ARCHEOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 121 



affects archaeology, and to me it appears to be directly in 

 opposition to evolution. 



To the second part : " Was primitive man any nearer to a 

 supposed senji-simian prototype than modern man is," 

 we can, so far as I know, give an even more definite 

 negative than to the first half. The splendid manner in 

 which Professor Boyd-Dawkins has set forth the similarities 

 between the Palaeolithic cave men and the modern Esqui- 

 maux brings with it a proof that man was man in those 

 days; but there are, I think, good grounds for assuming 

 that the cave men Avere a vastly more intellectual people 

 than are their Esquimaux descendants. If, for instance, we 

 study carefully the works of art (engraved representations 

 of animal and plant life) left by the cave men, together with 

 similar ones made by modern Esquimaux, we cannot but be 

 struck by the falling off of taste evinced in the latter ; it is 

 as marked as the difference between the art of the four- 

 teenth and seventeenth centuries a.D., and not only is this so, 

 but if we compare the artistic spirit of these old cave men 

 with that of any existing savage race, we find the difference 

 equally great. It is necessary to imagine a savage with the 

 artistic feelings of a Landseer, to account for the production 

 of such work as we find on many of their implements and 

 relics. On pp. 238-9 of Professor Boyd-Uawkins' book, 

 Early Man in Britain, are figured three arrow straighteners : 

 one of Esquimaux, the others of cave-man workmanship ; 

 these, we are told, are so much alike as to be classed 

 together were the real difference of their origins to be 

 forgotten or unknown. 



This is at once true and false ; they are, indeed, made on 

 the same plan, as also are ancient and modern Gothic and 

 classic buildings, but — to anyone of artistic feeling or 

 education — it will be equally evident that one is a miserable, 

 stereotyped, and barbarous imitation of the other. 



Take, again, a draAving of a reindeer done by a cave man 

 and put it beside that of one executed by an Esquimaux : 

 the same animal served as a model to both and was probably 

 more constantly before the Esquimaux than the cave man, 

 but how vast a difference is apparent in the minds of the 

 two di-aughtsmen ! In one we see an artist possessed of high 

 and accurate powers of grasping his subject, in the other we 

 see merely an unimaginative savage making a lifeless 

 attempt to imitate something constantly before his eyes. 

 These are but two examples out of many which might be 



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