
countries such as Greece, Asia Minor and the Islands were
settled by colonists, and their earliest industries were those

286 INFERENTIAL CONCLUSIONS

of polished stone often accompanied by metal as was the
case in Chaldea and Elam.

In other areas, such as Tunis and Algeria, a very few
highly specialized and differentiated flaked stone industries
followed the palaeolithic phase, thus corresponding to the
Aurignacian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian in our part of the
world* Thus the Capsian, particularly characteristic at El
Mekta (Tunis), was the transitional stage between the
Acheuleo - Moustierian and the neolithic types, and was
possibly accompanied by metal.

The transition is even more abrupt in the valley of
the Nile. Acheuleo - Moustierian implements which are
numerous in the desert alluvium, but have never yet been
found in situ, are immediately followed, with no interven-
ing transition, by the most perfect examples of neolithic
type. It is always possible that examples of the inter-
mediate industry are yet to seek, but this is extremely
doubtful, for the zone still to be explored is limited, and no
trace of an archaeolithic phase has hitherto been discovered.
In the caverns of Syria remains have been found that at first
sight seem to belong to archaeolithic culture, but their age
and nature are still under discussion.

From these observations, bearing on a number of different
areas, it is seen that certain districts were still unoccupied
when the first post-Quaternary colonists arrived, that others
were still in the palaeolithic stage, and that in certain dis-
tricts archaeolithic forms were in use ; further, that the various
" ages " of Western Europe have merely a local value, whose
importance has been exaggerated by many archaeologists.
They have been led to assign to these industries a pre-
ponderant r61e simply because they themselves were absorbed
in daily study of them.

It must not be forgotten that in glacial times rnid-
European countries were exposed to a considerable lowering
of the temperature, whereas these climatic conditions were
not present in more southerly districts. The graffiti dis-
covered on the rocks of Upper Egypt show rude representa-
tions of the Giraffe and Elephant, and the painted funerary
vases depict herds of Gazelles and Antelopes, and troops of
Ostriches. In North Africa, which had not then dried up
to the present degree, there was a hot, damp climate, hence

INFERENTIAL CONCLUSIONS 287

the conditions of existence were very different from those
contemporaneous with them in our part of the world, and
these differences in the life of its inhabitants are reflected
in the weapons and utensils Man made to meet his needs.

So long- as the dam remained that in glacial times closed
the route from Central Asia to both Europe and the fertile
land of the Tigris and Euphrates, and so long as the Persian
plateau and the Caucasus were covered with snow, and the
Aralo-Caspian Lake extended to the very edge of the polar
glaciers, so long did civilization evolve independently in
each district, advancing slowly but without interruption.
It is probable that it was into this relatively homogeneous
environment that foreigners came, bringing with them new
knowledge, when the gates of Central Asia were opened.
Undoubtedly this barrier, corresponding with the maximum
extension of glacial invasion, may have been broken several
times during the course of the Pleistocene when the snows
retreated, and thus the Central Asian peoples may have
overflowed more than once into the Mediterranean West,
and into Central Europe. Possibly the primitive arts and
industries of Chaldea and Elam, whose origin is still un-
known, may be traced to such migrations. Perhaps they
came from the north of Western Asia, from the land of the
mountain goat and the sheep. It is at all events possible
that certain practices spread from the banks of the Tigris,
the Euphrates and the Kerkha to Syria, Palestine, the valley
of the Nile, and later, through the intermediation of the
islands, to the Mediterranean West. This first emigration
of Central Asiatics, or, at all events of their ideas, must
have been by far the earliest great human movement.
It would have found Man still using palaeolithic weapons
and implements in Chaldea and Egypt, and the Hellenic
peninsular and the islands devoid of inhabitants ; later on
it would have found on the coasts of Northern Africa an
indigenous population that had replaced the palaeolithic
industries by others, such as the Capsian, more suitable to
their needs.

These currents which flowed from Central Asia would
necessarily have been divided into two separate streams by
the obstacle presented by the Caspian and the Caucasus.
The northerly route, winding through marshes left by the

288 INFERENTIAL CONCLUSIONS

retreat of the glaciers, was longer and more difficult than
the southerly, and many centuries certainly went by ere
the migrants, or at any rate their culture, actually reached
our Western European area. For thousands of years the
East continued to pour forth these human waves in the
direction of Western Europe and Western Asia, each
creative or destructive wave invariably modifying the exist-
ing conditions.

These successive floods flowing slowly westwards each
brought with them different ideas. In the land of their
origin some populations would be more advanced than
others, though even these relatively advanced peoples may
actually have been backward. If we limit our consideration
to the human waves that came from the East in historic
times, we still realize their wide divergences in aptitude and
taste. It was not otherwise with the earlier invasions, as
the traces they have left us prove.

Such inferences, though justified in the light of present
knowledge, are merely hypothetical, and as such must not
be strained too greatly. To-morrow, maybe, they will
crumble to nothing in the presence of new discoveries*
However, we may take it as certain that the discovery of
metal was made neither in Chaldea nor in Elam, because
these countries were not inhabited prior to their occupation
by eneolithic colonists ; nor, for the same reason, in Egypt,
and because copper ores were there too scarce ; nor in the
Mediterranean Islands of the East* The discovery was made
in the northern mountains of Western Asia, as the finger
of tradition has pointed out to us.

In the last two thousand years before our era the com-
plication of prior influences was accentuated, for to the
direct and ever more nearly approaching influences from
Central Asia were added those of the civilizations of the
Eastern Mediterranean, and these cultures reacted on one
another and were linked together by a number of conceptions
common to them all, though they retained their individuality.
This influence on barbaric peoples, whose aptitudes were
extremely diverse, was still further complicated by the
influence such populations had upon each other. Relations
between different populations, which are most difficult to
reconstruct, usually developed from a gradual approach,

INFERENTIAL CONCLUSIONS 289

thus producing hybrid ideas which were sometimes very
far removed from the parent conception.

