ESKIMOS, TASMANIANS, BUSHMEN 19 
stone implements represent rather the condition of Palzolithic 
man.” ! 
Sollas goes even farther: ‘‘ The Tasmanians, however, 
though recent were at the same time a Paleolithic or even, it 
has been suggested, an Eolithic race: they thus afford us an 
opportunity of interpreting the past by the present—a saving 
procedure in a subject where fantasy is only too likely to playa 
leading part.’’2 But their usual technique is against Eolithicism. 
If these authoritative statements be accurate, can we not 
hazard a shrewd conjecture from examination of the implements 
and of the methods prevalent amongst the backward or un- 
civilised tribes closely resembling our Cave Dwellers, as to 
which was probably the first implement or method employed 
for catching fish? Can we, in fact, from the data available 
from the Eskimos, Tasmanians, and other similar races so 
reconstruct our men of Dordogne and elsewhere as to adjudge 
approximately whether first in their hands at any rate was the 
Spear, the Hook, or the Net ? 
Such a quest seems one of the incidental motives of 
G. de Mortillet in Les Origines de la Chasse et de la Péche, 1890, 
which modifies in several particulars his earlier Les Origines 
de la Péche et de la Navigation, 1867. We find from his pages 
and those of Rau’s Prehistoric Fishing (1884), and of Parkyn’s 
Prehistoric Art (1916), that a comparative examination of the 
above races, as it ramifies, discloses not only a close resemblance 
to Paleolithic Man in the material, nature, and fashioning of 
their tackle, but also in their art and method of expressing 
their art. 
Such similarity of art, evident in the Eskimos, stands 
revealed by the Bushmen of Africa (especially in the caves 
formerly used for habitations by the tribes of the Madobo 
range) in no less obvious or striking degree. ‘‘ The nearest 
parallels to the finer class of rock carvings in the Dordogne are 
in fact to be found among the more ancient specimens of similar 
1 In H. Ling Roth’s The Aborigines of Tasmania, London, 1890 (see Preface 
by Tylor on page vi), ‘‘It is thus apparent that the Tasmanians were at 
a somewhat less advanced stage in the art of stone implement making than 
the Palzolithic men of Europe.” 
2 Cf. W. J. Sollas, Ancient Hunters, London, 1911, p. 70. 
