35 2 



THE HUMAN SPECIES 



decorated with purely conventional spirals, rings or curves ; 

 ornamentation of this sort is, however, to be sought in its 

 most characteristic form in the neolithic period. The cause of 

 this difference in the palaeolithic and neolithic ornament is not 

 difficult to discover. As the neolithic people appear to repre- 

 sent quite a new race, with their tendency to settled abodes, 

 their agriculture and their stock-raising, so their art seems to 

 develop along different lines and to arise from a different 

 source. 



Palaeolithic art took its models from the animal world 

 around it ; it was a masculine art carried out by hunters. 



The neolithic, on the other 

 hand, was a feminine art. The 

 women who made the pottery 

 and designed the ornaments for 

 it took their ideas from the 

 patterns of their weaving and 

 plaiting. 



It is immaterial whether 

 basket-work especially gave rise 

 to the introduction of geometri- 

 cal patterns. This much, how- 

 ever, may be gathered from the 

 consideration of the savage races 

 of tne present day, namely, that 



some f orm o f industry must al- 



ways have preceded ornamenta- 

 tion. The African Bushmen and the Veddahs, who possess 

 many industries, show no trace of ornament. But in the neo- 

 lithic period, and for long after, geometrical ornament, with 

 its rhythmic repetition of design, its simplicity, and its power 

 of adapting itself easily to any flat surface, established its place 

 in the history of the origins of art. Strictly speaking, however, 

 it ceased to be a pure art, but must be considered as a craft, as 

 we can see that the ornament was no longer drawn by hand 

 but was generally stamped with a die. The circumstance that 

 the deeper lines were filled in with a white paste while the 

 clay was wet, in order to heighten the colour effect, does not 

 elevate this neolithic craft to the status of art (Figs. 158 and 



FIG. 178. Bisons. Frescoes from the 



wall of the grotto Font deGaume 

 (Dordogne.) (Homes.) 