We are ignorant of the cause of these Siberian migrations.
Maybe we should attribute it to the increasing cold in that
country and Central Asia, but we are too ill documented
to say for certain, since Central Asia and Siberia are still
almost unexplored from the archaeological point of view.
The sole traces of Magdalenian industry in Western Asia,
excluding Syria, are those yielded by my investigations
of obsidian stations at Alaghiz (Transcaucasia). These,
however, are extremely doubtful. Perhaps the forests and
valleys of the Altai, almost uninhabited to-day, may hold
great surprises for us with regard to the variety of causes
which prompted the departure of the Siberian populations.
It is possible, indeed, that the enormous increase in the
Chinese population caused the westerly migration of the
last Mongolian and Turkish hordes.

Yet these peoples, come from afar, if they brought with
them new customs and valuable industries, nevertheless
failed to reap from their knowledge all the advantages
possible. For the most part, they remained barbarians in
the face of the great civilizations of Egypt and Chaldea,
They did not all lack aptitude and individual genius, how-
ever, for from their stock were to spring Hellenes and
Latins, whose ancestral ideas were complemented to such a
point by what they learned from Asiatic and African culture
that eventually they surpassed their teachers in every branch
of human knowledge.

Each people settled in Europe bore its share in general
progress, but not all were equally apt at learning, nor in
assimilating fruitfully higher ideas. Thus it was that Grseco-
Latin culture, which to-day dominates the world, was not
comprehended in every land, in the same degree, and that
even in this twentieth century, many peoples still retain the
barbarian instincts of their ancestors, although they may
appear to be of advanced culture.

The theoretical method which consists in creating a
" chronological period" for each new custom, and synchron-
izing the event in different countries, has for long been
highly prejudicial to prehistoric study, for to-day we have
proof that these customs arose at very different times in

290 INFERENTIAL CONCLUSIONS

different localities. Even as history does not beg-in at the
same period of time for all peoples, so we should delete from
the archaeological vocabulary the words age^ epoch and period.
We should recognize in the evolution of humanity a succes-
sion of local and individual advances and retreats, discoveries
and forgettings, making up a whole, the result of which,
though sometimes slow and sometimes rapid, is a steady ad-
vance by humanity towards an ideal. But we must study each
element of this advance by itself, while taking due account
of external influences, for it is often possible to get a chrono-
logical notion of the data under investigation by comparing
these with the culture of peoples who have already passed
into history. Among these influences there are some that
emanate from centres forgotten to-day. We little knew,
forty years ago, what an important part Crete had played in
Mediterranean culture I Can we be sure that no other
revelation of a forgotten civilization will arise to disturb our
hypotheses ?

Many a people who in their day played a great part dis-
appeared into oblivion as the result of some misfortune.
Urartu was a powerful kingdom that fought, often with
success, against the kings of Assur; it would be quite
unknown to us but for the inscriptions cut by its princes on
the rocks at Van. We scarcely remembered Elam, before
the labours of the Delegation in Persia. "We know nothing
of the powerful sovereigns who constructed the ruined cities
of Yucatan. From these few examples taken from history,
we can gain some Idea of the causes of uncertainty relating
to prehistoric facts, for prehistory is no less fertile in great
events than history events that are even further removed
from us than those of which the annals of history tell us, so
that we are frequently led by our ignorance to synchronize
facts that are analogous but nevertheless of very different
date and origin. We talk of the " epoch of the dolmens," as
though the dolmens had all been constructed at the same
epoch in all parts of the world. Let us be on our guard
against such generalizations and content ourselves with
studying in each district bounded by natural frontiers the
succession of manners and customs, industries and ideas
that took place before destiny brought its population within
the ken of history, and then if certain regions have to be

INFERENTIAL CONCLUSIONS 291

grouped together facts will compel such association as they
already have done for certain artistic groupings.

For thousands of years all peoples were without annals ;
then the dawn of history appeared with the discovery of
writing. Chaldea, Elam, and Egypt early realized this
vision, whilst many other peoples have left essays that
had no to-morrow. Then Crete, Phoenicia, Assyria, the
Hittites, Cyprus, and finally the Greeks and Latins appear
on the scene. The barbarian nations registered their high
deeds at a comparatively late date. The history of Gaul
begins only with Caesar in the first century before our era,
and Scandinavian history begins under the Carlovingians ;
the annals of the Slavonic peoples are less ancient still ; and
the uncivilized tribes of the New World, of Oceania, Central
Africa, Laos, and of the Malaysian Islands are without any
history at all. Each nation, each tribe even, provides the
prehistorian with a heavy task. Ethnography long pre-
cedes history, then comes into contact with it, to be
eventually but gradually merged in it.

We have shown, at the beginning of this volume, how
risky it is to launch into chronological estimates whether in
regard to the geological history of the earth or to the events
of human prehistory. Thanks to certain data that are less
inexact and to historical documents, we are enabled, however,
to outline a few dates relative to the latest periods of human
progress which belong rather to proto-history than to pre-
history. For events prior to these we can indicate their
succession only, as in geology.

