CHAP. VIII.] 



THE NEOLITHIC ART. 



305 



stone axes. He therefore believes that if they do not 

 belong to the age of the Neolithic tumuli, they must be 

 of a later and not an earlier age. On weighing both 

 sides of the question it seems to me very probable that 

 the refuse-heaps were accumulated by a section of the 

 same people who raised the tumuli over their dead ; 

 and that they found it advantageous to live by hunting 

 and fishing . in a region teeming with game of various 

 kinds ; -or that they were compelled to forsake their do- 

 mestic animals except the dog, and to take refuge in the 

 gloomy pine forests on the shores of the Baltic, under 

 the pressure of invasion. The remains do not appear to 

 me to mark a phase preceding the Neolithic culture in 

 northern Europe. 



The Neolithic Art. 



Although the Neolithic men were 

 above the Cave-men in culture, they were 

 in the arts of design. They have not 

 left behind any well-defined represent- 

 ations of the forms either of plants or 

 animals. Their engravings consist of 

 the hollows, or cup-stones, on the slabs 

 composing the stone chambers of their 

 tombs, of spirals and concentric circles ; 

 and their highest artistic achievement 

 is the rude figure of a stone axe in its 

 handle of wood, engraved (Fig. 109) on 

 the roof of the sepulchral chamber of 

 Dol-ar-Marchnant, near Locmariaker in 

 Brittany. 1 A group of axes is also 



1 See Fergusson's Rude Stone Monuments in all 

 Countries. Ireland, pp. 206-220. Brittany, 8vo, 



immeasurably 

 far below them 



>F-^! 



FIG. 109. Plumed 

 Hatchet on roof of 

 Dol-ar-Marelmaiit. 



