MEN OF THE OLD STONE AGE

THEIR ENVIRONMENT, LIFE AND ART

HITCHCOCK LECTURES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, 1914

Pl. I. Neanderthal man at the station of Le Moustier, overlooking the valley of the Vézère, Dordogne. Drawing by Charles R. Knight, under the direction of the author.

MEN OF
THE OLD STONE AGE

THEIR ENVIRONMENT, LIFE
AND ART

BY
HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN
SC.D. PRINCETON, HON. LL.D. TRINITY, PRINCETON, COLUMBIA, HON. D.SC. CAMBRIDGE
HON. PH.D. CHRISTIANIA
RESEARCH PROFESSOR OF ZOOLOGY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
VERTEBRATE PALÆONTOLOGIST U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, CURATOR EMERITUS OF VERTEBRATE
PALÆONTOLOGY IN THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

ILLUSTRATIONS BY
UPPER PALÆOLITHIC ARTISTS
AND
CHARLES R. KNIGHT, ERWIN S. CHRISTMAN
AND OTHERS

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1915

Copyright, 1915, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Published November, 1915

DEDICATED
TO

MY DISTINGUISHED GUIDES THROUGH THE UPPER
PALÆOLITHIC CAVERNS OF
THE PYRENEES, DORDOGNE, AND THE CANTABRIAN MOUNTAINS OF SPAIN

ÉMILE CARTAILHAC
HENRI BREUIL
HUGO OBERMAIER

PREFACE

This volume is the outcome of an ever-memorable tour through the country of the men of the Old Stone Age, guided by three of the distinguished archæologists of France, to whom the work is gratefully dedicated. This Palæolithic tour[A] of three weeks, accompanied as it was by a constant flow of conversation and discussion, made a very profound impression, namely, of the very early evolution of the spirit of man, of the close relation between early human environment and industry and the development of mind, of the remote antiquity of the human powers of observation, of discovery, and of invention. It appears that men with faculties and powers like our own, but in the infancy of education and tradition, were living in this region of Europe at least 25,000 years ago. Back of these intelligent races were others, also of eastern origin but in earlier stages of mental development, all pointing to the very remote ancestry of man from earlier mental and physical stages.

Another great impression from this region is that it is the oldest centre of human habitation of which we have a complete, unbroken record of continuous residence from a period as remote as 100,000 years corresponding with the dawn of human culture, to the hamlets of the modern peasant of France of A. D. 1915. In contrast, Egyptian, Ægean, and Mesopotamian civilizations appear as of yesterday.

The history of this region and its people has been developed chiefly through the genius of French archæologists, beginning with Boucher de Perthes. The more recent discoveries, which have come in rapid and almost bewildering succession since the foundation of the Institut de Paléontologie humaine, have been treated in a number of works recently published by some of the experienced archæologists of England, France, and Germany. I refer especially to the Prehistoric Times of Lord Avebury, to the Ancient Hunters of Professor Sollas, to Der Mensch der Vorzeit of Professor Obermaier, and to Die diluviale Vorzeit Deutschlands of Doctor R. R. Schmidt. Thus, on receiving the invitation from President Wheeler to lecture upon this subject before the University of California, I hesitated from the feeling that it would be difficult to say anything which had not been already as well or better said. On further reflection, however, I accepted the invitation with the purpose of attempting to give this great subject a more strictly historical or chronological treatment than it had previously received within the limits of a popular work in our own language, also to connect the environment, the animal and human life, and the art.

This element of the time in which the various events occurred can only be drawn from a great variety of sources, from the simultaneous consideration of the geography, climate, plants and animals, the mental and bodily development of the various races, and the industries and arts which reflect the relations between the mind and the environment. In more technical terms, I have undertaken in these lectures to make a synthesis of the results of geology, palæontology, anthropology, and archæology, a correlation of environmental and of human events in the European Ice Age. Such a synthesis was begun many years ago in the preparation of my Age of Mammals, but could not be completed until I had gone over the territory myself.

The attempt to place this long chapter of prehistory on a historical basis has many dangers, of which I am fully aware. After weighing the evidence presented by the eminent authorities in these various branches of science, I have presented my conclusions in very definite and positive form rather than in vague or general terms, believing that a positive statement has at least the merit of being positively supported or rebutted by fresh evidence. For example, I have placed the famous Piltdown man, Eoanthropus, in a comparatively recent stage of geologic time, an entirely opposite conclusion to that reached by Doctor A. Smith Woodward, who has taken a leading part in the discovery of this famous race and has concurred with other British geologists in placing it in early Pleistocene times. The difference between early and late Pleistocene times is not a matter of thousands but of hundreds of thousands of years; if so advanced a stage as the Piltdown man should definitely occur in the early Pleistocene, we may well expect to discover man in the Pliocene; on the contrary, in my opinion even in late Pliocene times man had only reached a stage similar to the Pithecanthropus, or prehuman Trinil race of Java; in other words, according to my view, man as such chiefly evolved during the half million years of the Pleistocene Epoch and not during the Pliocene.

This question is closely related to that of the antiquity of the oldest implements shaped by the human hand. Here again I have adopted an opinion opposed by some of the highest authorities, but supported by others, namely, that the earliest of these undoubted handiworks occur relatively late in the Pleistocene, namely, about 125,000 years ago. Since the Piltdown man was found in association with such implements, it is at once seen that the two questions hang together.

This work represents the co-operation of many specialists on a single, very complex problem. I am not in any sense an archæologist, and in this important and highly technical field I have relied chiefly upon the work of Hugo Obermaier and of Déchelette in the Lower Palæolithic, and of Henri Breuil in the Upper Palæolithic. Through the courtesy of Doctor Obermaier I had the privilege of watching the exploration of the wonderful grotto of Castillo, in northern Spain, which affords a unique and almost complete sequence of the industries of the entire Old Stone Age. This visit and that to the cavern of Altamira, with its wonderful frescoed ceiling, were in themselves a liberal education in the prehistory of man. With the Abbé Breuil I visited all the old camping stations of Upper Palæolithic times in Dordogne and noted with wonder and admiration his detection of all the fine gradations of invention which separate the flint-makers of that period. With Professor Cartailhac I enjoyed a broad survey of the Lower and Upper Palæolithic stations and caverns of the Pyrenees region and took note of his learned and spirited comments. Here also we had the privilege of being with the party who entered for the first time the cavern of Tuc d'Audoubert, with the Comte de Bégouen and his sons.

In the American Museum I have been greatly aided by Mr. Nels C. Nelson, who has reviewed all the archæological notes and greatly assisted me in the classification of the flint and bone implements which is adopted in this volume.

In the study of the divisions, duration, and fluctuations of climate during the Old Stone Age I have been assisted chiefly by Doctor Chester A. Reeds, a geologist of the American Museum, who devoted two months to bringing together in a comprehensive and intelligible form the results of the great researches of Albrecht Penck and Eduard Brückner embraced in the three-volume work, Die Alpen im Eiszeitalter. The temperatures and snow-levels of the Glacial Epoch, which is contemporaneous with the Old Stone Age, together with the successive phases of mammalian life which they conditioned, afford the firm basis of our chronology; that is, we must reckon the grand divisions of past time in terms of Glacial and Interglacial Stages; the subdivisions are recorded in terms of the human invention and progress of the flint industry. I have also had frequent recourse to The Great Ice Age and the more recent Antiquity of Man in Europe of James Geikie, the founder of the modern theory of the multiple Ice Age in Europe.

It is a unique pleasure to express my indebtedness to the Upper Palæolithic artists of the now extinct Crô-Magnon race, from whose work I have sought to portray so far as possible the mammalian and human life of the Old Stone Age. While we owe the discovery and early interpretation of this art to a generation of archæologists, it has remained for the Abbé Breuil not only to reproduce the art with remarkable fidelity but to firmly establish a chronology of the stages of art development. These results are brilliantly set forth in a superb series of volumes published by the Institut de Paléontologie humaine on the foundation of the Prince of Monaco; in fact, the memoirs on the art and industry of Grimaldi, Font-de-Gaume, Altamira, La Pasiega, and the Cantabrian caves of Spain (Les Cavernes de la Région Cantabrique), representing the combined labors of Capitan, Cartailhac, Verneau, Boule, Obermaier, and Breuil, mark a new epoch in the prehistory of man in Europe. There never has been a more fortunate union of genius, opportunity, and princely support.

In the collection of materials and illustrations from the vast number of original papers and memoirs consulted in the preparation of this volume, as well as in the verification of the text and proofs, I have been constantly aided by one of my research assistants, Miss Christina D. Matthew, who has greatly facilitated the work. I am indebted also to Miss Mabel R. Percy for the preparation and final revision of the manuscript. From the bibliography prepared by Miss Jannette M. Lucas, the reader may find the original authority for every statement which does not rest on my own observation or reflection.

