The Palæolithic Drawing of a Horse from Sherborne, Dorset

Abstract

IN entitling his account of this object “On an apparently Palæolithic Engraving on a Bone from Dorset” (my italics) Sir Arthur Smith Woodward displayed his habitual caution, and it is with great regret that I now find myself obliged to differ from one for whose judgment I have so great a respect. For I still believe the Sherborne drawing to be a forgery and a clumsy one at that. It was perpetrated as a practical joke, such as delight the heart of boys of fifteen. How far the finders of the bone were involved in the affair there is nothing to show, one or other of them may have been innocent of it. But that some of the boys in the school were not quite so ignorant as Mr. Araldo Cortesi professes himself to be is shown by the fact that they were familiar with “Early Man in Britain” and the illustration of the Creswell Crag horse given there by Sir W. Boyd Dawkins.