342 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



«oine evidences of crude pottery, which was associated with Paleolithic 

 implements and the accompaning extinct animals. He says, how- 

 ever, that "many eminent archffiologists maintain that pottery was 

 -completely unknown in Paleolithic times, and they do not hesitate to 

 attribute to a later period any deposit in which it occurs. The pot- 

 tery of the Seris, as a low example, is very primitive and without orna- 

 mentation. Their ollas are delicately formed, but there is no painting 

 or design on them, save only a few upright marks which have no sig- 

 nitication. Small cups are also made and figurines, which are mere 

 •caricatures or obscene statuettes, with no artistic suggestions what- 

 ever. There is not the least artistic idea in their pottery, which is 

 curiously like the first crude pottery efforts of primitive man." 



Prof. W. H. Holmes suggests, in describing the pottery of the 

 Pueblos (Fourth Report of the Bureau of Ethnology), "that ceramic 

 forms are to a great extent derivative, and in nature are found many 

 ■of the originals, in both the vegetable and animal kingdoms. The 

 shells of the seashore were probably the first receptacles of food 

 «nd drink. In the mounds of the Mississippi valley are found pot- 

 tery forms reproducing many varieties of shells. The shell of the 

 turtle and horn of the buffalo were used as models. The gourd was 

 utilized at a very early date, and its forms, being very varied, have 

 •given rise to many primitive vessels, and perhaps also in wood- and 

 wickerwork. To the gourd can be traced the bowl, the oUa, the jar, 

 the vase, etc., as well as the handled cup or ladle. While the shape 

 of pottery is to an extent ornamental, pure ornament was an artistic 

 evolution. The ceramic art has exercised a powerful influence upon 

 existing culture, in the cultivation of taste for the beautiful, and its 

 study is therefore of the first importance in an artistic sense." In 

 the transmission of designs by inheritance from generation to genera- 

 tion, all the original forms of ornamentation undergo change. At 

 the end of a long period we find the styles of decoration so modified 

 as to be scarcely recognizable as the work of the same people. Yet 

 rapid changes would not occur in the uninterrupted couse of evolu- 

 tion, for there is wonderful stability about the arts, institutions and 

 beliefs of primitive races. In the early stages of art, the elements 

 used in embellishments are chiefly geometric. The elements or mo- 

 tives are limited in numbers, and are, in a measure, common to all 

 archaic art, such as dots, lines, curvilinear figures, etc.; while in a 

 higher stage we have checkers, zigzags, chevrons, meanders, the Greek 

 fret, scrolls, etc., in infinite variety. The next stage is marked by the 

 free introduction of ideographic elements of pictorial origin into dec- 

 oration, and are drawn from the mythology of the people. The next 

 and succeeding steps are the decorative and purely artistic, of heauty 



