Building and Architecture.-- The first step toward housing himself was taken when the Neanderthal man drove the wild beasts out of the caves and took possession for himself. Probably man never really lived in the cave. From °schematic drawings in lines and dots* on the walls of the cavern of Font-de-Gaume it is assumed that c. a.c. 30000 to a.c. 25000 (huts and shelters built of logs and covered with hides* were grouped around ((or within the entrances of the grottos and caverns.* As late as the Danish Middens, c. B.C. 9000 and the lake-dwellirs, the huts without chimneys and with walls of wattle and daub were sorry enough places. The invention, in the Euphrates Valley before a.c. 6000, of the brick, a piece of clay, sun-dried and later (about s.c. 5000 burnt, easily handled, was epoch-making. Cut-stone, used where clay is scarce, is brick only of lar ger size. This seemingly simple invention revo lutionized man's whole mode of living. It no longer became necessary to rebuild afttr every storm or season. The durability of building ma terial encouraged him to take a greater pride in the appearance and conditions of the home. It gave to the home a new and richer meaning.
There had always been a community life. Groups of huts resembling villages were built by the lake-dwellers and long before. Better houses, impressive temples and palaces inspired men to live a better sort of community life. Old manners and customs underwent a refine ment that made them almost new. New politi cal orders appeared. The cities and towns of increasing pretentiousness which sprang up in Egypt and Babylonia and elsewhere, the direct product of the invention of brick and the use of stone for building, became the cradle of real civilization.
The architect is largely responsible for the great strides toward civilization made between B.c. 4000 and a.c. 3030. The engineering, archi tectural and artistic skill lavished upon temples and tombs and public buildings during this pe riod and the centuries immediately following gave to mankind a new scale of values. The architect represents a great passion to improve life and living conditions. The invention of the arch before lie. 3000, besides malting lighter buildings pointed the way to the. bridging of streams, making road building possible. The use of heavy blocks of stone taught men how to work together as a unit, giving rise to a new sense of human solidarity.
Art.— The birth of the artistic sense added another powerful influence to the process of civilization. As early as c. ac. 25000 interesting examples of art are met with — crude line drawings on reindeer horn, human statuettes sculptured in ivory and soapstone, like those found in the Grottes de Grimaldi. The men of Aurignacian and Magdalenian times covered the walls of the caves with black and colored line drawings and pictures done elaborately in colors. The earliest instance of the use of color is perhaps the crude outline of a mammoth in red ochre on the wall of the cavern of Pindal. and what seems to be the finest example is the picture of a bison on the ceiling of the cave of Altamira c. a.c. 16000. Whether this art arose
out of man's desire to beautify the caves where he and his fellows congregated, or whether it had something of a religious or magical origin and purpose, or whether it was the desire of man to describe and record what he saw, there is perhaps no knowing. This prehistoric art would indicate that man was feeling his way toward something other than a purely material and selfish interest in life. The impressive bas reliefs descriptive of military exploits, indus trial activities, religious and domestic relations which with increasing beauty adorn the cities of the Euphrates from tic. 6000 and on, must have widened man's conception of things, enlarged his thoughts and deepened his interest in hu man affairs. The wonderful sculpture which filled the Grecian world before and after ac. 500 must have done much to awaken in the peo ple a love of the beautiful and a distaste for whatsoever was ugly. Perhaps most important of all, this artistic impulse cradled the written word.
Music.— Without art in its broadest sense man's divergence from the animal would have been less pronounced. In his contemplation of actual and possible beauty man led to bate whatsoever is low and mean. Music helps lift man to this level of higher appreciation and refinement of the feelings.
If a whistle may be classified as a musical in strument then music may be said to date from c. a.c. 20000. Whistles of that period which still give forth some sound, made from the phalanges of the reindeer, have been found in the caves of Perigord and elsewhere. M. Joly says that there have been found in the caves of the Pyre nees, of the same period, tubes made of the bones of birds, which may have formed part of a flute like that which tradition ascribes to the god Pan. On a terra-cotta plaque, found in the lower strata at Nippur, c. ac. 4000, is pictured a shepherd playing a lute. A rock-cut sculp ture found at Tel-lo, c. s.c. 3000, shows men with cymbals and pipes and one playing a harp of very primitive construction, and is suggestive of Egypt rather than Babylonia. What part this primitive music played in the life of the ancient peoples it is hardly possible to guess. At a mute early time it was used to celebrate notable events and entertain kings and princes. It also became an important part of religious ritual. In Greece, in the age of the Tyrants, music became dominant feature, greatly in fluencing its literature and national and com munity life. It was one of the chief cultural agencies and gave rise to institutions which have all through the centuries since played no small part in awakening and directing and shaping the thoughts and emotions of the people. The festival chorus, c. ac. 500, so important in Gre cian life, developed into the drama and the place where the chorus, dressed in goat skins and faces covered with masks, sang the song stories became the theatre.