336 ETHNOLOGY. 



The stoue implements of Great Britain do not include any forms 

 which are analogous to our banuer-stoues. In Mr. Evans's work there is 

 nothing in any way similar to the specimens figured in this chapter, ex- 

 cepting, perhaps, an oval perforated hammer-head,* which, however, is 

 double the s^ze of the banner-stone, (figure 174,) which it resembles. 



Chapter XYIII. 



stone-age sculpture. 



Lubbock says : " The earliest traces of art yet discovered belong to 

 the Stone age — to a time so remote that the reindeer was abundant in 

 the south of France, and that probably, though on this point there is 

 some doubt, even the mammoth had not entirely disappeared. These 

 works of art are sometimes sculi)tures, if one may say so, and sometimes 

 elrawings or etchings made on bone or horn with the point of a flint."t 



We recalled this statement on finding our first specimen of New Jersey 

 Stone-age sculjiture, and could not but feel astonished to see so rude an 

 attempt at art, when the pijDes of the western mound-builders are so 

 elaborate in all their features. The date of the production of these " ani- 

 mal carvings " is as yesterday, compared with the sculptures and etch- 

 ings of the reindeer jjeople of Southern France, and yet they are even 

 ruder, and far ruder than the pipe-sculptures of the mound-building peo- 

 ple. From these facts we conclude that the Atlantic coast Indian was 

 inferior in art capabilities to the people of the western mounds, which 

 may or may not have antedated them in their occupancy of American 

 territory, and that, at one time, the aborigines of New Jersey were, in art 

 capabilities, scarcely as far advanced as the reindeer people of the south 

 of France-i 



Were we guided by the excellency of workmanship in our estimate 

 of the comparative antiquity of stone implements and art productions 

 of a Stone-age people, the rude profile carvings, of which but four ex- 

 amples have as yet occurred, would be far older than the mounds of the 

 Mississippi Valley, or the elaborately carved pipes they contain. As the 

 photographic portrait is a later achievement of the ingenuity of man 



" Auc. Stone Imp. of G. 13., j). 203, fig. 154. 

 ' t Lubbock. Grig, of Civil., Sd etl., p. 30. 



t ]i'orks of art of the cave-dwellers. — " With ' * evidences of easy 



liviug, it is uot surprising to find there was leisure for less necessary work, and that 

 spare time found occupation in works of jjleasure, as instanced in the sketches and 

 sculpture before alluded to. And it is curious to trace how they passed from the sim- 

 ple exercise of industry to ornament, and at last to something of art, for such may well 

 be termed the .sculptured poniard handle, representing the figure of a reindeer, and 

 which, while clever in its adaptation of the material to the purpose intended, preserves 

 at the same time all the characteristics of the animal." (Reli(|uice Aquitanic;e, p. 22.) 



The foregoing remarks are equally applicable to the early Indians of New Jersey in 

 matters of art and ornament. They too, notwithstanding frequent wars with neighbor- 

 ing tribes, appear to have found time to carve or, at least, shape slabs of compact stones 

 into good resemblances of those animals with which they were familiar. 



