PREHISTORIC ART. 



403 



EUROPEAN. 



Neolithic.— it has been coutemled tliat pottery was not employed in 

 western Europe during the Paleolithic period. The consensus of opin- 

 ion is in favor of the existence of pottery during this i)eriod in some 

 portions of Europe, while it did not exist in otiier portions. Some 

 of the caverns of Belgium, which have otherwise yielded no objects but 

 such as are identified with the Paleolithic period, still have yielded 

 fragments of pottery. Tiiere is in the museum at Brussels, Belgium,' a 

 vase almost entire, reconstructed from the fragments found in one of 

 these caves. But there is continually the question of intrusion and 

 subsequent occupation. It is the definite opinion of i\I. de Mortillet 

 that no evidence has been discovered of the use of pottery in France or 

 I-lngland during the Pale- 

 olithic period. During 

 the Neolithic period and 

 the Bronze age, pottery 

 abounded throughout 

 western Euroi)e, and it is 

 now found in quantities in 

 nearly all localities occu- 

 pied by prehistoric man 

 in these ages. 



There is considerable 

 variation between the pot- 

 teries of different local- 

 ities; difference in mate- 

 rial, some being coarser, 

 others finer, and in shape 

 or form, and in decoration. 



The northwest coast 

 of France, including the 

 ancient province of Brit- 

 tany, seems to have pro- 

 duced the finest pottery after that of Denmark; while that of the cen- 

 tral and southern i>arts of France and of England seems to have been 

 coarser and ruder. It is no purpose of this paper to describe the mak- 

 ing of pottery, but one may say that in all this prehistoric period the pot- 

 tery vases were made without the use of the wheel or /urnace. All evi- 

 dence points to the introduction of the latter into western Europe from 

 Greece through Etruria and Eome. It was not until the Roman con- 

 quest of Frarice and England that these countries were affected by the 

 knowledge of the wheel and furna(;e, and this can be carried a step 

 farther, for within the memory of living men this knowledge had not 

 been spread throughout the British islands. In northern Scotlanfl ajid 

 among the Orkneys and Hebrides islands the rude household pottery 



/' 



Fig. 148. 

 SCULPTURED HUMAN FOOTPRINTS IN SANDSTONE ROCK. 



Upper Missouri Kiver. 



Collei^ted by Captain Little, U. S. A. Cat. No. 7637, U.S.N. M. J natural ^*!^e. 