Interest in human evolution centres chiefly in the skull and in the brain. The slope of the forehead and the other angles, which are so important in forming an estimate of the brain capacity, may be directly compared throughout this volume, because the profile or side view of every skull figured is placed in exactly the same relative position, namely, on the lines established by the anatomists of the Frankfort Convention to conform to the natural pose of the head on the living body.

In anatomy I have especially profited by the co-operation of my former student and present university colleague Professor J. Howard McGregor, of Columbia, who has shown great anatomical as well as artistic skill in the restoration of the heads of the four races of Trinil, Piltdown, Neanderthal, and Crô-Magnon. The new reconstruction of the Piltdown head is with the aid of casts sent to me by my friend Doctor A. Smith Woodward, of the British Museum of Natural History. The problem of reconstruction of the Piltdown skull has, through the differences of interpretation by Smith Woodward, Elliot Smith, and Arthur Keith, become one of the causes célèbres of anthropology. On the placing of the fragments of the skull and jaws, which have few points of contact, depends the all-important question of the size of the brain and the character of the profile of the face and jaws. In Professor McGregor's reconstruction different methods have been used from those employed by the British anatomists, and advantage has been taken of an observation of Mr. A. E. Anderson that the single canine tooth belongs in the upper and not in the lower jaw. In these models, and in all the restorations of men by Charles R. Knight under my direction, the controlling principle has been to make the restoration as human as the anatomical evidence will admit. This principle is based upon the theory for which I believe very strong grounds may be adduced, that all these races represent stages of advancing and progressive development; it has seemed to me, therefore, that in our restorations we should indicate as much alertness, intelligence, and upward tendency as possible. Such progressive expression may, in fact, be observed in the faces of the higher anthropoid apes, such as the chimpanzees and orangs, when in process of education. No doubt, our ancestors of the early Stone Age were brutal in many respects, but the representations which have been made chiefly by French and German artists of men with strong gorilla or chimpanzee characteristics are, I believe, unwarranted by the anatomical remains and are contrary to the conception which we must form of beings in the scale of rapidly ascending intelligence.

Henry Fairfield Osborn.

American Museum of Natural History
June 21, 1915.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

Map of Palæolithic Tour [folded at the end of the volume]

MEN OF THE OLD STONE AGE

INTRODUCTION

GREEK CONCEPTIONS OF MAN'S ORIGIN—RISE OF ANTHROPOLOGY, OF ARCHÆOLOGY, OF THE GEOLOGIC HISTORY OF MAN—TIME DIVISIONS OF THE GLACIAL EPOCH—GEOGRAPHIC, CLIMATIC, AND LIFE PERIODS OF THE OLD STONE AGE

The anticipation of nature by Lucretius[B] in his philosophical poem, De Rerum Natura, accords in a broad and remarkable way with our present knowledge of the prehistory of man:

"Things throughout proceed
In firm, undevious order, and maintain,
To nature true, their fixt generic stamp.
Yet man's first sons, as o'er the fields they trod,
Reared from the hardy earth, were hardier far;
Strong built with ampler bones, with muscles nerved
Broad and substantial; to the power of heat,
Of cold, of varying viands, and disease,
Each hour superior; the wild lives of beasts
Leading, while many a lustre o'er them rolled.
Nor crooked plough-share knew they, nor to drive,
Deep through the soil, the rich-returning spade;
Nor how the tender seedling to re-plant,
Nor from the fruit-tree prune the withered branch.
········
"Nor knew they yet the crackling blaze t'excite,
Or clothe their limbs with furs, or savage hides.
But groves concealed them, woods, and hollow hills;
And, when rude rains, or bitter blasts o'erpowered,
Low bushy shrubs their squalid members wrapped.
········
"And in their keen rapidity of hand
And foot confiding, oft the savage train
With missile stones they hunted, or the force
Of clubs enormous; many a tribe they felled,
Yet some in caves shunned, cautious; where, at night,
Thronged they, like bristly swine; their naked limbs
With herbs and leaves entwining. Nought of fear
Urged them to quit the darkness, and recall,
With clamorous cries, the sunshine and the day:
But sound they sunk in deep, oblivious sleep,
Till o'er the mountains blushed the roseate dawn.
········
"This ne'er distressed them, but the fear alone
Some ruthless monster might their dreams molest,
The foamy boar, or lion, from their caves
Drive them aghast beneath the midnight shade,
And seize their leaf-wrought couches for themselves.
········
"Yet then scarce more of mortal race than now
Left the sweet lustre of the liquid day.
Some doubtless, oft the prowling monsters gaunt
Grasped in their jaws, abrupt; whence, through the groves,
The woods, the mountains, they vociferous groaned,
Destined thus living to a living tomb.
········
"Yet when, at length, rude huts they first devised,
And fires, and garments; and, in union sweet,
Man wedded woman, the pure joys indulged
Of chaste connubial love, and children rose,
The rough barbarians softened. The warm hearth
Their frames so melted they no more could bear,
As erst, th' uncovered skies; the nuptial bed
Broke their wild vigor, and the fond caress
Of prattling children from the bosom chased
Their stern ferocious manners."[C]

This is a picture of many phases in the life of primitive man: his powerful frame, his ignorance of agriculture, his dependence on the fruits and animal products of the earth, his discovery of fire and of clothing, his chase of wild beasts with clubs and missile stones, his repair to caverns, his contests with the lion and the boar, his invention of rude huts and dwellings, the softening of his nature through the sweet influence of family life and of children, all these are veritable stages in our prehistoric development. The influence of Greek thought is also reflected in the Satires of Horace,[D] and the Greek conception of the natural history of man, voiced by Æschylus[E] as early as the fifth century B. C., prevailed widely before the Christian era, when it gradually gave way to the Mosaic conception of special creation, which spread all over western Europe.

Rise of Modern Anthropology

As the idea of the natural history of man again arose, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it came not so much from previous sources as from the dawning science of comparative anatomy. From the year 1597, when a Portuguese sailor's account of an animal resembling the chimpanzee was embodied in Filippo Pigafetta's Description of the Kingdom of the Congo, the many points of likeness between the anthropoid apes and man were treated both in satire and caricature and in serious anatomical comparison as evidence of kinship.

The first French evolutionist, Buffon,[F] observed in 1749: "The first truth that makes itself apparent on serious study of nature is one that man may perhaps find humiliating; it is this—that he, too, must take his place in the ranks of animals, being, as he is, an animal in every material point." Buffon's convictions were held in check by clerical and official influences, yet from his study of the orang in 1766 we can entertain no doubt of his belief that men and apes are descended from common ancestors.

The second French evolutionist, Lamarck,[G] in 1809 boldly proclaimed the descent of man from the anthropoid apes, pointing out their close anatomical resemblances combined with inferiority both in bodily and mental capacity. In the evolution of man Lamarck perceived the great importance of the erect position, which is only occasionally assumed by the apes; also that children pass gradually from the quadrumanous to the upright position, and thus repeat the history of their ancestors. Man's origin is traced as follows: A race of quadrumanous apes gradually acquires the upright position in walking, with a corresponding modification of the limbs, and of the relation of the head and face to the back-bone. Such a race, having mastered all the other animals, spreads out over the world. It checks the increase of the races nearest itself and, spreading in all directions, begins to lead a social life, develops the power of speech and the communication of ideas. It develops also new requirements, one after another, which lead to industrial pursuits and to the gradual perfection of its powers. Eventually this pre-eminent race, having acquired absolute supremacy, comes to be widely different from even the most perfect of the lower animals.

The period following the latest publication of Lamarck's[(1)][H] remarkable speculations in the year 1822, was distinguished by the earliest discoveries of the industry of the caveman in southern France in 1828, and in Belgium, near Liége, in 1833; discoveries which afforded the first scientific proof of the geologic antiquity of man and laid the foundations of the science of archæology.

The earliest recognition of an entirely extinct race of men was that which was called the 'Neanderthal,' found, in 1856, near Düsseldorf, and immediately recognized by Schaaffhausen[(2)] as a primitive race of low cerebral development and of uncommon bodily strength.

Darwin in the Origin of Species,[(3)] which appeared in 1858, did not discuss the question of human descent, but indicated the belief that light would be thrown by his theory on the origin of man and his history.

It appears that Lamarck's doctrine in the Philosophie Zoologique (1809)[(4)] made a profound impression on the mind of Lyell, who was the first to treat the descent of man in a broad way from the standpoint of comparative anatomy and of geologic age. In his great work of 1863, The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, Lyell cited Huxley's estimate of the Neanderthal skull as more primitive than that of the Australian but of surprisingly large cranial capacity. He concludes with the notable statement: "The direct bearing of the ape-like character of the Neanderthal skull on Lamarck's doctrine of progressive development and transmutation ... consists in this, that the newly observed deviation from a normal standard of human structure is not in a casual or random direction, but just what might have been anticipated if the laws of variation were such as the transmutationists require. For if we conceive the cranium to be very ancient, it exemplifies a less advanced stage of progressive development and improvement."[(5)]

Lyell followed this by an exhaustive review of all the then existing evidence in favor of the great geological age of man, considering the 'river-drift,' the 'loess,' and the loam deposits, and the relations of man to the divisions of the Glacial Epoch. Referring to what is now known as the Lower Palæolithic of St. Acheul and the Upper Palæolithic of Aurignac, he says that they were doubtless separated by a vast interval of time, when we consider that the flint implements of St. Acheul belong either to the Post-Pliocene or early Pleistocene time, or the 'older drift.'

