616 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1888. 



this epoch he used bone, horu, and ivory. He made the long straight 

 flakes offliut in profusion, lor his need for knives and saws was natur- 

 ally great.* Scrapers, gravers, etc., were also of flint (Figs. 1, 3, 4); 

 but piercers or points, needles, harpoons, hooks, and ornaments of 

 divers sorts, were made of bone, horn, or ivory.t 



It was in the Madelenian epoch that pre-historic art attained its per- 

 fection. The art of that epoch seems to have been indigenous to that 

 country in which its greatest manifestations have been discovered ; 

 that is, the Dordogne district of France. It does not seem to have 

 been an imitation, nor to have been borrowed from any other country 

 or people, but only to have been a display of the artistic tendencies of 

 the human mind, and a manifestation of the manual dexterity of that 

 period and locality. It consisted sometimes of sculpture done in the 

 round, sometimes of engravings or etchings on stone, bone, or horn, 

 possibly on wood (though such specimens have decayed), and also the 

 making of the bone and horn implements such as points, harpoons, 

 daggers, needles, etc. The decoration was sometimes of geometric 

 designs made by curved or straight lines, by festoons, zigzag, or her- 

 ring-bone, or by the same figures made by dots or points. 



The principal and wonderful manufacture of art in this epoch was 

 the representation of living things. Sometimes the animals represented 

 are at rest, but many times they are in action. Hunting scenes are 

 depicted in which the hunter, a man, is shown in the chase and engaged 

 in active conflict with his game. In one, a man is throwing a spear ; 

 in another, the serpent bites his heel ;| deer in action ; the reindeer with 

 his nose high in the air and horns thrown on his back. A reindeer 

 browsing, which represents a veritable landscape with perspective 

 drawing. The engraving and sculpture represent the mammoth, the 

 reindeer, horse, bison, birds, fish, serpent, musk-ox, and others.§ Some 

 of these are Arctic animals now found only in cold countries. Some of 

 these are of animals now extinct. A mammoth is found engraved on a 

 piece of ivory (part of his own tusk), a cave-bear was engraved on a 

 flat stone of schist, a poignard was made of reindeer horn, the handle 

 of which is in the form of a reindeer himself. These all came from 

 southern France, and are evidence of their existence in that localitj'^, 

 for the artist must have seen them before he could depict them. 



The art tools with which this work was done have been found in con- 

 siderable numbers. They are of flint, and have been chipped to the 

 same sharp, triangular point as the steel graver of modern times.|| 



The implements and utensils of every-day use were objects of an art 

 by no means contemptible, even as compared with those of our times. 

 The harpoons, needles, daggers, and other implements and utensils 

 were so ornamented as to show an appreciation of decorative art applied 

 to household or domestic uses which would not be unworthy the decora- 

 tive schools of art of the nineteenth century. 



- Plate xci, Fig. 2. t Plate xcm, Fig. 2. || Plate xc, Fig. 2, aud Plate 



t Plate xcii. § Plates xciii and xciv. xci, Figs. 3, 4. 



