PKEHIRTORIC ART. 357 



present geologic period, and that they came to an end before its 

 beginning. The most certain, and tliercfore the most satisfactory^, 

 division has been that of M. de Mortillet, named after the various 

 localities where the respective implements have been found in their 

 greatest purity. I give my preference to it, subject to tlie correction 

 incident to further discovery, if for no other reason, because it is more 

 convenient. The names given are for localities, and consequently are 

 ])nre]y arbitrary. They may not, perhaps, serve for general terms over 

 the world, but within their own locality they have a definite and certain 

 meaning; while to say the epoch of alluviiim, the epoch of caverns, the 

 epoch of the drift, or of the mammoth, bear, reindeer, etc., might have 

 an application in other countries which would deceive the reader. The 

 names Chelleen, Mousterien, etc., have no such application, and can not 

 be applied to other countries. They indicate and describe only one 

 kind of implement and one stage of culture, and, as definitions, they 

 are exact. If other countries have other things to be described, if 

 different epochs are found, then other names may have to be given; but 

 Avlieu we speak now of these epochs, the Chelleen, Mousterien, etc., and 

 the implements that belong to them, the speaker and hearer are on a 

 common ground, and both use the terms in the same sense. 



These epochs seem to have brought forth the earliest examples of 

 aesthetic art. The man of this time has passed for a savage, and he 

 doubtless was one. He had no tribal organizations, no sociology, no 

 belief in a future state, no religion; he did not bury his dead, he 

 erected no monuments, he built no houses; he was a hunter and fisher, 

 he had no local habitation, dwelt in no villages except such as could 

 be so called from a number of people living in a cavern for the purpose 

 of shelter. Yet he occupied, in the Solutreen epoch, the highest rank 

 as a flint chipper, and in the Madelainien epoch the highest place as an 

 engraver on bone and ivory. His materials were the bones, horns, 

 and tusks of the animals he killed. His tools or implements were 

 sharply worked points or gravers of flint. Most of the specimens of 

 art work are found in caves which had been his habitations. Xo one 

 has sufficient knowledge to justify tlie declaration that all specimens 

 of this art work belong to western Europe, but certain it is that most 

 of the known specimens have been from that country. They are found 

 chiefly in the caverns of central and southern France, and while about 

 400 specimens have been found and preserved, no one knows how 

 many have been missed or remain undiscovered. The specimens found 

 in caverns were originally thrown aside and lost in the debris, and have 

 been protected by stalagniitic or other i)rocesses of induration. In 

 making these excavations there is nothing to guide the searcher to the 

 places where these are likely to be found. He must depend on his 

 experience or good fortune. The specimens are usually enveloped in 

 blocks or slabs, wliich by infiltration and induration became hardened, 

 and must be (juarried almost like stone. In bringing these blocks or 



