ESKIMOS, TASMANIANS, BUSHMEN 19 



stone implements represent rather the condition of Palaeolithic 

 man." 1 



Sollas goes even farther : " The Tasmanians, however, 

 though recent were at the same time a Palseohthic or even, it 

 has been suggested, an Eolithic race : they thus afford us an 

 opportunity of interpreting the past by the present — a saving 

 procedure in a subject where fantasy is only too hkely to play a 

 leading part. ' ' 2 But their usual technique is against Eohthicism. 



If these authoritative statements be accurate, can we not 

 hazard a shrewd conjecture from examination of the implements 

 and of the methods prevalent amongst the backward or un- 

 civiHsed tribes closely resembhng our Cave Dwellers, as to 

 which was probably the first implement or method employed 

 for catching fish ? Can we, in fact, from the data available 

 from the Eskimos, Tasmanians, and other similar races so 

 reconstruct our men of Dordogne and elsewhere as to adjudge 

 approximately whether first in their hands at any rate was the 

 Spear, the Hook, or the Net ? 



Such a quest seems one of the incidental motives of 

 G. de Mortillet in Les Origines de la Chasse et de la Peche, 1890, 

 which modifies in several particulars his earlier Les Origines 

 de la Peche et de la Navigation, 1867. We find from his pages 

 and those of Rau's Prehistoric Fishing (1884), and of Parkyn's 

 Prehistoric Art (1916), that a comparative examination of the 

 above races, as it ramifies, discloses not only a close resemblance 

 to Palaeolithic Man in the material, nature, and fashioning of 

 their tackle, but also in their art and method of expressing 

 their art. 



Such similarity of art, evident in the Eskimos, stands 

 revealed by the Bushmen of Africa (especially in the caves 

 formerly used for habitations by the tribes of the Madobo 

 range) in no less obvious or striking degree. " The nearest 

 parallels to the finer class of rock carvings in the Dordogne are 

 in fact to be found among the more ancient specimens of similar 



^ In H. Ling Roth's The Aborigines of Tasmania, London, 1S90 (see Preface 

 by Tylor on page vi), " It is thus apparent that the Tasmanians were at 

 a somewhat less advanced stage in the art of stone implement making than 

 the Palaeolithic men of Europe." 



* Cf. W. J. Sollas, Ancient Hunters, London, 191 1, p. 70. 



