T.J PREHISTORIC ARCHEOLOGY. 153 



horn, have been collected, no trace of pottery, nor 

 evidence of the use of metals, not even a polished stone 

 implement, has yet been met with. The people who 

 lived in the South of France at that period seem, in a 

 great many respects, to have resembled the Esquimaux. 

 Their principal food was the reindeer, and though traces 

 of the musk-ox, mammoth, cave-lion, as well as other 

 animals of the quaternary fauna have been met with, it 

 is still possible that these may not belong to the same 

 period. These cavemen were very ingenious, and excel- 

 lent workers in flint ; but though their bone-pins, &c, 

 are beautifully polished, this is never the case with their 

 flint weapons. The habit of allowing offal and bones to 

 accumulate in their dwellings is indicative, probably, of 

 a cold climate. 



Perhaps, however, the most remarkable fact of all is, 

 that although in other respects so slightly advanced in 

 civilization, these ancient French cavemen, like the 

 Esquimaux, show a wonderful genius for art. Many 

 very spirited drawings of animals have been found 

 represented on fragments of bone, stone, and horn, and 

 M. Lartet has found in the rock-shelter at La Made- 

 laine a fragment of mammoth-tusk, on which was 

 engraved a representation of the animal itself. 



The Neolithic Age. 



We now pass to the later Stone or Neolithic Age, 

 with reference to which the following propositions may, 

 I think, be regarded as satisfactorily established : — 



1. There was a period when polished stone axes were 

 extensively used in Europe. 