It is singular that in the Descent of Man, published in 1871,[(6)] eight years after the appearance of Lyell's great work, Charles Darwin made only passing mention of the Neanderthal race, as follows: "Nevertheless, it must be admitted that some skulls of very high antiquity, such as the famous one at Neanderthal, are well-developed and capacious." It was the relatively large brain capacity which turned Darwin's attention away from a type which has furnished most powerful support to his theory of human descent. In the two hundred pages which Darwin devotes to the descent of man, he treats especially the evidences presented in comparative anatomy and comparative psychology, as well as the evidence afforded by the comparison of the lower and higher races of man. As regards the "birthplace and antiquity of man,"[(7)] he observes:

"... In each great region of the world the living mammals are closely related to the extinct species of the same region. It is therefore probable that Africa was formerly inhabited by extinct apes closely allied to the gorilla and chimpanzee; and as these two species are now man's nearest allies, it is somewhat more probable that our early progenitors lived on the African continent than elsewhere. But it is useless to speculate on this subject; for two or three anthropomorphous apes, one the Dryopithecus of Lartet, nearly as large as a man, and closely allied to Hylobates, existed in Europe during the Miocene Age; and since so remote a period the earth has certainly undergone many great revolutions, and there has been ample time for migration on the largest scale.

"At the period and place, whenever and wherever it was, when man first lost his hairy covering, he probably inhabited a hot country; a circumstance favorable for the frugivorous diet on which, judging from analogy, he subsisted. We are far from knowing how long ago it was when man first diverged from the catarrhine stock; but it may have occurred at an epoch as remote as the Eocene Period; for that the higher apes had diverged from the lower apes as early as the Upper Miocene Period is shown by the existence of the Dryopithecus."

With this speculation of Darwin the reader should compare the state of our knowledge to-day regarding the descent of man, as presented in the first and last chapters of this volume.

The most telling argument against the Lamarck-Lyell-Darwin theory was the absence of those missing links which, theoretically, should be found connecting Man with the anthropoid apes, for at that time the Neanderthal race was not recognized as such. Between 1848 and 1914 successive discoveries have been made of a series of human fossils belonging to intermediate races: some of these are now recognized as missing links between the existing human species, Homo sapiens, and the anthropoid apes; and others as the earliest known forms of Homo sapiens:

In his classic lecture of 1844, On the Form of the Head in Different Peoples, Anders Retzius laid the foundation of the modern study of the skull.[(8)] Referring to his original publication, he says: "In the system of classification which I devised, I have distinguished just two forms, namely, the short (round or four-cornered) which I named brachycephalic, and the long, oval, or dolichocephalic. In the former there is little or no difference between the length and breadth of the skull; in the latter there is a notable difference." The expression of this primary distinction between races is called the cephalic index, and it is determined as follows:

Breadth of skull × 100 ÷ length of skull.

In this sense the primitive men of the Old Stone Age were mostly 'dolichocephalic,' that is, the breadth of the skull was in general less than 75 per cent of the length, as in the existing Australians, Kaffirs, Zulus, Eskimos, and Fijians. But some of the Palæolithic races were 'mesaticephalic'; that is, the breadth was between 75 per cent and 80 per cent of the length, as in the existing Chinese and Polynesians. The third or 'brachycephalic' type is the exception among Palæolithic skulls, in which the breadth is over 80 per cent of the length, as in the Malays, Burmese, American Indians, and Andamanese.

Fig. 1. Outline of a modern brachycephalic skull (fine dots), superposed upon a dolichocephalic skull (dashes), superposed upon a chimpanzee skull (line).

g. glabella or median prominence between the eyebrows.

i. inion—external occipital protuberance.

g-i. glabella-inion line.

Vertical line from g-i to top of skull indicates the height of the brain-case. Modified after Schwalbe.

The cephalic index, however, tells us little of the position of the skull as a brain-case in the ascending or descending scale, and following the elaborate systems of skull measurements which were built up by Retzius[(9)] and Broca,[(10)] and based chiefly on the outside characters of the skull, came the modern system of Schwalbe, which has been devised especially to measure the skull with reference to the all-important criterion of the size of the different portions of the brain, and of approximately estimating the cubic capacity of the brain from the more or less complete measurements of the skull.

Among these measurements are the slope of the forehead, the height of the median portion of the skullcap, and the ratio between the upper portion of the cranial chamber and the lower portion. In brief, the seven principal measures which Schwalbe now employs are chiefly expressions of diameters which correspond with the number of cubic centimetres occupied by the brain as a whole.

In this manner Schwalbe[(11)] confirms Boule's estimates of the variations in the cubic capacity of the brain in different members of the Neanderthal race as follows:

Thus the variations between the largest known brain in one member of the Neanderthal race, the male skull of La Chapelle, and the smallest brain of the same race, the supposed female skull of Gibraltar, is 324 c.cm., a range similar to that which we find in the existing species of man (Homo sapiens).

Fig. 2. The skull and brain-case, showing the low, retreating forehead, prominent supraorbital ridges, and small brain capacity, of Pithecanthropus, the java ape-man, as restored by J. H. McGregor.

As another test for the classification of primitive skulls, we may select the well-known frontal angle of Broca, as modified by Schwalbe, for measuring the retreating forehead. The angle is measured by drawing a line along the forehead upward from the bony ridge between the eyebrows, with a horizontal line carried from the glabella to the inion at the back of the skull. The various primitive races are arranged as follows:

For instance, this illustrates the fact that in the Trinil race the forehead is actually lower than in some of the highest anthropoid apes; that in the Neanderthal race the forehead is more retreating than in any of the existing human races of Homo sapiens.

Archæology of the Old Stone Age[I]

The proofs of the prehistory of man arose afresh, and from an entirely new source, in the beginning of the eighteenth century through discoveries in Germany, by which the Greek anticipations of a stone age were verified. For a century and a half the great animal life of the diluvial world had aroused the wonder and speculation of the early naturalists. In 1750 Eccardus[(17)] of Braunschweig advanced the first steps toward prehistoric chronology, in expressing the opinion that the human race first lived in a period in which stone served as the only weapon and tool, and that this was followed by a bronze and then by an iron period of human culture. As early as 1700 a human skull was discovered at Cannstatt and was believed to be of a period as ancient as the mammoth and the cave-bear.[J]

France, favored beyond all other countries by the men of the Old Stone Age, was destined to become the classic centre of prehistoric archæology. As early as 1740 Mahudel[(18)] published a treatise upon stone implements and laid the foundations both of Neolithic and Palæolithic research. By the beginning of the nineteenth century the problem of fossil man had awakened wide-spread interest and research. In Buckland's[(19)] Reliquiæ diluvianæ, published in 1824, the great mammals of the Old Stone Age are treated as relics of the flood. In 1825 MacEnery explored the cavern of Kent's Hole, near Torquay, finding human bones and flint flakes associated with the remains of the cave-bear and cave-hyæna, but the notes of this discovery were not published until 1840, when Godwin-Austen[(20)] gave the first description of Kent's Hole. In 1828 Tournal and Christol[(21)] announced the first discoveries in France (Languedoc) of the association of human bones with the remains of extinct animals. In 1833-4 Schmerling[(22)] described his explorations in the caverns near Liége, in Belgium, in which he found human bones and rude flint implements intermingled with the remains of the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the cave-hyæna, and the cave-bear. This is the first published evidence of the life of the Cave Period of Europe, and was soon followed by the recognition of similar cavern deposits along the south coast of Great Britain, in France, Belgium and Italy.

Fig. 3. Three great types of flint implements.

A. An eolith of accidental shape.

B. A palæolith of Chellean type, partly fashioned.

C. A Neolithic axe head, partly polished.

After MacCurdy.

The work of the caveman, gradually revealed between 1828 and 1840, is now known to belong to the closing period of the Old Stone Age, and it is very remarkable that the next discovery related to the very dawn of the Old Stone Age, namely, to the life of the 'river-drift' man of the Lower Palæolithic.

