EARLY MAN'S MOST SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS ARE PAINTING AND SCULPTURE. FROM WHAT WE
know of the prehistoric period in Europe, a sense of form is present even in his unpolished stone
tools and bone implements. We have only the vestiges of whatever rude dwellings he may have had, and
not even pottery can be traced back that far. It may be that song and dance antedate art, but art alone
has survived. Prehistoric man's most spectacular accomplishments, the Ice Age pictures of large animals
of the hunt, drawn or painted on the bare rock surfaces of caves, have been preserved, in some cases
remarkably well. These paintings of the so-called Franco-Cantabrian style, in the caves of southwestern
France and the Cantabrian mountains of northern Spain, are masterpieces of prehistoric art.

Prehistory is the period before the development of the art of writing. This means roughly about
3000 B.C. for Egypt and Sumer, somewhat later in China, and only a few centuries before the Christian
era for most of the European continent.

The historic period of some five millennia is very short compared to the much longer Old Stone
Age, or Paleolithic period. During the greater part of the Old Stone Age, Europe is believed to have

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