594 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



There remains, however, to be considered another hand-eye 

 activity and achievement that has still more recently been 

 evolved in human i)rogress than language, and which has 

 given to the latest stage of that progress the appropriate title 

 of "the period of written history." The researches in Baby- 

 lonia, in Assyria, in Egypt, in Crete, and in China of the past 

 two decades have revealed that writing of modern character 

 is of comparatively recent date, not going further back probably 

 than 6000 B. C. The tliree main types, the Chinese, the 

 Sumerian, and the Egyptian, all show an evolutionary progress- 

 ion from direct pictorial representation of slow delineation 

 and limited mental expression to word signs that can quickly 

 be transferred from the brain to paper, and that in a sentence 

 may convey abundant suggestion. 



But much older even than these, and possibly representing 

 a highly primitive type, is that revealed by Piette {190: 384) 

 from Mas d'Azil in France. Since this belongs apparently to 

 the oldest period of the neolithic age of man's history, it is of 

 special interest. The type is set forth on numerous oval or 

 flattened pebbles that were found scattered promiscuously in 

 a gravel bed amongst perforated deer teeth, animal bones, and 

 various fruit stones. Each pebble bears a sign mark that may 

 be U or V or cross-shaped, or of a more complicated outline. 

 Each may have represented a definite idea, or part of such, and 

 in character may have corresponded to the incised or carved 

 sticks still used amongst various uncivilized nations of this day 

 and sent as messages to absent ones. Piette considered that 

 they resembled letters of much more recent date, but it might 

 even be that they were stones used in some game, much as dice 

 pieces are used now. 



The art of expressing one's thoughts in writing would almost 

 inevitably result from the increasing skill with which neolithic 

 man drew figures of plants, animals, and scenery around him. 

 The wonderful accuracy with which many objects, found in the 

 central and southern French bone caves, were delineated is a 

 testimony to the growing artistic skill; at the same time it 

 demonstrates how intimately hand-arm and eye were gathering 



