Beyond a doubt men now live in caves,
in large social groups, make clothing from the skins of animals,
have the use of fire, and greatly improve the quality of their
stone axes, scrapers, knives, and lance-heads. There is at last
some promise of the civilisation that is coming. In the soil of
the caverns in which man lived, especially in Southern France and
the Pyrenean region, we find the debris of a much larger and
fuller life. Even the fine bone needles with which primitive man
sewed his skin garments, probably with sinews for thread, survive
in scores. In other places we find the ashes of the fires round
which he squatted, often associated with the bones of the wild
horses, deer, etc., on which he lived.
But the most remarkable indication of progress in the "cave-man"
is his artistic skill. Exaggerated conclusions are sometimes
drawn from the statuettes, carvings, and drawings which we find
among the remains of Magdalenian life. Most of them are crude,
and have the limitations of a rustic or a child artist. There is
no perspective, no grouping. Animals are jumbled together, and
often left unfinished because the available space was not
measured.
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