In our part of the world the glacial period followed
the elevations of portions of the terrestrial crust that marked
the close of the Tertiary epoch, and led to the formation of
immense snow-fields. Those first traces of human intelli-
gence evidenced in palaeolithic industry appeared towards
the close of this geological phase* Then, as a result of
climatic change, cataclysms, and fresh needs, archseolithic
industry follows in its three successive forms : Aurigna-
cian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian. After the retreat of the
glaciers, new men, or at Jeast new ideas, penetrate into
our part of the world, and spread not only over the
districts inhabited at that time, but also over those regions
which had but recently been abandoned by the snows. It

292 INFERENTIAL CONCLUSIONS

was then that mesolithic industries appeared those of the
kitchen middens and Campigny and the knowledge of
pottery accompanies them. Then comes polished stone,
cattle-raising-, agriculture, and weaving" ; and, in the course
of neolithic industry, copper, the precursor of bronze, whose
coming is placed in the third millennium before our
era by those archaeologists most worthy of confidence. The
beginning of the first millennium before Christ must have
seen the use of iron distributed throughout our regions, and
the whole of Central Europe must have followed very nearly
the same phases of progress under other forms, and more
or less during the same period.

The northern countries Scandinavia and Finland
covered with ice during the entire Quaternary period, re-
mained uninhabitable, and the earliest traces of Man found
there belong to the phase of mesolithic industry. Then, as
in France, though much later, we discover polished stone,
copper, bronze, and finally iron.

In the Mediterranean in Crete and Cyprus the first
inhabitants were Eneolithic. They introduced the knowledge
of copper during the fourth millennium before our era ; then
bronze, a thousand years later, and finally iron, during the
same epoch as in the West, although certainly a few centuries
earlier. The same is true for continental Greece, Asia
Minor, and Thessaly. The dates generally proposed for the
Eastern Mediterranean region do not seem, however, to be
sufficiently remote, if we accept those which we have put
forward above in relation to the West ; for the Eastern
Mediterranean communities were in communication with the
oldest civilizations of the world, and consequently could not
have long remained ignorant of the processes in vogue In
Chaldea and Egypt.

It would appear that the Egyptian valley of the Nile, in
its upper part at least, was early occupied by African tribes
with crimped hair, and perhaps also by some Libyan groups,
who had come from the African shores of the Mediterranean*
These men succeeded, probably after a long interval, the
palaeolithic population. They were in the polished stone
stage when copper made its appearance among them, brought
in by straight-haired Asiatic peoples who probably already
occupied the river delta.

INFERENTIAL CONCLUSIONS 293

The phrase of eneolithic industry was of long duration
in Egypt. It included what the pharaonic people called
the period of the " servants of Horus," and the reign of the
first dynasty princes. It was only later, probably in the
course of the second dynasty, that bronze made with tin
appeared* We cannot be sure when iron was introduced,
as the scanty information we possess about it is not con-
clusive, though it would appear to have been known as
early as the Thinite times. Its current industrial use ap-
parently dates only from the end of the second millennium
before our era.

Thus even if we follow the Germans and bring forward
the entire Egyptian chronology by a thousand years, which
puts the era of King Menes at about 3300, the early days of
pre-pharaonic civilization must still be placed more than
6000 years before our time, and for Chaldea and Elam the
dates would be somewhat earlier still, since it was from Asia
that Egypt derived her progress.

We shall speak neither of India nor of China, whose
local legends exaggerate their antiquity at will. Their civi-
lizations are not so ancient as is generally supposed. That
of China dates from seven or eight centuries before our era,
but its prehistory is still absolutely unknown. It is re-
markable that up to date not a single Chellean implement
has been made known in the Far East.

In India the data furnished by archaeology remain vague.
The "coup de poing " is met with in the southern and
central parts of the peninsula, but a long hiatus then
follows. We see dolmens in the north, and polished stone
is in evidence in nearly every province ; but we do not know
whether metal accompanied it. At all events the copper
industry flourished in the peninsula during a long time.
Indian history begins very late, only, in fact, a few centuries
before our era, with the conclusion of the campaign of
Alexander the Great.

In the New World certain regions enjoyed prosperity.
In Mexico and Peru, among others, vases were turned,
metal engraved and cast, and the annals of various kingdoms
were inscribed on monuments and skins. Unfortunately,
however, the religious fanaticism of the Spanish monks
destroyed all those perishable documents that might have

294 INFERENTIAL CONCLUSIONS

informed us as regards the evolution of these peoples, and
perhaps have told us their history. Since every positive
chronological guide is lacking for these regions, we are
reduced to conjecture.

We have seen that nothing is known about the peopling
of the islands of the Mediterranean East before their
colonization by men in the eneolithic stage of industry.
The earliest archaeological evidence in our possession relating
to these colonists leads us to believe that they migrated from
continental Asia and not, as I myself thought, from Europe,
and also that this migration took place in the course
of the fourth millennium before our era. Then the
Pelasgians appeared on the scene, bringing with them
into this environment new conceptions foreign to Asia*
While they occupied the Hellenic peninsula in Europe
these tribes must also have advanced as far as the Asiatic
islands and mainland amongst other highly evolved popu-
lations, which in no case can be confounded with the
Pelasgic tribes. There was further the progressive invasion
by a new element known as the ^Egean. Two physical types
were in evidence from somewhere about the second mil-
lennium before our era : the one dolichocephalic the
earlier of the two which had already furnished the Minoan
civilization ; the other and more recent, brachy cephalic,
which must have been the author of Mycenaean culture,
and was related to the tribes that in those times inhabited
Thrace and the banks of the Danube. These colonists
were not, -properly speaking, Hellenes, but Thraco-Phry-
gians, closely related to the Greeks, From this stock came
the Armenians, who, after having crossed the Bosphorus,
probably proceeded from the west eastwards in a direction
contrary to that taken by all other invasions, and who,
towards the sixth century B.C., settled on the plateau of
Erzerum and in the Ararat district.

