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Clearly, if the Eskimo come from palaeolithic man, they are a degenerate race as far as art is concerned. Yet, as may be seen in Dr.
Their implements hardly differ from those of palaeolithic man, and some of their tribes do not yet know fishing: they simply spear the fish with a kind of harpoon. They know the use of iron, but they receive it from the Europeans, or find it on wrecked ships.
This Palaeolithic race seemed to come to a mysterious end, and Europe was then invaded by the higher Neolithic race. England was probably detached from the Continent about the end of the Magdalenian period. It was thought that some great devastation the last ice-sheet, a submersion of the land, or a plague then set in, and men were unable to retreat south.
In the valleys of the tributaries of the Dordogne, the surface of the rocks is in some places entirely covered with caves which were inhabited by palaeolithic men. Sometimes the cave-dwellings are superposed in storeys, and they certainly recall much more the nesting colonies of swallows than the dens of carnivores.
Wilson, do not believe in this pedigree of the Eskimo. I speak not with authority, but the submission of ignorance, and as one who has no right to an opinion about these deep matters of geology and ethnology. But to me, Mr. Geikie's arguments appear distinctly the more convincing, and I cannot think it demonstrated that the Eskimo are descended from our old palaeolithic artists. But if Mr.
If we could accept the view that it was the Eskimo-like race of the Palaeolithic that cultivated this art, and that they retreated north with the reindeer and the ice, and survive in our Eskimo, we should have a plausible explanation. In point of fact, we find no trace whatever of this slow migration from the south of Europe to the north.
The same may be said of another fundamental advance of the men of the later Palaeolithic age, the discovery of the art of making fire. It coincides with the oncoming of the cold, either in the Mousterian or the Magdalenian. It was more probably a chance discovery than an invention.
The birds and beasts kangaroo, platypus, emu are ancient types, rough grotesques of Nature, sketching as a child draws. The natives were a race without a history, far more antique than Egypt, nearer the beginnings than any other people. Their weapons are the most primitive: those of the extinct Tasmanians were actually palaeolithic.
In some cases we can make a good guess at the origin of Neolithic man's institutions. Let us take pottery. Palaeolithic man cooked his joint of horse or reindeer, and, no doubt, scorched it. Suppose that some Palaeolithic Soyer had conceived the idea of protecting the joint, and preserving its juices, by daubing it with a coat of clay. He would accidentally make a clay vessel. This is Mr.
It is also fairly certain that between the neolithic or smooth-stone age, and the palaeolithic, certain important geological changes took place, though those changes were not such as to have demanded any very great length of time for their accomplishment.
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