This discovery of what is now known as Chellean and Acheulean industry came through the explorations of Boucher de Perthes, between 1839 and 1846, in the valley of the River Somme, which flows through Amiens and Abbeville and empties into the English Channel half-way between Dieppe and Boulogne. In 1841 this founder of modern archæology unearthed near Abbeville a single flint, rudely fashioned into a cutting instrument, buried in river sand and associated with mammalian remains. This was followed by the collection of many other ancient weapons and implements, and in the year 1846 Boucher de Perthes published his first work, entitled De l'Industrie primitive, ou des Arts à leur Origine,[(23)] in which he announced that he had found human implements in beds unmistakably belonging to the age of the 'river-drift.' This work and the succeeding (1857), Antiquités celtiques et antédiluviennes,[(24)] were received with great scepticism until confirmed in 1853 by Rigollot's[(25)] discovery of the now famous 'river-drift' beds of St. Acheul, near Amiens. In the succeeding years the epoch-making work of Boucher de Perthes was welcomed and confirmed by leading British geologists and archæologists, Falconer, Prestwich, Evans, and others who visited the Somme. Lubbock's[(26)] article of 1862, on the Evidence of the Antiquity of Man Afforded by the Physical Structure of the Somme Valley, pointing out the great geologic age of the river sands and gravels and of the mammals which they contained, was followed by the discovery of similar flints in the 'river-drifts' of Suffolk and Kent, England, in the valley of the Thames near Dartford. Thus came the first positive proofs that certain types of stone implements were wide-spread geographically, and thus was afforded the means of comparing the age of one deposit with another.

This led Sir John Lubbock[(27)] to divide the prehistoric period into four great epochs, in descending order as follows:

The Iron Age, in which iron had superseded bronze for arms, axes, knives, etc., while bronze remained in common use for ornaments.

The Bronze Age, in which bronze was used for arms and cutting instruments of all kinds.

The later or polished Stone Age, termed by Lubbock the Neolithic Period, characterized by weapons and instruments made of flint and other kinds of stone, with no knowledge of any metal excepting gold.

Age of the Drift, termed by Lubbock the Palæolithic Period, characterized by chipped or flaked implements of flint and other kinds of stone, and by the presence of the mammoth, the cave-bear, the woolly rhinoceros, and other extinct animals.

Edouard Lartet, in 1860, began exploring the caverns of the Pyrenees and of Périgord, first examining the remarkable cavern of Aurignac with its burial vault, its hearths, its reindeer and mammoth fauna, its spear points of bone and engravings on bone mingled with a new and distinctive flint culture. This discovery, published in 1861,[(28)] led to the full revelation of the hitherto unknown Reindeer and Art Period of the Old Stone Age, now known as the Upper Palæolithic. As a palæontologist, it was natural for Lartet to propose a fourfold classification of the 'Reindeer Period,' based upon the supposed succession of the dominant forms of mammalian life, namely:

(d) Age of the Aurochs or Bison.

(c) Age of the Woolly Mammoth and Rhinoceros.

(b) Age of the Reindeer.

(a) Age of the Cave-Bear.

Lartet, in association with the British archæologist, Christy, explored the now famous rock shelters and caverns of Dordogne—Laugerie, La Madeleine, Les Eyzies, and Le Moustier—which one by one yielded a variety of flint and bone implements, engravings and sculpture on bone and ivory, and a rich extinct fauna, in which the reindeer and mammoth predominated. The results of this decade of exploration are recorded in their classic work, Reliquiæ Aquitanicæ.[(29)] Lartet, observes Breuil,[(30)] clearly perceived the level of Aurignac, where the fauna of the great cave-bear and of the mammoth appears to yield to that of the reindeer. Above he perceived the stone culture of the Solutrean type in Laugerie Haute, and of the Magdalenian type in Laugerie Basse. Lartet also distinguished between the archæological period of St. Acheul (= Lower Palæolithic) and that of Aurignac (= Upper Palæolithic).

It remained, however, for Gabriel de Mortillet, the first French archæologist to survey and systematize the development of the flint industry throughout the entire Palæolithic Period, to recognize that the Magdalenian followed the Solutrean, and that during the latter stage industry in stone reached its height, while during the Magdalenian the industry in bone and in wood developed in a marvelous manner. Mortillet failed to recognize the position of the Aurignacian and omitted it from his archæological chronology, which was first published in 1869, Essai de classification des cavernes et des stations sous abri, fondée sur les produits de l'industrie humaine:[(31)]

(5) Magdalénien,[K] characterized by a number and variety of bone implements;

(4) Solutréen, leaf-like lance-heads beautifully worked;

(3) Moustérien, flints worked mostly on one side only;

(2) Acheuléen, the 'langues de chat' hand-axes of St. Acheul;

(1) Chelléen, bold, primitive, partly worked hand-axes.

Shortly after the Franco-Prussian War, Edouard Piette (b. 1827, d. 1906), who had held the office of magistrate in various towns in the departments of Ardennes and Aisne, France, and who was already distinguished for his general scientific attainments, began to devote himself especially to the evolution of art in Upper Palæolithic times, and assembled the great collections which are described and illustrated in his classic work, L'Art pendant l'Age du Renne (1907).[(32)] He first established several phases of artistic evolution in the Magdalenian stage, and only recognized in his later years the station of Brassempouy, not comprehending that the Aurignacian art which he found there underlay the Solutrean culture and was separated by a long interval of time from the most ancient Magdalenian. His distinct contribution to Palæolithic history is his discovery of the Étage azilien overlying the Magdalenian in the cavern of Mas d'Azil.

Fig. 4. Evolution of the lance-point, spear, or dart head. Note the increasing symmetry and skill in the flaking and retouch as the types pass in ascending order through the Chellean, Acheulean, Mousterian, and Aurignacian, into the perfected, symmetrical, double-pointed 'laurel-leaf' of the Solutrean; and into the subsequent decline in the flint industry of the Magdalenian and Azilian stages. After de Mortillet, Obermaier, and Hoernes.

Henri Breuil, a pupil of Piette and of Cartailhac, exploring during the decade, 1902-12, chiefly under the influence of Cartailhac, formed a clear conception of the whole Upper Palæolithic and its subdivisions, and placed the Aurignacian definitely at the base of the series.

Thus step by step the culture stages of archæological evolution have been established and may be summarized with the type stations as follows:

These stages, at first regarded as single, have each been subdivided into three or more substages, as a result of the more refined appreciation of the subtle advances in Palæolithic invention and technique.

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Fig. 5. The type stations of the successive stages of Palæolithic
culture from the Chellean to the Azilian-Tardenoisian.

A new impulse to the study of Palæolithic culture was given in 1895, when E. Rivière discovered examples of Palæolithic mural art in the cavern of La Mouthe,[(33)] thus confirming the original discovery, in 1880, by Marcelino de Sautuola of the wonderful ceiling frescoes of the cave of Altamira, northern Spain.[(34)] This created the opportunity for the establishment by the Prince of Monaco of the Institut de Paléontologie humaine in 1910, supporting the combined researches of the Upper Palæolithic culture and art of France and Spain, by Cartailhac, Capitan, Rivière, Boule, Breuil, and Obermaier, and marking a new epoch in the brilliant history of the archæology of France.

It remained for the prehistory of the borders of the Danube, Rhine, and Neckar to be brought into harmony with that of France, and this has been accomplished with extraordinary precision and fulness through the labors of R. R. Schmidt, begun in 1906, and brought together in his invaluable work, Die diluviale Vorzeit Deutschlands.[(35)]

To an earlier and longer epoch belongs the Prepalæolithic or Eolithic stage. Beginning in 1867 with the supposed discovery by l'Abbé Bourgeois[(36)] of a primordial or Prepalæolithic stone culture, much observation and speculation has been devoted to the Eolithic[(37)] era and the Eolithic industry, culminating in the complete chronological system of Rutot, as follows:

LOWER QUATERNARY, OR PLEISTOCENE

Strépyian (= Pre-Chellean, in part).

Mesvinian, culture of Mesvin, near Mons, Belgium (= Pre-Chellean).

Mafflean, culture of Maffle, near Ath, Hennegau.

Reutelian, culture of Reutel, Ypres, West Flanders.

TERTIARY

Prestian, culture of St. Prest, Eure-et-Loire, Upper Pliocene.

Kentian, culture of the plateau of Kent, Middle Pliocene.

Cantalian, culture of Aurillac, Cantal, Upper Miocene or Lower Pliocene.

Fagnian, culture of Boncelles, Ardennes, Middle Oligocene.

Only the Mesvinian stage is generally accepted by archæologists, and this embraces the prototypes of the Lower Palæolithic culture, which among most French authors are termed Pre-Chellean or Proto-Chellean. The Eolithic problem has aroused the most animated controversy, in which opinion is divided. A critical consideration of this era, however, falls without the province of the present work.

SUCCESSION OF HUMAN INDUSTRIES AND CULTURES[L]

Geologic History of Man

Man emerges from the vast geologic history of the earth in the period known as the Pleistocene, or Glacial, and Postglacial, the 'Diluvium' of the older geologists. The men of the Old Stone Age in western Europe are now known through the latter half of Glacial times to the very end of Postglacial times, when the Old Stone Age, with its wonderful environment of mammalian and human life, comes to a gradual close, and the New Stone Age begins with the climate and natural beauties of the forests, meadows, and Alps of Europe as they were before the destroying hand of economic civilization fell upon them.

