CENTRAL EUROPE AND THE /EGEAN 189

that of bull and dog ; the latter are treated in a free and
vigorous naturalistic spirit.1

It was pure art that distinguished these South
Russians. They were not an industrial or scientific
people, and had made little progress in material civilisa-
tion.2 They lived in rectangular clay huts, strengthened
perhaps at the sides by palings and hurdles, and covered
with a roof of wood and clay. Such at least were their
houses of the dead, and they were probably modelled
on those of the living.' They cremated their dead, and
placed the ashes in an urn within a clay hut, but Pro-
fessor von Stern believes that they had only just passed
out of the stage of burial interments.' The sole trace
of metal found among all the graves was one pure copper
axe, and they had not made much progress even in
the shaping of their stone implements and weapons.5
Artistic, too, as was their pottery, they had never learnt
the use of the potter's wheel.6

What is the relation of this Neolithic civilisation to
the early art of the ^Egean ? There are three possible
theories. The first, which is supported by Dr. Wosinsky,7
is that the northern culture is derived from the Mgean.
In this case we must imagine that Neolithic Austria or
Russia means chronologically a very different thing
from Neolithic Crete. There is no doubt that Crete and
the islands of the ^Egean had not reached during their
Neolithic period anything like the same state of artistic
development that we find in South Russia or Galicia.

1 Von Stern, p. 66. * Ibid. p. 71.

3 Ibid. pp. 53-4. No human habitations have been found.

* Ibid. pp. 71-2. The offerings placed in the grave are so
numerous that it is probable that the feeling that the dead
needed them was still a living belief. Besides this, Chwoiko has
found near Kief pottery of a similar type often with half-bunil
skeletons, and in from 2 to 3 per cent, of the graves with unburnt
skeletons.

6 Ibid. p. 68. « Ibid. p. 71.

7 I.K. 1904, i. pp. 157-70.