The occurrence of this series of geometrical marks must be regarded as another proof of how early such alphabetic prototypes originated. The Mas d’Azil series has no particular connexion with the linear signs associated with the handiwork of the Reindeer Period. Their meaning is obscure. Some may be degraded pictographs, often perhaps of animals or their parts, with a traditional meaning attached to them. Some may be of purely individual and arbitrary invention. The numbers on the pebbles have suggested the view that they may have served for games. On the other hand, it is by no means improbable that the figures had a magic value, and Mr. A. B. Cook[18] has called attention to the parallel presented by the Australian deposits of pebbles called _Churingas_, connected with the departed spirits of a tribe, and having designs of a totemic character. It is certain that the people who produced these coloured pebbles were in a rude state of barbarism far below the gifted race who had preceded them in the same sheltering cavern. Few will probably be able to follow M. Piette in discerning in these rudely executed marks actual letters--at any rate with a syllabic value--and the true ancestors of the Greek and Phoenician alphabets, or in regarding the Cave of Mas d’Azil ‘as one vast school where the scholars learnt to read, to reckon, to write, and to know the religious symbols of the solar god’. The deposit of Mas d’Azil containing the coloured pebbles belongs already to the modern world, the fauna associated with it all belonging to existing species inhabiting the temperate regions. The rude culture then exhibited heralds the beginning of the Neolithic Period. This later Stone Age is not characterized by any of the artistic genius displayed by the men of the Reindeer Period. Figured representations are now rare. The caves, moreover, which preserved the earlier records, were now used more for sepulture than habitation. Yet the analogy of all primitive races at the present day shows that it would be a mistake to suppose that, though the act may have been rude, the practice of picture-writing was not still universally in vogue throughout the European area. We have to bear in mind how many of such records are consigned to perishable materials--such as bark or hides, or in the case of tattooing the human body itself. During the later prehistoric times, and notably during the Early Metal Age, many abiding records, in the shape of rock-sculptures, paintings, and engravings, and at times graffiti on pottery, are found diffused throughout the whole of our Continent and the adjoining Mediterranean area; and in outlying regions, such as Lapland, the practice of picture-writing can be traced down to modern times.