It was altogether otherwise in Central and Western
Europe. One of the human waves from Asia that flowed
across the Russian plains carried with it right up to the
shores of the Atlantic the use of polished stone and that of
copper and bronze. This particular wave is generally
identified with those Ligurian tribes, which, during many
centuries, peopled GauL Next came the Celts, with their

INFERENTIAL CONCLUSIONS 295

Hallstatt culture and iron industry people who left traces
of their passing in the valley of the Danube, in the Ukraine,
in the Central Caucasus (Ostethia), Transcaucasia, and in
those Persian districts of the West that lie near the Caspian
but the cradle of whose race, though still unknown, is
probably much farther towards the east.

Ligures and Celts brought with them not only specialized
industrial knowledge, new to the European West, but also
artistic tastes that differed greatly. The first limited their
artistic conceptions to geometrical decoration ; the second
introduced into their work representations of men and animals,
but shared the same methods of using the geometrical
designs as the Ligures, who had used them before the Celts
came. Neither of these two groups, though both had
skirted the great Asiatic Empires, would seem to have been
influenced by contact with their civilization. Their taste
remained highly individual right up to the time of their
establishment in Europe, and it was only after their arrival
that their art showed signs of having borrowed from Medi-
terranean civilization. In the industry that succeeded the
Hallstattian, known as the " La Tne,~" abundant traces of
Mycenaean, Greek, and Etruscan influences are visible. But
here we enter the historic period of the western districts of
Europe.

Such, in a few lines, was the successive order of the main
facts relating to human prehistory in the Old World. It
is simple in general outline, because the real advance was
derived from two great centres, the more recent of which
was situated in the north of Asia, and the more ancient in
the southern portion of Western Asia and in Egypt. This
outline, however, is extremely complicated in its details,
whether we envisage the numberless clans of primitive
humanity, or examine the diverse branches of advancement.
The double origin of our civilization is an established fact
indicated by tradition and confirmed by archaeological
discoveries. But the great problem remains of the discovery
of metal and of what happened in Central Asia before the
arrival in the European world of the Aryan-speaking peoples.
Diverse problems become ^confounded one with another, and
we shall only arrive at their solution when Siberia and
Central Asia, to-day uncivilized, are administered by peoples

296 INFERENTIAL CONCLUSIONS

interested in the sciences, and when, having been made to
yield up the secrets of their soil, these are studied with the
same method and perseverance as are our territories in
the-West.

Even then the prehistorian's task will be far from ac-
complished. For . though light is gradually dawning on
European and Mediterranean origins, four-fifths of those
continents whose populations individually have played a
more or less important part in the general concert of progress
remain to be studied. What we know to-day is very little
in comparison with what remains to be learned.

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I. PERIODICALS

(French)

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Bulletin de la SocietS d f Anikropologie de Bruxettes, Bruxelles, 1882. n

Bulletin de la Societe Linneenne du Nord de la France. TEL

Bulletin de la Societe pr&historique de France, Paris, 1904. IV

MaUriaux pour Vhistoire de rhomme, Paris, 1864-88. V

L'Anthropologie, Paris, 1890 (continuation of V). VI

Revue d'Anthropologie, Paris, 1872-89. VH

Revue de l'cole d'Anthropologie de Paris, Paris, 1891. VI"

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II : GSNBRAX, WORKS

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Les hommes fossiles, Paris 1921, XXHIbis

Cartailhac (E.) /: France prthistorique, d'apres les sepultures *

les monuments, Paris, 1889* , .

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Dechelette (T.) Manuel d' arch&ologie prthistorique celtigue et gatto- _,

romaine, 4 vols. Paris, A. Picard. 1908-14- J55S

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Hamy (E.) PrA5 de Paltontologie huma^ne t Paris, 1870.
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I^Lpparent (A. de) Trait* de Gtologie, 6th edn., Paris, 1906.
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298 BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Laxtet et Christy (O.) Reliquiae Aquitanic<&, 1864. I*
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INDEX

Abbeville, 36, 41

Abruzzi, 155

Abydos, 146, 158, 216, 242, 248, 263

Achaemenidse, 158, 256

Acheul (St), 40, 41

Acheulean (type), 30, 40, 279, 286

Acy (D'>, 37

Adalia, 250

Adimiyeh, 89, 109, 164, 265

.SSgean Islands (civilization), 91, 99,

115, 121, 122, 182, 218, 257, 272
Africa, 20, 25, 28, 45,60, 79, 110, 113, 115,

136, 271, 277, 280, 281, 286, 291
Agriculture, 160, 168
Aisne, 242
Akkadians, 248
Alaghiz, 273, 289
Alaska, 149
Alesia, 159

Alexander the Great, 293
Algeria, 45, 114, 142, 238, 283, 286
Alignments, 241
Alpine lakes, 156
Altai, 21, 114, 219, 224, 289
Altamira, 196, 198
Amazon, 7
Amber, 271-2
Amenemhat, 158, 271
America, 4, 24, 27, 29, 45, 55, 83, 99,

113, 115, 161, 190, 229, 231, 257,

266, 273, 280, 281, 291
Amethyst, 272
Amiens, 36, 40
Ammotragus tragelaphus, 168
Amulets, 177
Andrews (E. C.), 17
Animal (representations), 197 ff
Anklets, 179, 180
Antilles, 96
Antilope (saiga), 200
Arabia, 21, 252, 274
Aral (Sea), 280, 287
Ararat, 273, 277, 294
Araxes, 221
Arcelin, 59
Armenia, 47, 114, 132, 139, 178, 234,

273, 277
Arts, 185 ff.
Asia, 21, 101, 105, 114, 116, 118, 120,

122, 123, 158, 163, 169, 219, 221,

224, 238, 239, 243, 249, 267, 271,

276, 278, 280, 284, 287, 288, 289,

295

Assur, 21, 219, 290
Assyria, 122, 125, 211, 220, 266, 276
Astarte, 249
Athens/ 159
Atlantis, 20, 281

