ABSTRACT
Period, on the walls of caves and on implements of horn, bone, or mammoth-tusk, figures with a conventional meaning and mysterious lines are painted or incised. These writings, which have more or less resemblance to each other, are common to the whole of the Neolithic races, and are found from Scandinavia to Africa and from Asia Minor to Iberia. The most ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and Chaldrean cuneiform signs are derived from still more ancient prototypes. A civilization as complete and as advanced as that of the Cretans -·with its highly developed palace administration, its active trade, the hymns which were sung to sacred music and the epics illustrated by the works of art-cannot have been ignorant of the means of propagating thought in space and in time.
