AND THE REINDEER IX MIDDLE EURRPE 357 



conveyed in a few simple strokes. Tlie reindeer, horse, bison, steinboclv, ele- 

 phant, are not to be mistaken, and even the peculiar mode of movement of each 

 of these animals is rendered with great truth. In these cases a certain freciloni 

 of execution is often exhibited which could only have been acfpiired by much 

 practice. Now, it is precisely this freedom in the representation of motion which 

 has inspired many with doubt as regards the authenticity of these relics ; it indi- 

 cates, they argue, an advanced stage of art, long observation, and persevering 

 practice of the eye and hand, to render such representation possible, and if the 

 saints and madonnas of the first Christians are commonly stiff and clumsy, cer- 

 tainly the products of prehistoric art must be expected to betray this character. 

 Admitting these views to be somewhat plausible, we may yet venture to oppose 

 to them the fact that the earliest attempts of Greek sculi)ture are particularly 

 distinguished by the characteristic conception of motion ; that in the group of 

 the ^ginetes, for instance, the movements of the figures in battle are rendered 

 ■with great felicity, -while the expression of the faces is wholly slighted. It is 

 altogether the same in the present instance. The art of the reindeer period had 

 advanced so far as to be capable of manufacturing a stone dagger whose hilt 

 represents a reindeer in the act of springing ; the horns and extremities ai'e credit- 

 ably executed, and the movement is perfectly represented; but the skill of 1ho 

 artist has failed in giving an expression of reality to minuter features. 



It may be regarded as characteristic also that these representations, whore they 

 occur on fragments of some size, always place before us a number of animals of 

 the same species, and disposed in such a manner as is usual when they move in 

 herds, being sometimes wide apart, and sometimes so closely crowded that the 

 body of one covers more or less that of another. Since attention was paid to 

 this rule of representation, it has been observed that, on the celebrated mammoth 

 piece hereafter to be noticed, there are certain strokes which, besides the princi- 

 pal animal, indicate two others of the same species. 



If these representations are in themselves highly worthy of our attention as 

 art-productions of the earliest times, they are even more so in reference to the 

 objects represented, for these afford us a criterion of the methods of inquiry here- 

 tofore followed in regard to the animal bones which have been exhumed from the 

 caves. To many, who want confidence in the rigorous procedures of compara- 

 tive anatomy, it may perhaps have seemed presumptuous that a savant, having 

 before him only a joint of tlie foot, the end of a bone or a tooth, should pro- 

 nounce authoritatively that here a reindeer and not a hart, that there a bison and 

 not a common ox, has existed ; but when, as now, a verification is afforded by an 

 exhibition of the entire animal form in its sculptured representative, when it 

 results from this that he who carved it on the horn must have known the animal, 

 and accurately known it, in order to portray it in its proper shape, all doul)t must 

 vanish. The bones of the reindeer and bison could not have been washed hither 

 in a deluge from the far north and deposited in the southern cavern, as has been 

 pretended ; the animal must there have lived in its flesh and blood whereto-day 

 we find its bones and its sculptured figure. Let us see what were the species 

 known at present to have been thus represented. 



Among these the reindeer is by far the most frequent, while its antlers have 

 in great part furnished the material on which the representation is carved. The 

 form of the head and horns and the hair of the neck leave no doubt in the deter- 

 mination of the species. The stag, which occurs more seldom, admits of easy 

 discrimination. Next follows the horse, evidently of a race with short, thick 

 liead, short neck, compact body, strikingly similar to the northern race of our 

 own times. He that has once seen the Iceland horse, as it roams at large in its 

 native island, will here instantly recognize the original pattern. 



On the piece on which is represented the man with horses and an eel, we see 

 on the other side two heads of bisons, which are perfectly characterized by the 

 profile of the forehead, the insertion and curvature of the short horns, and the 