Aubin-en-Charolais (St), 149

Ault du Mesnil (d'), 24

Auresan (Grotte d'), 271

Aurignac (Aurignacian industry), 57-

59, 147, 191-195, 283, 286, 291
Aurochs, 68
Australia, 25, 64, 231
Austria, 67
Auvergne, 115, 273
Aveyron, 144
Axes (votive), 254, 272
Azilian (epoch), 75 ; (industry), 147
Aztecs, 167

Bactria, 210, 273

Balearic Islands, 281

Baltic, 83, 131

Basques, 21

Basque (language), 9

Bassempouy, 193, 195

Batons de commandement, 66

Bavaria, 132

Baye (J. de), 144

Bear (see Ursus), 181

Behring Sea, 26

Belgium, 45, 61, 67, 88, 131, 142, 155.

188

Beliefs (religious), 231 f
Belt, 181

Beuvray (Mont), 159
Bison prisons, 38, 58, 196, 198, 200
Bithin, 254

Black Sea, 130, 131 (see also Buxine)
Boar, 198, 200
Bohemia, 112, 155, 245 273
Bohusland, 258
Bolts, 190
Bosnia, 155
Bospriscus, 38
B. brachyceros, 168
B, primigenius, 59
B. urus> 163, 200
Boucher de Perthes, 3, 4
Boue, 23
Boule, Marcellm, 24, 36, 37, 71, 142,

153

Bourgeois (Abb6), 35
Bow, 161-2
Bracelets, 82, 179
Brangka, 112
Brass, 127
Brazil, 76
Brescia, 155

British Isles (see England)
Brittany. 19. 115, 236, 240
Breuil (Abbe), 24, 59, 75, 168, 195,

197
Brick, 158

2*9

300 INDEX

Broca, 13

Bronze, 111-126, 273, 275, 293

Brfcckner, 11

Bruniquel, 65

Brussels, 18

Bubalis buselaphus, 178

Callais, 180, 269

Calvados, 156

Camhodia, 95

Camp-Barbet, 154

Campignian industry, 55, 77-89, 188,

225

Campigny, 77, 79, 154, 291
Cannibalism, 245
Cap Breton Fossa, 14
Capitan (L.), 24, 37, 40, 44, 52
Cape of Good Hope, 45, 116
Cappadocia, 8, 10, 131, 211, 266
Copra ibex, 58
Cartailhac, 43, 144, 197, 271
Caspian, 122. 132, 221, 244, 280, 287,

295

Castor fiber, 38
Catenoy, 164

Cattle raising, 130, 162, 166
Caucasus, 21, 126, 132, 218, 220, 222,

242, 273, 287

Celle-sous-Moret (flora), 38
Celts, 21, 127, 129, 130, 131, 221, 294,

295

Central Massif, 61
Ceramics, 187-191, 208, 210-14, 224,

229

Cervus belgrandi, 38
C. canadensis, 59
C. capreolus, 38, 58
C. elaphus. 199, 200
C. evryceros, 38
C. megaceros, 48, 58
C. tarandvs, 59, 200
Csfisar, 68, 291

Chaldea, 6, 8, 13, 47, 72, 88, 91, 92, 96,
99, 102, 105, 114, 118, 122, 126,
126, 132, 134, 148, 161, 166, 169,
171, 172, 176, 179, 180, 182, 189,
190, 194, 195, 207, 213, 218, 220,
247-255, 256-7, 260-8, 276, 277,
278, 286-290, 291, 292!
Chamois, 200
Champagne, 155
Chanel, 275
Charentes, 43

Chariot, 128, 172-3, 251. 262
Chassey (Camp de), 154
Chellean (type), 30, 36-40. 279
CheUes, 37, 38
Chili, 76
China. 116, 166. 266, 260, 264, 266,

272, 293
Christol, 23
Christy, 24, 47
ChuhcM, 26, 49/64
Circumcision, 110
Cloth, 157

Clothing, 174

Coins, 136

Collars (metal), 180

Columbia, 273

Commerce, 267 fL

Comment, 41

Conventionalization, 202, 253

Copenhagen (Museum), 24

Copper, 99, 102, 105, 109, 110, 276,

292

Cornwall, 21, 275
Corsica, 281

Cottes (Caverne des), 59
" Coup de poing," 40
Cousade (Cavern), 75
Crannogs, 157
Credner, 12
Crete, 82, 123, 176, 211, 216, 256, 266,

267, 277, 290, 291
Croatia, 52
Croll, 12

Cromlechs, 240, 241
Crot-du-Charnier, 59
Cuneiform, 256, 257, 263, 264, 267
Cuvier, 23
Cydades, 218
Cylinders, 263-4

Daghestan, 132

Dahshur, 265

Damour (A.), 272

Danube. 88. 123, 130, 131, 22O, 221,

250, 294-6
Dariel, 221
DSchelette (J.). 11, 37. 45, 71, 73. 131,

148, 193-4, 244, 270
Delphi, 131

Denmark, 76, 92, 94, 226, 241, 271
Derbent, 221
Diadems, 179. 181
Diodozis Siculus, 1 10
Diorite, 94, 139
Dolmens, 235, 240, 272, 29O
Domestication (of animals), 166-8
Dordogne, 147
Dormans, 232
Drawing, 186
Dress, 174 ff.
Dupont (K.), 24, 50
Dwelling-place, 163 ff.

