They wear undressed skins and furs, and paint or tattoo their faces. They make twisted ropes (probably of skin) which they fix as a halter round the head and jaw of the wild horse, as shown by their own carvings (Figs. 8 and 9). Probably they ride him. They certainly eat him. At Solutré, near Mâcon, the bones of no less than a hundred thousand horses were found piled up as a sort of kitchen-midden round a camp of Palæolithic men! They have the art of making fire, and have a wonderful artistic skill in carving and drawing on bone and ivory and on stones, and in painting on the walls of their caves, the animals which surround them and are hunted by them (Fig. 71). They make great numbers of carved harpoons or toothed spear-heads (Fig. 68) from bone, and also needles for sewing skins; whilst from flint they chip spear-heads, knives, hand-hatchets, and saws. They decorate their carvings with spirals, lozenges, and circles cut in low relief (Fig. 69). But their truly astonishing skill and mental development is shown in their carvings and engravings of animals and fish (Fig. 70), which are executed either on bones or stones, or on pieces of the ivory of the mammoth. Besides the reindeer, horses, goats, saiga antelope, rhinoceros, mammoth, and seal, their carvings include statuettes and drawings of men and women (Fig. 7). [Illustration: FIG. 68.—_A._ Perforated harpoon of the transition period (Azilian or Red Deer period), between Palæolithic and Neolithic, made from antler of red deer, found in quantity in the upper layers of deposit in the cavern of the Mas d’Azil (Ariège). _B_ and _C_. Imperforate harpoons or lance heads made from reindeer antler of the Magdalenian period (Reindeer epoch). _B_ from Bruniquel Cave (Tarn-et-Garonne). _C_ from a cavern in the Hautes Pyrenées. Same size as the objects.] At the best period some of these carvings show a mastery of the material, a directness and a simplicity and beauty of essential line, together with true observation of characteristic form, which separate these works from those of the ordinary savage of modern times, and have caused living artists of authority to declare that these craftsmen had those definite gifts which entitle them to be recognised as brother artists—an assurance which confirms my own impression based on a long study of large series of the actual specimens. The best works of their later period (for their skill took time to develop, and follows the laws of growth of all art) represent animals, such as deer, in movement and often turning round or foreshortened (Fig. 70); some of their carvings of horses’ heads are worthy of the Parthenon (Fig. 9). On the other hand, as is often observed in primitive art, their representations of the human face and figure are very inferior, and tend to caricature. [Illustration: FIG. 69.—A piece of mammoth ivory carved with spirals and scrolls from the cave of Arudy (Hautes Pyrenées). Same size as the object.]