MAN, HIS ENVIRONMENT AND HIS ART 7 



From the start then we must think of man as an inventor. What 

 was his first invention? Aside from air and water, food-getting and 

 defense are the primeval needs. These are met precariously without 

 artificial aids. Something to supplement the teeth, the nails, the fist 

 must be found ; and to be found must be at hand and appeal readily to 

 the senses. The most omnipresent and tangible of all raw materials 

 are stone and wood. Both of these are especially abundant along water 

 courses. In fact, man and wood and game, the latter primitive man's 

 chief food supply, are all there for the same purpose — in search of 

 water. The stones are there because the streams carried them or laid 

 them bare. The problem is therefore one of utilization. The most 

 utilizable of all stones is flint because of its hardness and mode of 

 fracture, leaving a sharp, comparatively straight edge. Moreover, flint 

 flakes can be produced by purely natural means. The accidental step- 

 ping on one of these would suffice, after repetition at least, to prove 

 their efficiency. Thus the oldest and most primitive implements that 

 have come down to us are utilized flint chips. Once the flint-using 

 habit was formed, it spread : and when the natural supply became scarce 

 it was supplemented by artificially produced chips. 



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Fig. 3. Mas d*Azil (Aki£ge), which gave its names to Azilian epoch: transition 

 from paleolithic to neolithic. Photographed by G. G. MacCurdy. 