Ear-rings, 179, 180
Eburnean (industry), 68
Echnoz-la-Moline (Crotte d'), 60
Egypt, 6, 8, 13, 24, 29, 46, 47, 63, 66,
W, 72, 82, 88, 90, 92, 96, $8, 99.
107, 110, 114, 116, 124, 125. 120,
134, 146, 148, 158, 161, 162, 165,
167, 168, 169, 171, 172, 17^-182,
185-4, 189, 190, 192, 205, 207, 212,
214, 216, 220, 227, 229, 285, 240.
247, 248, 251, 255, 256, 259, 2dO,
263, 266,|276, 277, 282, 266, 288,
~2. 238,

INDEX

301

Elam, 6, 8, 10, 25, 82, 88, 96, 102, 114,
118, 119, 120, 122, 125, 126, 134,
158, 171, 179, 189, 190, 207, 209,
210, 211, 212, 218, 227, 247, 257,
260, 262, 263, 286-288, 293
Elaphian (industry), 71
Elaphotarandian (industry), 68
Elaphas antiquus, 38, 39
JE. meridioncuis, 38
E. primigenius, 38, 43, 58, 59
Elymais, 96
Emilia, 88

Eneolithic, 99.fi., 292
England (British Isles), 21, 45, 47, 61,
67, 88, 105, 114, 115 131, 144, 241,
242, 262, 275
Eoliths, 5, 35-6
Equidian (Industry), 68
Equus caballus, 38, 58, 59
JE. stenonis, 38
Eridan 271
Erlanic, 19
Erzerum, 294
Esquimaux, 7, 64
Etruria and Etruscans, 8, 10, 28. 134,

157, 182, 190, 242, 295
Etruscan (language), 8, 9, 266
Euphrates, 6, 276, 287
Euxine, 278 (see also Black Sea)
Eusebius, 274
Evans (Sir John), 24

Falconer, 24

Felis spel&a, 43, 58

Fibulae, 178-9

Figuration (of thought), 266

Filigree, 182, 190

Fimstere, 241

Finland, 83, 91, 94, 115, 136, 292

Fishes, 200

Fish-hooks, 165

Fishing, 160 ft.

Flint, 138, 143, 178, 269

Forbes (H. O.), 47

Fouju, 144

Fox, 48, 166, 200

Fraipont (J.), 66

France, 45, 62, 62, 67, 77, 88, 114, 131,
142, 144, 225, 232, 234, 236, 240,
242, 257, 269, 270, 271, 276, 277,
283, 285

Frazer, 232

Gafsa, 28, 30

Galatia, 131

Gard, 242

Garonne, 42

Garret (Station), 44

Garstang, 211

Gaudry (A.), 24

Gauls. 22, 59, 163, 246

Gaul, 91, 123, 126, 127, 131, 158, 218,

227, 233, 271, 275, 277, 278, 283,

286, 291, 294
Gautier (J. E.), 121

Gavr' Inis, 19

Gazella dorcas, G. Isabella, 167

Georgian (language), 9

Gergovia, 159

Germany, 45, 47, 67, 83, 94, 124, 136,

155, 228, 233, 242, 271
Germans, 22
Gillen, 232

Glacial Periods, 12, 70, 72, 74, 280, 284
Glaciers, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 53, 55, 284,

291

Glutton, 200 fto

Glyptic (period), 54, 193 (industry), 68
Goats, 38, 56, 200 ; (mountain ditto),

48, 200
Gold, 112, 128, 216, 252, 270

Goldschmidt, 12

Gourdanian (industry), 68

Grandlieu (Lake), 19

Graving, 186-7, 193

Greece, 45, 82, 127, 134, 136, 139, 147,
158, 169, 172, 182, 186, 190, 205,
207, 218, 252, 255, 258, 273, 275,
278, 280, 282, 285, 289, 291, 294, 295

Greenland, 14, 16, 17

Greenwell, 144

Grimaldi (Caves), 37, 47, 153, 231

Guerville, 36

Guiana, 7

Gulf Stream, 14

Habitation (see dwelling-place)
Hallstatt (culture), 127-8, 132, 134,

136, 172, 220, 221, 222
Hanxy, 54
Haeckel, 12
Harpoon, 64, 65, 165
Hassaya, 216
Helbig, 211
Helenendorf, 132, 227
Holland, 18
Hellenes, 294
Helwan, 163, 165
Herodotus, 245, 271
Herr (Dr), 179
Hesiod, 110
Hieroglyphics, 266, 257. 260, 263, 264,

266, 267, 268
Hildebrand (H.), 82
Hippician (industry), 68

Hippopotamus amphibius, 38 ;
major, 38

Hissarlik, 250, 254

Hittites, 8, 10, 256, 259, 264, 291

Hoernes, 131 t ^ ^

Homme Mort (Grotte de 1*), 234

Horse, 128, 201 (see also Equus)

Hircus thebaicus, 168

Houses (primitive), 154

Hungary; 45, 61, 67, 110, 111, 123,
155, 273, 275

Hordeum hexasticon, 169

Hottentots, 195 ,*,*

Human (representations), 193 197,
208

Huns, 22

802 INDEX

Hunting, 160 ft.

Huts, 164 tf .

