STOXE IMPLEMENTS, WIDELY DISTEIBUTED. 11 



II. 



THE PREHISTORIC GIVE-DWELLERS OF SOUTHERN FRANCE. I. STONE IMPLEMENTS. 

 II. THE DORDOGNE CAVES. III. THE REINDEER-PERIOD. 



I. Stone Implements: their wide distribution. We may repeat here what has 

 been already stated by one of us elsewhere*. Man's existence upon earth is to be 

 traced in almost all countries by the relics of one of his primitive industries 

 implements of stone. One of his primitive industries, we say, because it is very 

 probable that the use of wood may, in many cases, have preceded that of stone, 

 although, from its perishable nature, no very ancient examples have come down 

 to us to serve as proofs. 



The term primitive may be fairly applied to these works, because we have broad 

 ground for believing that the various races of men (though at widely different 

 periods) have passed through what has been designated the " Age of Stone," 

 and the more so, because we have but one known example, and that comparatively 

 recent, in which man, after he has attained to the use of metal, has returned to 

 implements of stone f. 



These Implements of Stone are to be regarded as indicating a grade of civilization 

 rather than any definite antiquity ; and although in some countries there are clear 

 evidences, so to say, of an overlap with the Age of Bronze, and that the use of metal 

 has come in gradually, and the use of stone has gradually gone out, yet there is 

 no reason to conclude that both have been long or generally employed together 

 for the same purposes. 



Geographically this primitive industry in stone is to be traced over the whole 

 of Europe, from the wilds of Scandinavia to the plain of Marathon, and from the 

 eastern shores of the Atlantic to the steppes of Russia. In Asia it is present in 

 the desolate valleys of Mount Sinai, the grottos of Bethlehem, the caves of Le- 

 banon, and on the plain of Babylon, through the breadth of British India, through- 

 out the Indian Archipelago, the northern isles of Japan, and on the frozen shores 

 of the Arctic Sea. It is doubtless from want of research that China has not, as 

 yet, afforded proofs of its existence there also. In Africa it is found in Nubia, on 



* H. Christy, ' Transactions of the Ethnological Society,' New Scries, vol. iii. 1865. 



f Namely, the inhabitants of the West Coast of Greenland, in the interval between the destruction of the 

 first Scandinavian colonies and the arrival of the Danish Missionary, Hans Egede, in 1721, regular inter- 

 course with Europeans having ceased for about 300 years. 



c2 



