CHAPTER III 

 THE ART OF PREHISTORIC MEN 



THE works of art produced by the cave-men are, 

 as we have already seen, of five kinds or classes — 

 (i) All-round small statuettes, or " high-relief" 

 carvings, in ivory, bone, or stone (examples of which are 

 shown in Figs. 14, 25, 26, 27, 28 of the present chapter); 

 (2) small engravings on bits of ivory, deer's antler, bone, 

 or stone (examples are shown in Figs. 15, 16, 20, and 

 24); (3) large statues, hewn in rock, and left in place; 

 (4) drawings of large size — two to five feet in diameter 

 (partly engraved and partly coloured) on the rocky walls 

 and vaults of limestone caverns (shown in Figs. 11, 12, 13, 

 17, 18, 19, 23, as well as in the figures of mammoths in 

 the last chapter) ; (5) models (high relief) worked in clay. 

 I give reproductions in the present chapter of several 

 samples of this art, showing how skilfully these men of 

 50,000 years ago could portray a variety of animals. 



Who were these men, and why did they make these 

 remarkable carvings and drawings ? First, as to their age. 

 We now know of a long succession of human inhabi- 

 tants of this part of the world, namely, Western Europe. 

 The earliest reach back to an antiquity never dreamed 

 of fifty years ago. We cannot fix with any certainty 

 the number of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of 

 years which is represented by this succession, but we can 

 place the different periods in order, one later than the 

 other, each distinguished chiefly by the character of the 