Hy&na spel&a, 38, 58 J 69

lakobhavn Glacier, 18

Iberians, 8, 131

Iberian (language), 9

Iceland, 18, 281

Incheville, 164

India, 26, 46, 62, 94, 106, 136, 140, 253,

293

Indians (American), 66, 99, 149, 166
Indo-China, 96, 116, 160
Intercommunication, 269 ff.
Iran, 25, 47, 114, 120, 179
Iron, 127 ff., 220
Ireland, 47, 68, 157, 262
Irtish, 259
Islam, 246
Istria, 88

Italy, 45, 83, 88, 123, 127, 131, 147,
167, 169. 172, 208, 252, 265, 276,
277, 278

adeite, 96, 272

apan, 76, 99, 139, 207, 238-9, 273

6nyen, 28

oly, 23

ulian, 162

Jura, 61, 88, 128, 156
Jutland, 141, 252

Kab (El), 158

Kamchadales, 22, 26, 49, 174

Karnak, 14, 240

Kartvelian (language), 9, 10

Kerkha, 287

Kitchen middens, 55, 76, 154, 162,

165, 166, 168, 214, 265
Khorassan, 115
Klaatsch, 37
Kulpi, 96
Kurds, 21, J.73

Lake Villages, 83, 86, 156-7, 164;

(industry), 85, 176

Lane-Fox (A.) (Gen. PitlxRivers), 144
Laos, 291
Lapland, 68

Lartet (6d.), 17, 23, 24,f47
Larvae, 232
Latium, 157, 242
Laze, 9

Lelwar, 132, 134
Lepsius, 114
Lepus timidus, 59
Lesse, 66

Liakhov Islands, 62
Libyans, 101, 248, 277, 292
Ligures, 69, 128-9, 131, 294, 295
Ligurian (period), 130
Linum augusti folium, 175
Lithuania, 68

Locmariaquer, 236, 260, 261
Lortet, 26 *
Lortetian (industry), 68

Lorthet, 257
Luristan, 210, 273
Lubbock (Sir J.). 12, 169
Lyell, 12, 24

Macedonia, 131, 282

Madagascar, * 1 1 5

Madelaine (Grotte de la), 13, 62

Magdalenian, 29, 64, 62, 147, 187, 195,

205, 207, 231, 257, 283, 285, 286,

289, 291

Malaysia, 27, 112, 291
Malta, 45, 281

Mammoth, 48, 56, 62, 197, 202
Mantua, 155
Marseilles, 130
Martin (H.), 61

Mas d'Azil, 65, 75, 147, 199, 267
Maspero, 26, 100
Mazdaism, 246, 253
Media, 246, 252
Mediterranean, 102, 118, 119, 139, 143,

212, 235, 292

Megalithic (monuments), 240-41
Mekta (El), 28
Melts taxus, 59
Melos, 273
Men-er-Hroeck, 240
Menes. 25, 105, 293
Menhir, 24O
Mentone, 37, 51
Mesopotamia, 52, 72, 148
Metals, 111 flf.
Meuse, 66
Mexico, 7, 60, 64, 116, 139, 229, 256,

260, 264, 273, 280, 293
Meyer (Ed.), 100
Micoque (Caverne de la), 44, 47
Mills, 77, 169
Mina, 277
Mincopis, 205
Mingrelian (language), 9
Modelling, 190
Mongolia, 47, 219
Montelius <<X), 90, 159, 262, 276
Moravia, 61, 283
Morbihan (Gulf), 19 ; (dept.), 241, 260,

261

Morgan (Eugene de), 77
Morgan (Henri de), 216
Morgan (J, de), 26, 27, 30, 142. 178,

277

Moringen, 149
Morocco, 115
MortOlet (Adrien de). 12, 24, 85, 51,

76, 147, 238, 240
Mortillet (Gabriel de), 12, 24, 35, 40.

41, 78, 245

Moustierian, 29, 30, 47-56, 279, 286
Moustier (Grotte du), 13, 47, 50, 51, 52
Miiller (Sophus), 192
Mttnsingen, 268
Muqayyar (Ur), 106, 175, 179
Murcens, 159
Mnstolla pustorius, 59
Mycenae, 126, 159, 176, 181, SIS

INDEX

303

Nabonidus, 100

Nakadah, 25, 89, 105, 146, 158, 216,

242, 248, 263
Nana, 249, 250
Naram-Sin, 115., 118
Necklaces, 178
Negritos, 27
Neolithic, 77, 78, 80-98, 112, 139, 141,

144, 147, 148, 232 ff, 243, 269,

273, 286
Nephrite, 272
Nets, 157, 163, 164, 165
Neuweiler, 169
Nile, 6, 14, 25, 72, 88, 90, 92, 141, 142,

165, 182, 186, 190, 195, 212, 250,

264, 277, 286, 287
Nineveh, 21, 244
North Sea, 66
Normandy, 155
Norway, 14
New Zealand, 17

Obermaier (M.), 11, 42, 43, 52

Obsidian, 139, 143, 148, 273, 274

Oceania, 25, 45, 99, 136, 257, 291

Odenburg (Scarahantia), 173

Ojc6w, 61

Orchomenos, 155

Ornament, 174.

Ornamentation (geometric), 202

Ossetes, 10

Ossethia, 132, 219, 224, 295

Otta, 35

Ovis longipes, 168

Painting, 186 ; (Corporeal), 175-6

Palafittes, 159 (see also pile dwellings)

Palaeolithic (civilization), 45

Palestine, 45, 90, 211, 212, 287

Pallas, 26, 27, 49

Pamirs, 114

Patagonia, 7, 76

Patesis (King-Priests of Elam). 158, 210

Pelagians, 294

Pelusium, 277

Penck, 11

Pendants, 179

Peplos, 179

Perak, 112

P6rigord, 27, 232

Peru, 7, 29, 64, 167, 190, 229, 293

Perrier (E.), 13

Persia, 21, 120, 124, 126, 130, 158, 212,

218, 219, 221, 224, 230, 238, 239,

244, 246, 253, 273, 295
Persis, 235

Petermann (Mount), 16
Petrie (Flinders), 25, 100, 171
Peu-Richard, 164
Pfaffikon, 157

Pharaonic Culture, 100, 115, 165, 235
Phocaeans, 130
Phrygians, 8, 10, 131, 294
Picardy, 42, 79
Pi&trement, 168
Piette (E.), 24, 64, 75, 193, 242

