George Grant MacCurdy

“ The somewhat sudden appearance of a distinctly higher type in the Aurignacian epoch (Combe-Capelle) is a fact difficult to explain without recourse to the theory of an influx of new blood. Curiously enough, the appearance of this new race is signalized also by great cultural changes— the use of bone implements and the beginnings of sculpture, engraving, and painting. To this Aurignacian element, inherited by the succeeding Magdalenian races belongs much of the credit for the phenomenal art development of the upper paleolithic. ”

“ If hitherto they have seemed obscure, it has not been the fault of our ancestors who left their story upon each age in its turn, but is due rather to our slowness to discover the record and interpret it aright. I have also endeavored to show that in both discovery and interpretation the achievements of the past decade are not only highly creditable in themselves, but are also prophetic of a promising future. ”

“ The greatest width is 16 meters. It has a southern exposure, is dry and habitable. Font-de-Gaume was never a place of residence, as is indicated by the absence of floor deposits. About the only objects found there are a few broken gravers with edges dulled in executing the wall engravings, a few pieces of ochre and manganese and one handsome ochre pencil. Why should the artists make residence of a dark subterranean cavern, when by going a short distance they could have an ample shallow cave or rock-shelter facing the south and warmed and lighted by the sun? ”

“ This leaves the stone age, at first applied to the neolithic only, then divided into paleolithic and neolithic, and finally into eolithic, paleolithic, and neolithic. It is a case of the first being last and the last first in more senses than one, for during the past decade there have developed what may well be styled an eolithic school as well as a paleolithic school. Students of the neolithic on the other hand, while particularly active, must still await a more favorable moment for correlation, for crystallization of data. ”

“ The chamber to the left is 40 by 10 meters. The one on the right leads to the series of halls and corridors. At the close of the Quaternary a cave-in at the entrance had effectually sealed the cavern. The fauna is that of the cave bear.
The paintings and engravings are found in all parts of the cavern, especially in the first chamber to the left after entering. The beauty, size, and degree of preservation of these works of art are admirable. Some of the engravings are deeply cut; others are gently incised by the aid of a sharp point. ”

“ The contributions to our knowledge of the paleolithic during the decade in question may for convenience be grouped under three heads: (1) Those relating to finds in valley deposits; (2) cavern explorations, and (3) the discoveries of human skeletal remains. As examples of the first group, I have chosen the researches of Commont at Saint-Acheul (France) and of Szombathy, Hoernes, and Obermaier at Willendorf (Austria-Hungary) . ”

“ With the possible exception of a Tardenoisian flint point, there is nothing in this horizon to suggest the neolithic; no ceramics, no remains of domesticated animals, although the neolithic is well represented in the succeeding deposit. In respect to fauna and stratigraphy, it is Asylian. Two typical Asylian cultural elements—flat harpoons of stag horn and painted pebbles—are missing, however. Schmidt classes the industry as Asylo-Tardenoisian. The burial custom leans rather to the paleolithic. ”

“ The sterile layer one-half meter thick at the top of the floor deposits represents the accumulation since the close of the glacial period. If we allow 30,000 years for post-Würmian times we must allow as much more for the last glacial epoch. Thus to reach the Riss-Würm interglacial period and man's occupancy of Wildkirchli caverns would mean going back about 100,000 years. We have here an atypic late Mousterian, or perhaps lower Aurignacian, industry.
An interesting feature in the development of our knowledge of cavern life is that pertaining to paleolithic mural decorations. ”

“ According to Rutot, the neolithic is wholly superficial, never being found in situ in the brick earth. Whether the latter is entirely barren of industry remains to be determined. As it was deposited by the last flood waters of the Quaternary, to find middle or upper Magdalenian industry near its base should create no surprise. At the other end of the series the paleolithic stops short of the lower Quaternary, the industry of the latter being purely eolithic. ”

“ The fauna of the mammoth overran France in the Acheulian epoch, i.e., about the time that Elephas antiquus retreated toward the south. If these facts are kept in mind, the apparent mélange of arctic and tropical types need no longer present insuperable difficulties. It will be readily seen, also, that in the table (pl. 1) no attempt has been made to give either the horizontal or the vertical range of a given species. Each dominant species simply appears once and in one of its favorite horizons.
With man the case is different. ”