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Pl. II. "Throughout this long epoch western Europe is to be viewed as a peninsula, surrounded on all sides by the sea and stretching westward from the great land mass of eastern Europe and of Asia, which was the chief theatre of evolution both of animal and human life." 1-8. Discovery sites of the type specimens of human and prehuman races.

It is our difficult but fascinating task to project in our imagination the extraordinary series of prehistoric natural events which were witnessed by the successive races of Palæolithic men in Europe; such a combination and sequence never occurred before in the world's history and will never occur again. They centred around three distinct and yet closely related groups of causes. First, the formation of the two great ice-fields centring over the Scandinavian peninsula and over the Alps; second, the arrival or assemblage in western Europe of mammals from five entirely different life-zones or natural habitats; third, the arrival in Europe of seven or eight successive races of men by migration, chiefly from the great Eurasiatic continent of the East.

Throughout this long epoch western Europe is to be viewed as a peninsula, surrounded on all sides by the sea and stretching westward from the great land mass of eastern Europe and of Asia, which was the chief theatre of evolution both of animal and human life. It was the 'far west' of all migrations of animals and men. Nor may we disregard the vast African land mass, the northern coasts of which afforded a great southern migration route from Asia, and may have supplied Europe with certain of its human races such as the 'Grimaldi.'

These three principal phenomena of the ice-fields, the mammals, and the human life and industry, together establish the chronology of the Age of Man. In other words, there are four ways of keeping prehistoric time: that of geology, that of palæontology, that of anatomy, and that of human industry. Geologic events mark the grander divisions of time; palæontologic and anatomic events mark the lesser divisions; while the successive phases of human industry mark the least divisions. The geologic chronology deals with such immense periods of time that its ratio to the animal and to the human chronology is like that of years to hours and to minutes of our own solar time.

The Glacial Epoch when first revealed by Charpentier[(39)] and Agassiz,[(40)] between 1837 and 1840, was supposed to correspond to a single great advance and retreat of the ice-fields from various centres. The vague problem of the antiquity of Pliocene man and Diluvial man soon merged into the far more definite chronology of glacial and interglacial man. As early as 1854, Morlot discovered near Dürnten, on the borders of the lake of Zürich, a bed of fossil plants indicating a period of south temperate climate intervening between two great deposits of glacial origin. This led to the new conception of cold glacial stages and warm interglacial stages, and Morlot[(41)] himself advanced the theory that there had been three glacial stages separated by two interglacial stages. Other discoveries followed both of fossil plants and mammals adapted to warmer periods intervening between the colder periods. Moreover, successive glacial moraines and 'drifts,' and successive river 'terraces' were found to confirm the theory of multiple glacial stages. The British geologist, James Geikie (1871-94) marshalled all the evidence for the extreme hypothesis of a succession of six glacial and five interglacial stages, each with its corresponding cold and warm climates. Strong confirmation of a theory of four great glaciations came through the American geologists, Chamberlin,[(42)] Salisbury,[(43)] and others, in the discovery of evidence of four chief glacial and three interglacial stages in northern portions of our own continent. Finally, a firm foundation of the quadruple glacial theory in Europe was laid by the classic researches of Penck and Brückner[(44)] in the Alps, which were published in 1909. Thus the exhaustive research of Geikie, of Chamberlin and Salisbury, of Penck and Brückner, and finally of Leverett[(45)] has firmly established eight subdivisions or stages of Pleistocene time, namely, four glacial, three interglacial, and one postglacial. These not only mark the great eras of European time but also make possible the synchrony of America with Europe.

PLACE OF THE OLD STONE AGE IN THE EARTH'S HISTORY

(Indicated in heavy-face letter.)

Compare Schuchert's Table, 1914.

Since most of the skeletal and cultural remains of man can now be definitely attributed to certain glacial, interglacial, or postglacial stages, vast interest attaches to the very difficult problem of the duration of the whole Ice Age and the relative duration of its various glacial and interglacial stages. The following figures set forth the wide variations in opinion on this subject and the two opposite tendencies of speculation which lead to greatly expanded or greatly abbreviated estimates of Pleistocene time:

DURATION OF THE ICE AGE

We may adopt for the present work the more conservative estimate of Penck, that since the first great ice-fields developed in Scandinavia, in the Alps, and in North America west of Hudson Bay a period of time of not less than 520,000 years has elapsed. The relative duration of the subdivisions of the Glacial Epoch is also studied by Penck in his Chronologie des Eiszeitalters in den Alpen.[(52)] These stages are not in any degree rhythmic, or of equal length either in western Europe or in North America.

The unit of glacial measurement chosen by Penck is the time which has elapsed since the close of the fourth and last great glaciation; this is known as the Würm in the Alpine region and as the Wisconsin in America. While more limited than the ice-caps of the second glaciation, those of the fourth glaciation were still of vast extent in Europe and in this country, so that an estimate of 20,000 to 34,000 years for the unit of the entire Postglacial stage is not extreme. Estimating this unit at 25,000 years and accepting Reeds's[(54)] estimate of the relative length of time occupied by each of the preceding glacial and interglacial stages, we reach the following results (compare Fig. 14, p, 41):

The Postglacial time divisions are dated by three successive advances of the ice-caps, which broadly correspond with Geikie's fifth and sixth glaciations; they are known in the Alpine region as the Bühl, Gschnitz, and Daun. These three waves of cold and humid climate, each accompanied by glacial advances, finally terminated with the retreat of the snow and ice in the Alpine region, the same conditions prevailing as with the present climate. The minimum time estimates of these Postglacial stages and the corresponding periods of human culture, as calculated by Heim,[(50)] Nüesch,[(55)] Penck,[(52)] and many others, are summarized in the Upper Palæolithic (p. 281).

Geologic and Human Chronology

There are four ways in which the lesser divisions and sequence of human chronology may be dated through geologic or earth-forming events. First, through the age of the culture stations or human remains, as indicated by the 'river-drifts' and 'river terraces' in or upon which they occur; second, through the age of the open 'loess' stations which are found both on the 'older terraces' and on the plateaus between the river valleys; third, through the age of the shelters and caverns in which skeletal and cultural remains occur; fourth, through the age of the 'loam' deposits, which have drifted down on the 'terraces' from the surrounding meadows and hills. The men of the Old Stone Age were attracted to these natural camps and dwelling-places both by the abundance of the raw flint materials from which the palæoliths were fashioned and by the presence of game.

In more than ninety years of exploration only three skeletal relics of man have been found in the ancient 'river-drifts'; these are the 'Trinil,' the 'Heidelberg,' and the 'Piltdown'; in each instance the human remains were buried accidentally with those of extinct animals, after drifting for some distance in the river or stream beds. It is only in late Acheulean times that human burial rites or interments begin and that skeletal remains are found. Owing to the less perishable nature of flint, relics of the quarries and stations are infinitely more common; they are found both in the river sands and gravels, in the 'river terraces,' and in the 'loess' stations of the plateaus and uplands. Thus prehistoric chronology is based on observations of the geologist, who in turn is greatly aided by the archæologist, because the evolution stages of each type of implement are practically the same all over western Europe, with the exception of unimportant local inventions and variations. In brief, the large divisions of time are determined by the amount of work done by geologic agencies; the comparative age of the various camp sites is determined by their geologic succession, by the mammals and plants which occur in them, and finally by the cultural type of any industrial remains that may be found.

Times of the 'High' and 'Low' River 'Terraces'

The so-called 'terrace' chronology is to be used by the prehistorian with caution, for it is obvious that the 'terraces' in the different river-valleys of western Europe were not all formed at the same time; thus the testimony of the 'terraces' is always to be checked off by other evidence.

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Fig. 6. Terraces on either side of the valley of the River Inn, Scharding, Austria, formed by sand and gravel deposits partly covered with loess. After Brückner.

Ib. Very broad river deposits of First Glaciation, on the first erosion level, covered with the 'Upper Loess' of the Second Interglacial Stage.

IIb. Somewhat narrower river deposits of Second Glaciation on the second erosion level.

IIIb. Still narrower river terraces of the Third Glaciation on the third erosion level, covered with the 'Lower Loess' of the Third Interglacial Stage.

IVb. Fourth or lowest terrace of the Fourth Glaciation on the fourth erosion level.

Va. Erosion terraces, Achen.

VIa. Post-Bühl erosion.

Loess′, 'Upper Loess' of Second Interglacial. Loess″, 'Lower Loess' of Third Interglacial.

