1 6 PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



others — so far at least as the fashioning of their implements is 

 concerned — it does not necessarily follow that the men who 

 used the better-made instruments always succeeded in time to 

 those whose implements are somewhat ruder. It is conceivable 

 that they may have lived contemporaneously in different parts 

 of the Continent. " For," as Professor Boyd Dawkins remarks, 

 " there is no greater difference in any two of the Palaeolithic 

 caves than is to be observed between those of two different 

 tribes of Eskimos, while the general resemblance is most strik- 

 ing. The principle of classification by the general rudeness 

 assumes that the progress of man has been gradual, and that the 

 rude implements are therefore the older. The difference, how- 

 ever, may have been due to different tribes or families having 

 co-existed without intercourse with each other, as is now 

 generally the case with savage communities ; or to the supply 

 of flint, chert, or other materials for cutting-instruments being 

 greater in one region than another." However this may be, it 

 seems at first sight not unreasonable to believe that the artistic 

 people, at all events, who occupied their leisure time in carving 

 and engraving those wonderful life - like representations of 

 animals, must belong to a later date than the savages who have 

 left nothing behind them save flint implements of the rudest 

 form and a few simple relics of bone. Nevertheless, it is not 

 impossible that artistic and non-artistic tribes may have co- 

 existed during Palaeolithic times in Europe. Sir John Lubbock 

 reminds us that " there are still instances among recent savages 

 of a certain skill in drawing and sculpture being accompanied 

 by an entire ignorance of metallurgy." And he refers particu- 

 larly to the case of the Eskimo, many of whose bone implements 

 are covered with sketches, representing animals such as reindeer, 

 geese, and dogs ; hunting-scenes, houses, boats, and other sub- 

 jects. The contrast between the artistic and non- artistic relics 

 of the Old Stone Period, therefore, may point rather to ethno- 

 logical peculiarities than to any difference in the relative anti- 

 quity of the remains. But even with all these possibilities kept 

 in view, there are certain other circumstances which lead to the 



