1002 REPORT— 1898. 



would proceed to two or three or more fractures by degi-ees. It must liave been 

 long before be could have acquired the eye for symmetry and the sense of design, 

 of adaptation of means to ends, which are expressed in the fashioning of a complete 

 palaeolithic implement. It is probable that such rude implements as he would 

 construct in this interval would be in general hardly distinguishable from flints 

 naturally fractured. Hence the uncertainty that attaches to such discoveries of 

 the kind as have hitherto been made public. Professor McKenny Hughes, who 

 speaks with very high authority, concludes a masterly paper in the ' Archaeological 

 Journal ' with the statement that he has ' never yet seen any evidence which 

 would justify the inference that any implements older than palseolitbic have yet 

 been found.' The name ' palseotalith ' which had been suggested for pre-palreolithic 

 implements seems to him unnecessary at present, as there is nothing to which 

 it can be applied, and, as it will be long before it can be asserted that we have 

 discovered the very earliest traces of man, he thinks it will probably be long before 

 the word is wanted. An elaborate work on the ruder forms of implement, just 

 published by M. A. ThieuUen, of Paris, who has for many years been engaged in 

 collecting these objects, adds materially to our knowledge of the subject. 



Another line of argument bearing strongly in the same direction is afforded by 

 the discovery in various places of works of art fabricated by early man. The 

 statuettes from Brassempouy, the sculptures representing animals from the 

 Bruniquel, the well-known figure of the mammoth engraved on a piece of ivory 

 from Pt5rigord, and many other specimens of early art, attest a facility that it is not 

 possible to associate with the dawn of human intelligence. M. Salomon Reinach 

 tells an amusing story. A statuette in steatite of a woman, resembling in some 

 respects those of Brassempouy, was discovered in one of the caverns of Mentone 

 as far back as 1884, but when the discoverer showed it to a personage in the 

 locality that authority advised him not to let it be seen, lest it should take away 

 from the belief in the antiquity of the caves, it being then thought too artistic to 

 be consistent with early man. The finder acted on this advice, in ignorance of the 

 real interest of the statuette, until April 1896, when he showed it to M. Eeinach 

 and M. Villenoisy, who promptly interviewed the sage adviser in question, and 

 obtained a confirmation of the statement. Some interesting additions to our 

 gallery of prehistoric art have been recently made by M. Emile Riviere and 

 Si. Berthoumeyrou, at Cro-Magnon, in the Dordogne. These are a drawing of a 

 bison and another of a human female in profile, which M. Riviere has kindly allowed 

 me to reproduce. Among the other objects found in the same place were some 

 flint implements brought to a fine point, suitable for engraving on bone or horn. 



The idea of making in any form a graphic representation of anything seen has 

 rever, so far as I know, occurred to any lower animal ; and it could hardly have 

 been among the first ideas formed in the gradually developing human brain. 

 "When that idea is found carried out with remarkable artistic skill, by means of 

 implements well adapted for the purpose, we may surely assume that the result 

 was not obtained till after a long interval of time, and was approached by gfiidual 

 steps marked by progress in other faculties, as well as in the artistic faculty. It 

 may be that some day all uncertainty on this head will be removed by decisive 

 discoveries. 



The interval between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic periods rests in the like 

 condition of incertitude. That by some means, and somewhere on the face of the 

 globe, the one period gradually passed into the other, we cannot but believe. That 

 the transition between them may have involved innumerable degrees is also highly 

 probable. Where and when, and how each step was taken, we do not know at 

 present, and possibly never shall know. The problem is not satisfactorily solved 

 by the production of palasolithic implements resembling neolithic forms or neolithic 

 implements resembling palceolithic forms ; inasmuch as between the one period and 

 th": other an interval of time involving geological and other changes has to be 

 accounted for. 



In this respect, also, our best authorities are the most cautious and conserva- 

 tive. In the excellent addi'ess which Professor Boyd Dawkins delivered to the 

 Royal Archaeological Institute at the Dorchester meeting last year, on the present 



