CHAPTER III.

PRE-HISTORIC AND SAVAGE ART.

Traces of man’s inventive and decorative force in by-gone ages--Classification of pre-historic products--The old stone age--The new stone age--The bronze and iron ages-- Man’s first dwellings--Houses and temples--Lake-or pile-dwellings in their gradual development--Cranoges or wooden islands--Art in the western hemisphere--The stucco in the rock-hewn temple at Mitla in Mexico-- Difference between art-products in North, Central, and South America--Cuzco, near Lake Titicaca--Pottery as a reliable historical record--The wild and fantastic mode of ornamentation in America, and its causes 32