NEOLITHIC, BRONZE, AND IRON AGES. 379 



drawings of animals, pertaining either to the Neolithic or the 

 Bronze Age that can equal the marvellous work of the reindeer- 

 hunters of Perigord and the Pyrenees. Even the drawings of 

 the modern Eskimo are stiff and poor when placed in com- 

 parison with the more perfect etchings of the Eeindeer period. 

 Notwithstanding his wonderful artistic gift, however, Palaeo- 

 lithic man lived very much in the same state as the wild 

 animals which he hunted. The accomplishments of Neolithic 

 man, if less striking, were certainly more conducive to his comfort. 

 It is a fine thing to be endowed with artistic capabilities ; but 

 after all, were we to be deprived of the good things which 

 came in with our Neolithic progenitors — had we no looms, no 

 earthenware dishes, no corn, no horses, dogs, cows, nor sheep — 

 I fear we should hardly feel ourselves recompensed for the 

 want of these by the possession of a notable artistic talent. 

 Between Palaeolithic and Neolithic man there is thus a wide 

 gulf of separation. From a state of utter savagery we pass 

 into one of comparative civilisation. Was the Neolithic phase 

 of European archaeological history merely developed out of 

 that which characterised Palaeolithic times ? Was the European 

 Neolithic man the lineal descendant of his Palaeolithic pre- 

 decessor ? There is no proof either direct or indirect that this 

 was the case. On the contrary, all the evidence points in quite 

 an opposite direction. When Neolithic man entered Europe he 

 came as an agriculturist and a herdsman, and his relics and 

 remains occur again and again immediately above Pleistocene 

 deposits in which we meet with no trace of any higher or better 

 state of human existence than that which is represented by the 

 savages who contended with the extinct mammalia. 



I have already made some reference to the physical evidence 

 of this break or hiatus, and I shall have something further to 

 say about it in succeeding pages. Meanwhile, it is clear that 

 even if that evidence were altogether ignored, we should yet be 

 compelled to admit that a long interval was required for the 

 great change that took place in the fauna and flora of Europe. 

 Nearly all the more characteristic southern mammals which 



