Human face carved on a reindeer antler, found in the Rochebertier Cave (Charente).
We must not close this account of the art efforts of the men of the Stone age without mentioning the remarkable discovery by M. Siette, of flints covered with lines and geometrical designs colored with red chalk. These are the very earliest examples of the art of painting which have hitherto come to our knowledge. They bear witness to a remarkable progress made by our remote ancestors of the valleys of the Pyrenees.
We cannot more appropriately close this chapter than by quoting the magnificent verse of Lucretius, which brings before us, better than could a long description, the condition of these men, and the humble starting-point from which humanity has advanced to achieve its immortal destiny:
Necdum res igni scibant tractare neque uti
Pellibus et spoliis corpus vestire ferarum,
Sed nemora atque caveos monteis sylvasque colebant
Et frutices inter condebant squalida membra
Verbera ventorum vitare imbreisque coactei.[27]
[1] Indra, the all-seer, to whom it is given to pierce the cloud, personified by Vritra, and “to open the receptacles of the waters with his far-reaching thunder-bolts,” is of course the sun, the worship of which was one of the earliest and most natural instincts of humanity; whilst Vritra was in the first instance merely the symbol of the cloud, intervening between heaven and earth, shutting out from men the light of the sun, and keeping back the refreshing rain. The gradual conversion of these natural phenomena into a good and a malignant power, ever struggling for the mastery, is a forcible illustration of the way in which myths are evolved.—Trans.
[2] De Mortillet: “Le Préhistorique,” Paris, 1883, p. 133.
[3] “Limon du Plateau du Nord de la France,” Paris, 1878. Acheuléen et Moustérien: Revue des Questions Scientifiques , October, 1880. Bul. Soc. Anth., 1884, 1887.
[4] Chelléen, so called from their having been found at Chelles (Seine-et-Marne), where the remains of the Elephas antiquus, the most ancient of the pachyderms now known in Europe, was associated with these tools.