Ragnarok : the Age of Fire and GravelDonnelly, Ignatius
Science
Ragnarok : the Age of Fire and Gravel
Donnelly, Ignatius
Atlantis (Legendary place); Comets; Drift
Here we have the evidence that the people who inhabited this cave, or
some race with whom they held intercourse, manufactured pottery; that
they wore clothing which they sewed with needles; that they used the
bow and arrow; that they caught fish with hooks; that they ornamented
themselves; that they cooked their food; that they engraved on stone;
and that they had already reached some kind of primitive alphabet, in
which signs were used to represent things.
We have already seen, (page 124, _ante_,) that there is reason to
believe that pre-glacial Europe contained a very barbarous race,
represented by the Neanderthal skull, side by side with a cultivated
race, represented by the fine lines and full brow of the Engis skull.
The latter race, I have suggested, may have come among the former as
traders, or have been captured in war; precisely as today in Central
Africa the skulls of adventurous, civilized Portuguese or Englishmen
or Americans might be found side by side with the rude skulls of the
savage populations of the country. The possession of a piece of
pottery, or carving, by an African tribe would not prove that the
Africans possessed the arts of engraving or manufacturing pottery,
but it would prove that somewhere on the earth's surface a race had
advanced far enough, at that time, to be capable of such works of
art. And so, in the remains of the pre-glacial age of Europe, we have
the evidence that some of these people, or their captives, or those
with whom they traded or fought, had gone so far in the training of
civilized life as to have developed a sense of art and a capacity to
represent living forms in pictures or carvings, with a considerable
degree of taste and skill. And these works are found in the most
ancient caves, "the archaic caves," associated with the bones of the
animals _that ceased to exist in Europe at the time of the_
{p. 349}
###
PRE-GLACIAL MAN'S PICTURE OF THE MAMMOTH
{p. 350}
_Drift deposits_. Nay, more, a picture of a mammoth has been found
engraved _upon a piece of mammoth-tusk_. The engraving on page 349
represents this most curious work of art.
The man who carved this must have seen the creature it represented;
and, as the mammoth did not survive the Drift, that man must have
lived before or during the Drift. And he was no savage. Says Sir John
Lubbock:
"No representation, however rude, of any animal has yet been found in
any of the Danish shell-mounds, or the Stone-Age lake-villages. Even
on objects of the Bronze Age they are so rare that it is doubtful
whether a single well-authenticated instance could be produced."[1]
In the Dordogne caves the following spirited drawing was found,
representing a group of reindeer:
###
PRE-GLACIAL MAN'S PICTURE OF REINDEER.
Here it would appear as if the reindeer were fastened together by
lines or reins; if so, it implies that they were
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account