The absence of nearly every trace of imitative art in the prehistoric remains of Britain has already been noted. It made a strong impression on my mind at an early stage of my archæological researches; for this characteristic of European art extends over a period of greatly prolonged duration, marked by the advent and disappearance of races, dissimilar alike in physical and mental characteristics. We have the laboriously finished implements of neolithic art, the pottery of at least two distinct races seemingly prior to the Celts, and then the graceful artistic productions of the Bronze period, but still only the rarest traces of any effort at imitation. Long before the imitative arts of the American continent were known to me otherwise than from description, I remarked, of the archaic art of the first British metallurgists: “The ornamentation consists, almost without exception, only of improvements on the accidents of manufacture. The incised decorations of the pottery appear, in many cases, to have been produced simply by passing twisted cords round the soft clay. More complicated designs, most frequently consisting of chevron, saltire, or herring-bone patterns, where they are not merely the results of a combination of such lines, have been suggested, as I conceive, by the few and half-accidental patterns of the industrious female knitter. In no single case is any attempt made at the imitation of a leaf or flower, of animals, or any other simple objects.”[83] At the date of those remarks the art of Europe’s Palæolithic era was unknown; but with the arts of other primitive races, and especially those of the American continent, in view, I then added: “It is curious, indeed, and noteworthy, to find how entirely every trace of imitative art is absent in British archaic relics; for it is by no means an invariable characteristic of primitive arts.” Dr. Hoffman, when commenting on aboriginal American art among the Indians of California, adds: “I have not met with any attempts at objective drawings or etchings which may be attributed to the Tshuma Indians, who were the former occupants of the island;[84] but ornamentations upon shells and bone beads, soap-stone pipes, shell pendants, and other ornaments, seem to consist entirely of straight or zigzag lines, cross-lines, circles,” etc. The earliest examples of native metallurgy in Britain are to be found in the works of the primitive goldsmith; but the same conventional ornamentation which occurs on early pottery, is characteristic of the beautiful personal ornaments of gold belonging, for the most part, to the first period of working in metals. It is not till a late stage of the European Bronze period that imitative art reappears, and zoomorphic decorations become common.