As to the origin of the sands and gravels which compose the 'terraces' we know that the glacial stages were periods of the wearing away of vast materials from the summits and sides of the mountains, which were transported by the rivers to the valleys and plains. These vast deposits of glacial times spread out over the very broad surfaces of the pristine river-bottoms, which in many valleys it is important to note were from 100 to 150 feet above the present levels. The diminished and contracted streams of interglacial times cut into these ancient river beds, forming narrower channels into which they transported their own materials. Thus, as the successive 'river terraces' were formed, a descending series of steps was created along the sides of the valleys. In many valleys there are four of these 'terraces,' which may correspond with several glacial stages; in other valleys there are only three; in others, again, like the valley of the River Inn which flows past Innsbruck in the Tyrol (Fig. 6), there are five 'terraces,' while in the valley of the Rhine above Basle there are six, corresponding, it is believed, with the materials brought down by the four great glaciations and with the river levels of Postglacial times. In general, therefore, the 'high terraces' are the oldest ones, that is, they are composed of materials brought down during the pluvial periods of the First, Second, and Third Glacial Stages, while the 'lower terraces' and the 'lowest terraces' in the alpine regions are composed of materials borne by the great rivers of the Fourth Glacial and Postglacial Stages. In the region around the Alps the 'higher terraces' are products chiefly of the third glaciation; in the valley of the Rhine they are visible near Basle. On the upper Rhine the 'low terraces' are products of the fourth glaciation; they cover vast surfaces and contain remains of the woolly mammoth (E. primigenius), an animal distinctive of Fourth Glacial and Postglacial times.

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Fig. 7. Cross-section through the terraced Pleistocene formations of the Rhine valley above Basle, Switzerland. After Penck.

Ib. Outwash of the First Glaciation—Günz—Deposits on the first erosion level.

IIb. Outwash of the Second Glaciation—Mindel—Deposits on the second erosion level.

IIIb. Outwash of the Third Glaciation—Riss—Deposits on the third erosion level.

IVb. Outwash of the Fourth Glaciation—Würm—Deposits on the fourth erosion level.

Va. Erosion terrace, Achen oscillation—fifth erosion level.

VIa. and VIIa. Post-Bühl erosion—sixth and seventh erosion levels.

IIIc. Moraine of the Third Glaciation—Riss.

The section of the Rheinfelder Hill lies 3 km. west from the Möliner Field.

More remote from the glacial regions, but equally subject to the inundations of glacial times are the 'high terraces' along the River Seine, which are ninety feet above the present level of the river and contain the remains of mammals characteristic of the First Interglacial Stage, such as the southern elephant (E. meridionalis), while the 'low terraces' along the Seine are only fifteen feet above the present level of the river and contain mammals belonging to the Third Interglacial Stage. Similarly, the 'high terraces' of the River Eure contain mammals of First Interglacial times, such as the southern elephant (E. meridionalis) and Steno's horse (E. stenonis); these fossils occur in coarse river sands and gravels which were deposited by a broad stream that flowed at least ninety feet above the present waters of the Eure.

The human interest which attaches to these dry facts of geology appears especially in the valleys of the Somme and the Marne in northern France; here again we find 'high terraces,' 'middle terraces,' and 'low terraces'; the latter are still subject to flooding. In the deep gravels upon each of these terraces we find the first proofs of human residence, for here occur the earliest Pre-Chellean and Chellean implements associated with the remains of the hippopotamus, of Merck's rhinoceros, and of the straight-tusked elephant (E. antiquus), together with mammals which are characteristic both of Second and Third Interglacial times.

This raises a very important distinction, which is often misunderstood; namely, between the materials composing the original terraces and those subsequently deposited upon the terraces. It appears to be in the latter that human artifacts are chiefly, if not exclusively, found.

Times of the Loam Stations

The 'loam' which washes down over the original sand and gravel 'terraces' from the surrounding hills and meadows is of much later date than the 'terraces' themselves, and the archæologist in the valley of the Somme as well as in that of the Thames may well be deceived unless he clearly distinguishes between the newer deposits of gravels and of loams and the far older gravels and river sands which compose the original 'terraces.' This is well illustrated by the observations of Commont on the section of St. Acheul.[(56)] The loams and brick-earth are of much more recent age than the original gravels and sands of the 'terraces' which they overlap and conceal; the lowest and oldest 'loam' (limon fendillé) contains Acheulean flints, while the overlying 'loam' contains Mousterian flints. Although occurring on the 'higher terraces,' these flints are of somewhat later date than the primitive Chellean flints which occur in the coarse gravels and sands that have collected upon the very lowest levels (Fig. 59).

A similar prehistoric inversion doubtless occurs in the 'terraces' of the Thames, for materials on the 'highest terrace' (Fig. 8) contain Acheulean flints, while materials on the 'lowest terrace' belong to a much more recent age.

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Fig. 8. Section—Four terraces indicated in the valley of the Thames at Galley Hill, near London. Site of the discovery of the 'Galley Hill Man' in deposits overlying one of the high terraces. Site also of Gray's Thurrock, a deposit of Third Interglacial times containing mammals and flints of Chellean age. A typical camping station of 'river-drift man.' Drawn by Dr. C. A. Reeds.

We have no record of a single Palæolithic station found in the true original sands and gravels of the 'higher terraces' in any part of Europe; only eoliths are found on the 'high terrace' levels, as at St. Prest.

The earliest palæoliths occur in the gravels on both the 'middle' and 'upper terraces' of the Somme and the Marne, proving that the gravels were deposited long subsequent to the cutting of the original terraces. Geikie,[(57)] moreover, is of the opinion that the valley of the Somme has remained as it is since early Pleistocene times, and that even the 'lowest terrace' here was completed at that period; this is contrary to the view of Commont, who considers that this 'lowest terrace' belongs to Third Interglacial times; a restudy of the stations along the Thames may throw light upon this very important difference of opinion.

Times of the 'Loess' Stations

The glacial stages were generally times of relatively great humidity, of heavy rain and snow fall, of full rivers charged with gravels and sands, and with loam the finest product of the erosive action of ice upon the rocks. This loam on the barren wastes left bare by the glaciers or on the river borders and overflow basins was retransported by the winds and laid down afresh in layers of varying thickness known as 'loess.' There was no 'loess' formation either in Europe or America during the humid climate of First Interglacial times, but during the latter part of the Second Interglacial Stage, again toward the close of the Third Interglacial Stage, and finally during Postglacial times there were periods of arid climate when the 'loess' was lifted and transported by the prevailing winds over the 'terraces' and plateaus and even to great heights among the mountain valleys. As observed by Huntington[(58)] in his interesting book The Pulse of Asia, even at the present time there are districts where we find 'loess' dust filling the entire atmosphere either during the heated months of summer or during the cold months of winter.

Fig. 9. Magdalenian loess station of Aggsbach, in Lower Austria. A quarry camping station of the open-plains type. This typical Postglacial loess deposit contains flints of early Magdalenian age. After Obermaier.

In Pleistocene Europe there were at least three warm or cold arid periods, accompanied in some phases by prevailing westerly winds,[(59)] in which 'loess' was widely distributed over northern Germany, covering the 'river terraces,' plateaus, and uplands bordering the Rhine and the Neckar. These 'loess' periods can be dated by the fossil remains of mammals which they contain, also by the stations of the flint quarries in different culture stages. Thus we find late Acheulean implements in drifts of 'loess' at Villejuif, south of Paris. Among the most famous stations of late Acheulean times is that of Achenheim, west of Strasburg, and not far distant is the 'loess' station of Mommenheim, of Mousterian times; both belong to the period of the fourth glaciation. An Aurignacian 'loess' station is that of Willendorf, Austria.

Times of the Limestone Shelters and Caverns

Beginning in the late or cold Acheulean period, the Palæolithic hunters commenced to seek the warm or sheltered side of deepened river-valleys, also the shelter afforded by overhanging cliffs and the entrances of caverns. It is quite probable that during the warm season of the year they still repaired to their open flint quarries along the rivers and on the uplands; in fact, the river Somme was a favorite resort through Acheulean into Mousterian times.

In general, however, the open rivers and plateaus were abandoned, and all the regions of limestone rock favorable to the formation of shelter cliffs, grottos, and caverns were sought out by the early Palæolithic men from Mousterian times on; and thus from the beginning of the Mousterian to the close of the Upper Palæolithic their lines of migration and of residence followed the exposures of the limestones which had been laid down by the sea in bygone geologic ages from Carboniferous to Cretaceous times. The upper valleys of the Rhine and Danube traversed the white Jurassic limestones which are again exposed in a broad band along the foot-hills of the Pyrenees, extending far west to the Cantabrian Alps of modern Spain. In Dordogne the great horizontal plateau of Cretaceous limestone had been dissected by branching rivers, such as the Vézère, to a depth of two hundred feet. Under overhanging cliffs long rock shelters were formed, such as that of the Magdalenian station at La Madeleine.