“ She is now bent on discovering the prehistoric worlds beneath her very feet. She has found that man's occupation of the earth has not only length and breadth, but also depth, and therefore admits of measurement in three dimensions instead of two. ”

“ Hauser very wisely delayed the removal of the human remains from the cavern of Le Moustier until after the arrival of a party of German anthropologists, including Professor Klaatsch, of Breslau, the party going direct from the German Anthropological Congress held at Frankfurt during the first week in August.
Hauser's discovery was made in the lower cave at Le Moustier, and includes not only an almost complete skull (pl. 14, figs, a, b) but also various parts of the skeleton of a youth of about 15 years. At this age, sex can not be determined from the bones alone. ”

“ The use of ochre and of shell ornaments is common to a number of paleolithic burials: Asylian of Mas d'Azil; Magdalenian of Cro-Magnon, Laugerie-Basse, Grimaldi, and Placard; and Solutréan of Brünn (Moravia) . The practice of burying the head alone seems to have been in vogue also at Gourdan, for there according to Piette one never finds any human bones except those of the cranium, lower jaw, and the first two or three cervical vertebræ. ”

“ The housing and transporting required by modern civilization have led to the discovery of the culture levels attained by our paleolithic forebears. At Saint-Acheul the deposits of the Somme Valley have been exploited since 1771 at least. They yield not only material for building purposes, but also sand for foundries and flint for road metal. The first discovery of a paleolithic industry at Saint-Acheul was made by Doctor Rigollot in 1854, following on and inspired by Boucher de Perthes's discoveries at Abbeville. ”

“ The first explorer, the original discoverer on a world scale, was primitive man. He had covered the earth before the Europeans of to-day set for themselves the highly interesting task of rediscovering it and him. ”

“ The science of prehistoric anthropology need have no fear of the satisfactory outcome of such a test at this time. I have been asked to be the census taker for the European field, and consider myself fortunate, not only in the field, but also in the period to be covered. ”

“ HUMAN REMAINS.
The decade has witnessed the discoveries of skeletal remains of man that have added much to our knowledge of the races inhabiting Europe during the Quaternary. Because of the stratigraphic position in which it was found and of its somatological characters, the human lower jaw discovered by Dr. Otto Schoetensack [22] on October 21, 1907, in a sandpit near the village of Mauer, 10 kilometers southeast of Heidelberg, ranks as the most important single specimen. Mauer lies in the valley of the Elsenz, a tributary of the Necker. ”

“ Beyond the loss of teeth, due evidently to old age, the skull is so nearly intact as to make possible the application of the usual craniometric procedure, thus leading to a more exact comparative study than has been possible, for example, in all previously discovered paleolithic human skulls dating from the same period, not excepting even Spy and Homo mousteriensis. ”

“ Rutot also finds in Belgium that a neolithic epoch, to which he has given the name "Flénusian," is characterized by a similar industry.
But eoliths were introduced here only to be retired from the stage in order that more space might be given to the doings of the paleolithic school. I can not dismiss them, however, without first referring to Verworn's [8] rule of the one-sided marginal working of a flake or chip. No single character is a sufficient basis for declaring that a given stone object is or is not an artifact. ”

“ In the Tellier section at Saint-Achuel, we find not only the eolithic, Strépyan, Chellean, and Acheulian I industries in regular section, but also Acheulian II, Mousterian, and Magdalenian in stratigraphic position, the only industries absent being the Aurignacian and Solutréan.
Fortunately for the science, other valley deposits supply the industries that are missing from Helin and Saint-Acheul. Among the paleolithic stations of lower Austria, those situated in the loess at Willendorf, left bank of the Danube, about 20 kilometers above Krems, are exceedingly productive. ”

“ Like the researches of Commont at Saint-Acheul, much time has been given by cavern explorers to regions and even stations already well known. As examples there may be cited the caverns of Grimaldi, Le Moustier (Dordogne) , and Altamira, Spain.
Rock-shelters and caves seem to have been employed as habitations before the close of the Acheulian epoch and continued to be so used thereafter throughout the paleolithic. A study of their floor deposits reveals a succession of culture levels corresponding to those found in valley deposits and classed as upper paleolithic. ”

