428 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 



also skilful in ornamentation of the body. From the tangible and 

 visible evidences of the development of the artistic sense we may 

 not unreasonably conclude that there was also advancement in 

 other ways, such as in weaving grasses, fibres, etc., of which, owing 

 to their perishable nature, no record would remain. At a later 

 period in the Neolithic Age, although we find that the stone weapons 

 show an advance in being carefully hafted, in being more varied in 

 form, and also in being ground and polished, instead of being simply 

 chipped as at the earlier age, yet as far as revealed there is not 

 shown any advance in the artistic sense, but rather a falling away. 

 This may have resulted from a change involved in the manufacture 

 of the distinctive weapons, the earlier flaking and chipping away 

 giving greater skill in manipulation of the cutting material, and a 

 more acute sense of form than in the latter period, when grinding 

 and polishing would render skilful shaping less important. In the 

 well-known Danish kitchen-middens some of the finest work in the 

 polished weapons of the Neolithic Age has been found. 



Australia, which in so many other respects shows the survival 

 of conditions no longer existent in old world lands, was, at the 

 advent of the white race, really in a stage corresponding in many 

 features to that of the Paleolithic Period above mentioned, whilst 

 New Zealand and New Guinea resembled more that of the Neolithic 

 Age. Professor Sollas, in his interesting series of articles in " Science 

 Progress" on Paleolithic Races and their Modern Representatives, 

 designates the Australian aborigines as the survivals of the 

 Mousterians of the Stone Age, showing, in addition to cranial 

 resemblances, many points of similarity in the nature and the con- 

 struction of weapons and in the measure of advancement attained. 



The Australian aborigines, part of whom in the more remote 

 districts of the continent are still virtually in the stone age, thus 

 afford a practical and instructive study of conditions comparatively 

 similar to those of Paleolithic times, the race itself being, as far as 

 mental endowments and physical qualities, almost on a parallel 

 with the men of that distant age from whom some modern races 

 have descended, and serving to show in a remarkable degree an 

 interesting stage of human development through which mankind 

 has passed in prehistoric days. The old idea that the Australian 

 aborigines were about the lowest in the scale of human progress has 

 been considerably modified in the light of fuller knowledge. 



In studjdng the question of the development of an artistic 

 sense, consideration may first be given to the weapons and imple- 

 ments distinguishing the race. A stone is the natural tool of the 

 savage, as of the civilised man when deprived of the advantages 

 which advancement has given. 



The Australian aborigines, like their Mousterian prototypes, 

 had made definite progress in the manufacture of stone weapons. 

 Their stone axes, in many instances, show careful workmanship, 

 the stone being quarried, chipped into the required shape, then the 

 cutting part being ground and polished to the requisite degree. 

 Skill in chipping, attainment of a due balance, and a desirable 