Fig. 10. Ideal section of the bluff overlying the Düssel River, near Düsseldorf, showing the mode of formation of the famous Neanderthal Cave, where the original type of the Neanderthal race was discovered in 1856. A typical resort of the 'cave man.' After Lyell.

c. Entrance of percolating waters from above.

f. Exit from the grotto.

a-b. Interior of the cavern.

Many caverns were formed, some of them in early Pleistocene times, by water percolating from above and (Fig. 11) resulting in subterranean streams which issued at the entrance; this formed the expanded grotto, sometimes a chamber of vast dimensions, such as the Grotte de Gargas. Outside of this, again, may be an abri or shelter of overhanging rock. In other cases the rock shelter is found quite independent of any cave.

Where the glaciers or ice-caps passed over the summits of the hills the subglacial streams penetrated the limestone of the mountain and formed vast caverns, such as that of Niaux, near the river Ariège. Here a nearly horizontal cavern was formed, extending half a mile into the heart of the mountain. The material with which the floors of the caverns are covered is either a fine cave loam or the insoluble remainder of the limestone forming a brown or gray clayey substance. The Magdalenian artists produced drawings on these soft clays and, in rare instances, used them for modelling purposes, as in the Tuc d'Audoubert. The sands and gravels were also swept in from the streams above and carried by strong currents along the wall surfaces, smoothing and polishing the limestone in preparation for the higher forms of Upper Palæolithic draughtsmanship and painting.

Fig. 11. Formation of the typical limestone cavern. After Gaudry.

V. Vertical section of limestone cliff showing (S) waters percolating from above; (A-O) interior of the cavern; and (G) grotto entrance, original exit of the cavern waters. H. Horizontal section of the same cavern showing the (G) grotto entrance and (A, G, O, B) the ramifications of the cavern.

It would appear that the majority of the caverns were formed in pluvial periods of early glacial times; the formation had been completed, the subterranean streams had ceased to flow, and the interiors were relatively dry and free from moisture in Fourth Glacial and Postglacial times, when man first entered them. There is no evidence, however, that the cavern depths were generally inhabited, for the obvious reason that there was no exit for the smoke; the old hearths are invariably found close to or outside of the entrance, the only exception being in the entrance to the great cavern of Gargas, where there is a natural chimney for the exit of smoke. There was no cave life, strictly speaking—it was grotto life; the deep caves and caverns were probably penetrated only by artists and possibly also by magicians or priests. It is in the abris or shelters in front of the grottos and in the floors of the caverns that remarkable prehistoric records are found from late Acheulean times to the very close of the Palæolithic, as in the wonderful grotto in front of the cave at Castillo, near Santander. Thus, as Obermaier[(60)] observes: "In Chellean times primitive man was a care-free hunter wandering as he chose in the mild and pleasant weather, and even the colder climate of the arid 'loess' period of the late Acheulean was not sufficient to overcome his love of the open; he still made his camp on the plains at the edge of the forest, or in the shelter of some overhanging cliff." Only in rare instances, as at Castillo, were the Acheulean hearths brought within the entrance line of the grotto.

DIFFERENCES OF OPINION AS TO THE GEOLOGIC AGE OF THE PALÆOLITHIC CULTURE STAGES

The right-hand column represents the theory adopted in this volume.

Interpretation of these four kinds of evidence as to the antiquity of human culture in western Europe still leads to widely diverse opinions. On the one hand, we have the high authority of Penck[(61)] and Geikie[(62)] that the Chellean and Acheulean cultures are as ancient as the second long warm interglacial period. An extreme exponent of the same theory is Wiegers,[(63)] who would carry the Pre-Chellean back even into First Interglacial times. On the other side, Boule,[(64)] Schuchardt,[(65)] Obermaier,[(66)] Schmidt,[(67)] and the majority of the French archæologists place the beginning of the Pre-Chellean culture in Third Interglacial times.

In favor of the latter theory is the strikingly close succession of the Lower Palæolithic cultures in the valley of the Somme, followed by an equally close succession from Acheulean to Magdalenian times, as, for example, in the station of Castillo. It does not appear possible that a vast interval of time, such as that of the third glaciation, separated the Chellean from the Mousterian culture.

On the other hand, in favor of the greater antiquity of the Pre-Chellean and Chellean cultures may be urged their alleged association in several localities with very primitive mammals of early Pleistocene type, namely, the Etruscan rhinoceros, Steno's horse, and the saber-tooth tiger, as witnessed in Spain and in the deposits of the Champs de Mars, at Abbeville.

It is true, moreover, that at points distant from the great ice-fields, like the valley of the Somme and that of the Marne, we have no other means of separating glacial from interglacial times than that afforded by the deposition and erosion of the 'terraces'; in fact, the interpretation of the age of the cultures may be similar to that applied to the age of the mammalian fauna. There are no proofs of periods of severe cold in western Europe in any country remote from the glaciers until the very cold steppe-tundra climate immediately preceding the fourth glaciation swept the entire land and drove out the last of the African-Asiatic mammals.

Geographic Changes

The migrations of mammals and of races of men into western Europe from the Eurasiatic continent on the east and from Africa on the south were favored or interrupted by the periods of elevation or of subsidence of the coastal borders of the Ægean, Mediterranean, and North Seas, and also of the Iberian and British coast-lines. The maximum period of elevation of the coastal borders, as represented in the accompanying map (Fig. 12), never occurred in all portions of the continent of Europe at the same time, because there were oscillations both on the northern and southern coasts of Europe and Africa. The early Pleistocene, especially the period of the First Interglacial Stage, was one of elevation remarkable for the broad land bridges which brought the animal life of Europe, Africa, and Asia together. The Mediterranean coast rose 300 feet. Land bridges from Africa were formed at Gibraltar and over to the island of Sicily, so that for the time there was a free migration of mammalian life north and south. It is to this that western Europe owes the majestic mammals of Asiatic and African life which dominated the native fauna.

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Fig. 12. Europe in the period of maximum continental elevation, in which the coast-lines are widely extended, connecting Africa and Europe—including Great Britain and Ireland—in a single vast peninsula, and affording free migration routes for animal and human races north and south, as well as east and west. The ocean boundaries are more remote and the interior seas are greatly reduced in area. After Obermaier.

In general, the elevation of the continent took place during interglacial, the subsidence during glacial times, but Great Britain appears to have been almost continuously elevated and a part of the continent, and was certainly so during the Third Interglacial, Fourth Glacial, and Postglacial Stages, because there was a free migration of animal life and of human culture. The Lower Palæolithic peoples of Pre-Chellean and Chellean times wandered at will from the valley of the Somme to the not far distant valley of the Thames, interchanging their weapons and inventions. The close proximity of these stations is well illustrated in the admirable map (Fig. 56) prepared under the direction of Lord Avebury (Sir John Lubbock). The relation which elevation and subsidence respectively bear to the glacial and interglacial stages is believed to be as follows:

Elevation, emergence of the coast-lines from the sea, broad land connections facilitating migration, retreat of the glaciers, deepening of the river-valleys, and cutting of terraces. Arid continental climate and deposition of 'loess.'

Subsidence, submergence of the coast-lines and advance of the sea, interruption of land connections and of migration routes, advance of the glaciers, filling of the river-valleys with the products of glacial erosion, the sand and gravel materials of which the 'terraces' are composed, and subglacial erosion of the loam, from which in arid periods the 'loess' is derived.

Subsidence was the great feature of closing glacial times both in Europe and America. During the Fourth Glacial and Postglacial Stages the Black and Caspian Seas and the eastern portion of the Mediterranean were deeply depressed, while the British Isles were still connected with France, but by a narrower isthmus than that of early interglacial times. The scattered stations of Upper Palæolithic culture found in the British Isles include one Aurignacian, one Solutrean, two Magdalenian, and two Azilian; this shows that travel communication with the continent continued throughout that period, in all probability by means of a land connection. In late Neolithic times the English Channel was formed, Great Britain became isolated from Europe, and Ireland lost its land connection first with Wales and then with Scotland.

Changes of Climate

Penck[(68)] estimates the intensity of the cold and of the humidity which prevailed during the glacial stages by the descent of the snow-line in the Alps, which in the two periods of greatest glaciation reached from 1,200 m. (3,937 ft.) to 1,500 m. (4,921 ft.) below the present snow-level, with the consequent formation of vast ice-caps hung with glaciers which flowed great distances down the valleys of the Rhône and of the Rhine and left their moraines at very distant points. The moraines and drifts of the lesser glaciations, such as the first and fourth, stand considerably within the boundaries of these outer moraines and drift fields. On the contrary, the warmer climates of interglacial times are indicated by the sun-loving plants found at Hötting, along the valley of the Inn, in the Tyrol, which are proofs of a temperature higher than the present and of the ascent of the snow-line 300 m. (984 ft.) above the existing snow-level of the Alps.

