92 
Proceedings of Iioyal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
Man as Artist and Sportsman in the Palaeolithic 
Period. By Robert Munro, M.A., M.D., LL.D. (With 
Eleven Plates.) 
(An Address delivered at the request of the Council, Nov. 23, 1903.) 
I. Introduction. 
So long as Homo sapiens was believed to occupy a higher 
platform in the organic world than other animals by virtue of 
his special endowments, no one, apparently, thought of looking 
for evidence of his origin and history in the obscure vista of 
prehistoric times. The long cherished traditions and myths 
which had gathered around the inquiry left little room for any 
other hypothesis than that his apparition on the field of life was 
the last and crowning achievement of a long series of creative 
fiats which brought the present world-drama into existence. In 
the cosmogony thus conjured up, the multitudinous phenomena 
of the material world — animals and plants, the distribution of 
land and water, the recurrence of seasons, etc. — were regarded as 
having been specially designed and arranged to administer to the 
life-functions of this new being. 
Nurtured in an environment so full of legendary romance, we 
need not be surprised that the philosophic schools of Britain, as 
well as of other countries, continued to teach some such theory 
of man’s origin up to about half a century ago, when the doctrine 
of organic evolution captured the scientific mind of the day. But, 
notwithstanding the far-reaching significance of the evolution 
theory, the evolutionary stages of man’s career on the globe 
remained almost as great a mystery as before ; for, at the outset, 
the new doctrine appeared to go no further than to point to the 
direction in which the trail of humanity was to be looked for. 
The erect attitude, bipedal locomotion, true hands, and a unique 
handicraft skill, amply differentiated him from all other animals. 
But for a long time no rational explanation of how he acquired 
these distinguishing characteristics was forthcoming ; and, even 
