35 



THE HUMAN SPECIES 



the art of the savage hunter-tribes of the present day the 

 Australians, the Bushmen, and the Eskimos. These free- 

 hand drawings, however, are not found in all the settlements 

 of the reindeer hunters, but chiefly in France. They also 

 occur in Thayringen and Mahren. At first it would seem 

 remarkable that in the oldest settlements of the mammoth 

 period plastic arts predominated (Fig. 176). 



It may, however, be assumed with much probability that it 

 was the convenient curve of a piece of bone, horn or ivory 

 which enabled the artist to execute his small portable statuettes. 

 It must have been still more alluring 

 to the palaeolithic hunter to carve out 

 of wood the animal which interested 

 him ; we cannot prove, however, that 

 this occurred, as the material must long 

 since have perished. 



A higher level in art, first attained 

 by the hunters of the reindeer period 

 proper, is characterised by life-like 

 carving on bone, horn and pieces of 

 chalk (Fig. 177). These are not often 

 found in the camping places of the 

 hunter-tribes, but are most frequent in 

 the cave-dwellings which they inhabited 

 later on ; the idea, therefore, that the 

 higher artistic development was oc- 

 casioned by the greater permanency 

 of the dwelling-place is not without 

 some foundation. This higher development of art is especially 

 noticeable at the time when the wild horse was mainly hunted 

 in France ; and to this period belong the beautiful reliefs of 

 horses cut on reindeer horn, on which also are small carved 

 patterns. 



The highest grade of palaeolithic art was attained by the 

 employment of colour. The river flints in the grotto of Mas 

 d'Azil, painted with the most varied figures in red paint, 

 attracted very general attention as being the earliest specimens 

 of composition in colour made by man. But the wonder grew 

 still greater when the paintings of animals of great size were 



FIG. 176. Back view of fe- 

 male torso in ivory from 

 Brassempouy. (Palaeo- 

 lithic, ^ natural size.) 