“ These remains have been found practically at all levels save in the layer at the top, which has a thickness of one-half meter. Mousterian implements are found in the same horizons as the faunal remains. They are made of quartzite and flint ; also of cave-bear bone. The quartzites were picked up in the Weissbach Valley several hundred meters below and carried to the caverns, there to be worked into tools. Some of the better-formed implements are made of a greenish flint that must have been brought a long distance by paleolithic man. Both stone and bone implements are of crude workmanship. ”

“ The tendency in recent man is toward a four-cusp type for the third molar, if indeed there be a third molar. The breaking away of the crowns of four teeth on the left side tended to facilitate the study of the pulp cavities and the walls. This study reveals the fact that the dentition of Homo heidelhergensis represents a youthful stage in the dentition of the modern European. That is to say, in the ontogeny of the latter, a stage representing adult dental characters when the race was young is now reached at the age of from 9 to 14 years. ”

“ The two layers at the bottom were characterized by a so-called warm or tropical fauna—Elephas antiquus and Rhinoceros merckii. All the succeeding layers contain the fauna of the reindeer. The explorers were rewarded by finding human remains at three distinct levels, all three being in the reindeer deposits. Beginning at the bottom, a common sepulture with an adult female and youthful male skeleton was encountered at a depth of 8.5 meters and resting directly on the deposits with the fauna of Elephas antiquus. ”

“ The body is in profile, while the head is turned from the beholder. The posterior convexity at the base of each ear is indicated, as it was also in the bovidian of the upper panel. The head of a horse viewed from in front is seen just above the antelope. The front view of the head alone presents fewer difficulties than that of the entire animal, as is attested by engravings on a wand from the middle Magdalenian deposits of the rock-shelter of Mège (Dordogne) . ”

“ A very long interval of time separates us from the closing epoch (Magdalenian) of the paleolithic period. For we find on the borders of Lakes Constance and Geneva animal remains of the Magdalenian epoch in terraces that are 20 to 30 meters above the present level of these lakes. Magdalenian industry is found in Switzerland well within the area covered by the Würm glaciation. But such stations have not yet been found within that covered by the Bühl stage. ”

“ Some, again, persist in certain latitudes much longer than in others. Elephas antiquus, for example, and Rhinoceros merckii existed in France from the beginning of the Quaternary to the lower Acheulian epoch, having retreated from Belgium with the coming on of the Riss glaciation. Farther south, at Grimaldi, we find them contemporary with Mousterian man. Their successors, Elephas primigenius and Rhinoceros tichorhinus, appeared in Belgium as early as the Strépyan and persisted almost until the end of the Quaternary, as their remains have been found in the lower Flandrian deposits (ergeron) . ”

“ The race characters also are not so distinct as they would be at full maturity; but they point unmistakably to the type of Neandertal, Spy, and Krapina—the so-called Homo primigenius which now also becomes Homo mousteriensis. ”

“ Cursive wanting was developed still further during the Asylian epoch (fig. 18) , which is the connecting link between the paleolithic and neolithic periods. The transitional character of this epoch is revealed in both faunal and industrial remains. The fauna is composed entirely of species still living in temperate regions. Asylian culture is a heritage from the Magdalenian. ”

“ Bächler began his researches which led to the discovery of a pure Mousterian industry during the winter of 1903–4, and continued them during the two following winters. Winter is the best time to work, as the caverns are then dry, relatively warm, and free from visitors.
The deposits are about 5 meters thick and cover an area of several hundred square meters, so that the amount still to be excavated is much greater than that already done. About 99 per cent of the bones found are of the cave bear, the number of individuals represented by the finds to date being approximately 200. ”

“ Above and to the left is a hunter in the act of striking down a stag after having already killed one. The drawing is highly stylistic without obscuring the real meaning of the ensemble. The dead stag lies on his back with all four feet in the air. The group at the right is a combination of stylistic and realistic art, the figure of the bison being similar to figures of that animal in a number of French and Spanish caverns. ”

“ Every ten years our Government takes a census. This happens to be the year in which it is done. It is also good policy for a science, especially if it is a relatively new one, to take a periodical account of stock. ”