Ragnarok : the Age of Fire and Gravel eBook

Ignatius Donnelly
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 440 pages of information about Ragnarok .

Ragnarok : the Age of Fire and Gravel eBook

Ignatius Donnelly
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 440 pages of information about Ragnarok .

###

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

[1.  “Prehistoric Times,” p. 333.]

{p. 351}

domesticated.  In this picture they seem to have become entangled in their lines, and some have fallen to the ground.

And it does not follow from the presence of the reindeer that the climate was Lapland-like.  The ancestors of all our so-called Arctic animals must have lived during the mild climate of the Tertiary Age; and those only survived after the Drift, in the north, that were capable of accommodating themselves to the cold; the rest perished or moved southwardly.

Another group of animals was found, engraved on a piece of the palm of a reindeer’s horn, as follows: 

###

PRE-GLACIAL MAN’S PICTURE OF THE HORSE.

Here the man stands alongside the horse’s head—­a very natural position if the horse was domesticated, a very improbable one if he was not.

Pieces of pottery have also been found accompanying these palæolithic remains of man.

The oldest evidence of the existence of man is probably the fragment of a cut rib from the Pliocenes of Tuscany, preserved in the museum at Florence; it was associated with flint-flakes and a piece of rude pottery.[1]

But the art-capacity of these people was not limited to the drawing of animals; they also carved figures out

[1.  Dawkins’s “Early Man in Britain,” p. 91.]

{p. 352}

of hard substances.  The following engraving represents a poniard cut from a reindeer’s horn.

###

A SPECIMEN OF PRE-GLACIAL CARVING.

Sir John Lubbock says: 

“The artist bas ingeniously adapted the position of the animal to the necessities of the case.  The horns are thrown back on the neck, the fore-legs are doubled up under the belly, and the hind-legs are stretched out along the blade."[1]

These things seem to indicate quite an advanced condition; the people who made them manufactured pottery, possessed. domesticated animals, and were able to engrave and carve images of living objects.  It is difficult to believe that they could have carved and engraved these hard substances without metallic gravers or tools of some kind.

The reader will see, on page 130, ante, a representation of a sienite plummet found thirty feet below the surface, in a well, in the San Joaquin Valley, California, which Professor Foster pronounces to be—­

“A finer exhibition of the lapidary’s skill than has yet been furnished by the Stone Age of either continent. “[2]

[1.  “Prehistoric Times,” p. 335.

2.  Foster’s “Prehistoric Races of the United States,” p. 56.]

{p. 353}

The following picture represents a curious image carved out of black marble, about twice as large as the cut, found near Marlboro, Stark County, Ohio, by some workmen, while digging a well, at a depth of twelve feet below the surface.  The ground above it had never been disturbed.  It was imbedded in sand and gravel.  The black or variegated marble out of which this image is carved has not been found in place in Ohio.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Ragnarok : the Age of Fire and Gravel from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.