Note 835 — Chapter IV · (continued 2)

Ib., pp. 218-34. ‘General resemblance of ornamental patterns.’ says Pitt-Rivers (ib., p. 216), ‘is not enough to prove that they were copied from one another ... when, however, the points of resemblance are very minute, and the distribution limited and continuous, it may be fairly argued that the different kinds of earthworks in which they are found, in the same district, were of the same period’. Mr. Andrew Lang’s remarks on decorative motives (Custom and Myth, 1885, pp. 286-9) contain much, but not the whole truth. ‘The conviction becomes irresistible,’ he writes, ‘that all these objects, in shape, in purpose, in character of decoration, are the same, because the mind and the materials of men, in their early stages of civilisation especially, are the same everywhere. You might introduce old Greek bits of clay-work, figures or vases, into a Peruvian collection, or might foist Mexican objects among the clay treasures of Hissarlik, and the wisest archaeologist would be deceived.’ A socketed celt, almost identical in form with some Italian celts and ornamented with the chevron, has been found in Chili (J. Evans, Anc. Bronze Implements, p. 145).