Pile dwellings, 166-7, 169, 178, 272,

275

Pigorini, 155, 157
Pitt-Riv 2ers (see Lane-Fox)
Plough, 18, 172
Po, 88

Poland, 61, 67, 68, 283
Polynesia, 92, 136, 166
Porcelain, 189
Predmost, 61

Pressigny (Grand), 82, 142, 155. 273
Prestwich (Sir John), 24
Priapus, 251

Pusht-i-Kuh, 90, 108, 210, 273 .
Puydt (Marcel de), 155
Pyrenees, 61, 232

Qua, 101

Quartz, quartzite, 138, 147
Quatrefages (de), 24
Quibell (I. E.), 25

Reggio (province, ^Emilia), 155

Reinach (S.), 167, 231

Reindeer (Age), 54, 56, 59, 62, 63, 68,

73, 200, 271

Religious Beliefs, 231 ff.
Renan, 247
Rhine, 61, 131
Rhinoceros mercki, 38, 39, 153 ; J.

tichorimts, 43, 48, 58, 62, 196
Ribeiro (C.), 36
Rigollot, 24
Rings, 179, 180
Rivets, 190

Robenhausen, 149, 167, 159
Roches (Station), 58
Roe-deer, 109
Rollain, 164
Rome, 159, 216
Rosny (de), 258
Roumania, 155, 175

Russia, 16, 21, 24, 47, 67, ia6, 156. 242
Rutot (M.), 36, 88

Sahara, 88, 93

Sakais, 27

Sakk&rah, 161

Salmon (Ph.), 77

Sanchoniathon, 274

Sargon, 115

Sassanid, 189, 253, 255

Saussurite, 272

Saxony, 38

Scandinavia, 14-18, 47, 60, 82, 91, 92,

105, 114, 123, 136, 238, 252, 275,

285, 291, 292
Scania, 141
Schmerling, 23
Scotland, 47, 76, 167
Sculpture, 186, 187, 197, 202, 206
Seine, 77, 155
Seine-et-Marne, 38
Septier (M.), 58
Serabout-el-Khadin, 114
Serpentine, 139, 148

304

INDEX

Semangs, 27

IbSSft 21% 2 6?45, 49, 62 96 136,

219, 224, 260, 272, 280, 289, 295
Sicily, 45
Sickle, 171, 172
Silures, 22
Sinai, 114, 277
Singapore, 156
Solar cult, 252 ff .
Soldering, 182, 190
SolutrS (Solutrean industry), 59-62, 6d,

64, 66, 193, 197, 283, 286, 291
Spain, 45, 56, 61, 67, 84, 114, 115, 123,
P 131, 147, 168, 172, 251, 278, 281,

283
Stone industry (ornaments), 177 ;

(Vases), 147-9
Somaliland, 25, 47, 52, 281
Somme, 23, 77,
Soprony (see Odenburg)
Spencer, 232
Spiennes, 82, 144
Stennstrup, 12
Stolpe, 245
Stora Carlsd, 245
Stradonitz, 246
Sudan, 272
Sumerians, 248
Sur Baher,

Susa, 13, 60, 90, 99, 158, 159, 174, 179,
182, 190, 208, 210, 212, 224, 233,
260, 276, 277
Susian (language), 9
Sus antiquus, 38 ; S. scropha, 38
Swastika, 253

Sweden, 92, 142, 241, 260, 271
Switzerland, 47, 85, 88, 91, 149, 156

272, 283

Syria, 25, 28, 45, 52, 67, 79, 82, 119,
* 121, 172, 190, 211, 212, 276, 282,
286, 289

Talish, 25, 120, 131, 132, 219, 244-

246, 273

Tar an di an (industry), 68
Tattooing, 175-6
Taubach, 37, 51
Tayac, 44

Tene (La), 136, 221, 227, 295
Tepeh Aly Abad, 210
Tepeh Gulan, 108
Tessin, 88
Testut, 147
Thebes, 235
Thenay, 35
Thomsen (Chr.), 24
Thrace, 131, 294
Throwing-stick, 64, 65
Tibet, 48

Thinite Dynasty, 158, 292
Tigris. 6, 277, 287

Tin, 111 ff., 275 fl.

Tiryns, 159, 221

Torsukatak Glacier, 18

Toukh, 168

Tourasse, 76

Tournal, 24

Trajan's Column, 157

Transcaucasia, 2 , 96, 114, 120, 124,

130, 136, 139, 163, 181, 219, 220,

221, 264, 289, 295
Transylvania, 112, 155
Trepanning, 245
Triticum turgidum, 169
Trongotherium, 38
Trundholm, 252
Tunis, 28, 30, 45, 52, 6O, 69, 88, 142,

286

Turquoise, 180, 269, 277
Tursac, 62
Tyre, 274
Tyrol, 47

Ukraine, 220, 295

United States,

Upernivick Glacier, 18

Urartians, 8, 9, 119 ; Urartu, 290

Ur (see Muquyyar) ; Urartian (lan-

guage), 9
Ural, 219, 280

Ursus arctos, 38, 59 ; U.ferox. 48

U. sptl&us, 38, 58, 59, 198
Uruk, 159
Usertesen, 158, 271

Van, 290
Verneau, 153
Vezere, 24, 48
Vibraye (Marquis de), 24
Vienna, 43, 59
Villefranche, 44
Villemaure, 147
Vilteneuve (de), 153
Volgus, 26
Volga, 219

Wady Maghara, 1 4
Wales, 21
Warka, 105, 179
Weapons, 16O 8.
Wolf, 199
Worsae, 24
Wright, 267
Writing, 256 ff ,

Yokha, 171
Ys, 19
Yucatan, 290

Zaborowskx,
Zeughelis, 116
Zoroaster, 253
Zuyder Zee, 19
Zumhoien (K. P.)* 25