In Gaul, however, there is fair evidence of continuity between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic periods, and this continuity must obviously have existed somewhere.

Still in spite of the indications of continuity, the civilisation of primitive man in Gaul presents one aspect that is without any analogues in the life of the palaeolithic men of the River Drift period, or in that of man of the New Stone Age.

The feature in question is the remarkable artistic skill shown by the cave men of the Dordogne district.

Some of the drawings and carvings of these men reveal a sense of form which would have done credit to men of a far later age.

A feature such as this, whatever may have been its object, whether it arose from an effort by means of 'sympathetic magic' to catch animals, as M.
Salomon Reinach suggests, or to the mere artistic impulse, is a standing reminder to us of the scantiness of our data for estimating the lines of man's religious and other development in the vast epochs of prehistoric time.
We know that from the life of hunting man passed into the pastoral stage, having learned to tame animals.