ART AND TACKLE, OLD STONE MEN 17 



demonstrate not only the high point of excellence to which 

 the art of the Troglodytes had attained, but also, from the 

 absence of perspective and of decorative as compared with 

 pictorial composition, indicate how long is probably the 

 interval and how far is the separation between them and the 

 Men of the NeoHthic Age. 



Not only in the character of their Art, which if more 

 specialised in subjects was superior in representative quality, 

 but also in the substance and in the method of fashioning their 

 fishing and hunting implements, the separation between the 

 Old Stone and the New Stone Man is very marked. 



The former for their stone implements almost always 

 used flint. They worked it to shape merely by flaking or 

 chipping. The latter employed also diorite, quartzite, etc., 

 and in addition to flaking fashioned them by grinding and 

 polishing. 1 



It must, I fear, be acknowledged that the caches of the 

 New Stone Age fail to give us the help expected towards 

 settUng what was the first implement employed. It is true 

 that they yield hooks, nets, net-sinkers, which may have been 

 merely developments of Troglodyte tackle, but, judging from 

 the absence of any surviving Palaeolithic example, were more 

 probably new inventions. 



But neither these nor the implements of succeeding Ages 

 furnish us with evidence sufficient to decide the tackle first 

 employed by the earhest fisherman, or even by the Old Stone 

 Man, for, as Cartailhac truly warns us, " Ce n'est pas, comme 

 on I'a dit a tort, le debut de Tart que nous decouvrons, L'art 

 de I'age du renne est beaucoup trop ancien." 2 



And here it may well be objected, if the New Stone Age 

 does not disclose any priority of implement, why further 

 pursue what thus must be the insoluble ? Why, indeed, 

 especially if it be true that their tackle with some additional 



1 The Neolithic stage, some hold, is characterised by the presence of polished 

 stone implements and in particular the stone axe, which, judging from its 

 perforation, so as to be more effectually fastened to a wooden handle, was 

 probably used rather for wood than conflict. T. Peisker, Cambridge MedicBval 

 History, 191 1, vol. i., has much of interest on the domestication of this period. 



2 Les Peintures prehistoriques de la Caverne d'Altamira, Annales du AlusJe 

 Guimet, Paris, 1904, tome xv. p. 131, 