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Fig. 13. An ideal earth section from the North Cape across the Scandinavian plateau, through the North Sea, Swiss Alps, Pyrenees, and Straits of Gibraltar, to the Atlas Mountains in northern Africa, along the line indicated on the map (Fig. 25, p. 65), illustrating the sea-level at the time of the greatest elevation of the continent during the Second Glacial Stage, as compared with the present sea-level; also the successive lines of descent of the region of perpetual snow during the four great glacial advances, as compared with the present snow-line. From studies by Dr. C. A. Reeds.

The alternation of the cold climates of the glacial stages with the warm temperate climates of the interglacial stages formed great oscillations of temperature (Figs. 13, 14). The fossil plant life indicates that during the periods of the First, Second, and Third Interglacial Stages the climate of western Europe was cooler than it had been during the preceding Pliocene Epoch and somewhat warmer than it is at the present time in the same localities. During the First, Second, and Third Glacial Stages there was certainly a marked lowering of temperature in the regions bordering the great glacial fields. This is indicated by the arrival in the northern glacial border regions of animals and plants adapted to arctic and subarctic climates.

It has been generally believed that the whole of western Europe was extremely cold during these glacial stages, and that the heat-loving animals, the southern elephants, rhinoceroses, and hippopotami, were driven to the south, to return only with the renewed warmth of the next interglacial stage.

There is, however, no proof of the departure of these supposedly less hardy mammals nor of the spread over Europe of the more hardy arctic and steppe types until the advent of the Fourth Glacial Stage. Then, for the first time, all western Europe north of the Pyrenees experienced a general fall of temperature, and conditions of climate prevailed such as are now found in the arctic tundra regions of the north and in the high steppes of central Asia, which are swept by dry and cold winter winds. Fluctuations of temperature, of moisture, and of aridity in Pleistocene time, are evidenced not only by the rise and fall of the snow-line and the advance and retreat of the ice-caps but also by the appearance of plant and animal life in the periods of the 'loess' deposition, indicating the following cycles of climatic change as witnessed from beginning to end of the Third Interglacial Stage:

IV. Glacial maximum, cold and moist climate, arctic and cold steppe fauna and flora.

Cool and dry steppe climate, wide-spread deposition of 'loess.'

Interglacial maximum, a long period of warm temperate forest and meadow conditions.

Glacial retreat, cool and moist climate bordering the glacial regions.

III. Glacial maximum, cold and humid climate bordering the glaciers, favorable to arctic and subarctic plant and animal life.

That great fields of ice and advancing glaciers alone do not constitute proof of very low temperatures is shown at the present time in southeastern Alaska, where very heavy snowfall or precipitation causes the accumulation of vast glaciers, although the mean annual temperature is only 10° Fahr. (5.56° C.) lower than that of southern Germany. Neumayr[(69)] estimated that during the Ice Age there was a general lowering of temperature in Europe of not more than 6° C. (10.8° Fahr.), and held that even during the glacial advances a comparatively mild climate prevailed in Great Britain. Martins[(70)] estimated that a lowering of the temperature to the extent of 4° C. (7.2° Fahr.) would bring the glaciers of Chamonix down to the level of the plain of Geneva. Penck estimates that, all the atmospheric conditions remaining the same as at present, a fall of temperature to the extent of 4° to 5° C. would be sufficient to bring back the Glacial Epoch in Europe. These moderate estimates entirely agree with our theory that animals of African and Asiatic habit flourished in western Europe to the very close of the Third Interglacial Stage, and that then for the first time the warm fauna, or faune chaude, gradually disappeared.

Similarly the hypothesis of extremely warm or subtropical conditions prevailing in interglacial times as far north as Britain, which originated with the discovery of the northerly distribution of the hippopotami and rhinoceroses, animals which we now associate with the torrid climate of Africa, is not supported by the study either of the plant life of interglacial stages or by the history of the animals themselves. It is quite probable that both the hippopotami and the rhinoceroses of the 'warm fauna' were protected by hairy covering, although not by the thick undercoating of wool which protected the woolly rhinoceros and woolly mammoth, animals favoring the borders of glaciers and flourishing during the last very cold glacial and Postglacial periods.

The combined evidence from all these great events in western Europe leads us to conclusions somewhat different from those reached by Penck as to the chronology of human culture. In the chart (Fig. 14) on the opposite page, prepared by Dr. C. A. Reeds in collaboration with the author, a new correlation of geologic, climatic, human, industrial, and faunal events is presented. The great waves of glacial advance and retreat (oblique shading) are based upon Penck's estimates of the rise and fall of the snow-line (vertical dotted lines) in the Swiss Alps. (Compare Fig. 13.) The length of these waves corresponds with the relative duration of the glacial and interglacial stages as estimated by the varying amounts of erosion and deposition of materials. The entire Palæolithic or Old Stone Age is thus seen to occupy not more than 125,000 years, or only the last quarter of the Glacial Epoch, which is estimated as extending over a period of 525,000 years. The present opinion of the leading archæologists of France and Germany, which is shared by the author, is that the Pre-Chellean industry is not older than the Third Interglacial Stage. As the Piltdown man was found in deposits containing Pre-Chellean implements, he probably lived in the last quarter of the Glacial Epoch, and not in early Pleistocene times as estimated by some British geologists. This causes us to regard the Piltdown remains as more recent than the jaw of Heidelberg, which all authorities agree is probably of Second Interglacial Age. According to our estimates the Heidelberg man is nearly twice as ancient as the Piltdown man, while Pithecanthropus (Trinil Race) is four times as ancient. Yet the Piltdown man must still be regarded as of very great antiquity, for he is four times as ancient as the final type of Neanderthal man belonging to the Mousterian industrial stage. The various archæologic and palæontologic evidences for this general correlation theory of the Glacial Epoch are fully discussed in the succeeding chapters of this volume.

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Fig. 14. Great events of the Glacial Epoch. To the left the relation of glacial and interglacial stages in Europe and North America, with the author's theory regarding the divisions of time, the beginning of the Old Stone Age, and the successive appearance in Europe of different branches of the human race. To the right the prolonged warm temperate period in Europe in the non-glaciated regions, followed by the relatively brief cold period during the past 70,000 years. Prepared by Dr. C. A. Reeds, in co-operation with the author.

Mammals of Five Distinct Geographic Regions

(Compare Color Map, Pl. II, and Fig. 15)

As we have already observed, during the whole history of mammalian life in various parts of the world never did there prevail conditions so unusual and so complex as those which surrounded the men of the Old Stone Age in Europe. The successive races of Palæolithic men in Europe were all flesh eaters, depending upon the chase. The mammals, first pursued only for food, utensils, and clothing, finally became subjects of artistic appreciation and endeavor which resulted in a remarkable æsthetic development.

From the beginning to the end of Palæolithic times the various races of man witnessed the assemblage in Europe of animals indigenous to every continent on the globe except South America and Australia and adapted to every climatic life-zone, from the warm and dry plains of southern Asia and northern Africa to the temperate forests and meadows of Eurasia; from the heights of the Alps, Himalayas, Pyrenees, and Altai Mountains to the high, arid, dry steppes of central Asia with their alternating heat of summer and cold of winter; from the tundras or barren grounds of Scandinavia, northern Europe, and Siberia to the mild forests and plains of southern Europe.[(71)] Members of all these highly varied groups of animals had been evolving in various parts of the northern hemisphere from the Eocene Epoch onward. In Pliocene times they had become thoroughly adapted to their various habitats. Throughout early Pleistocene times, with the increasing cold extending southward from the arctic circle, such mammals as the elephant, rhinoceros, musk-ox, and reindeer had become thoroughly adapted to the climate of the extreme north. There is every reason to believe that when these tundra quadrupeds first arrived in Europe, during early mid-glacial stages, they had already acquired the heavy coat of hair and undercoating of wool, such as now characterizes the musk-ox, one of the living representatives of this northern fauna.

MIGRATIONS AND EXTINCTIONS OF MAMMALIAN LIFE DURING THE
FOUR GLACIAL, THREE INTERGLACIAL, AND POSTGLACIAL STAGES

The five great sources of mammalian migration into western Europe in Pleistocene times were accordingly as follows:

1. Warm plains of northern Africa and of southern Asia. "African-Asiatic" fauna—hippopotamus, rhinoceros, elephant.

2. Temperate meadows and forests of Europe and Asia. "Eurasiatic" fauna—deer, bison, horse.

3. High, cool mountain ranges—Alps, Pyrenees, Caucasus, Urals. Fauna—chamois, ibex, ptarmigan. (See Fig. 185.)

4. Steppes and deserts. Dry, elevated plateaus and steppes of eastern Europe and central Asia. Fauna—desert ass and horse, saiga antelope, jerboa. (See Fig. 186.)

5. Tundras and barren grounds within or near the arctic circle. Fauna—reindeer, musk-ox, arctic fox. (See Figs. 95 and 96.)

(Compare Figs. 14 and 15.)

In the warm plains, forests, and rivers of southern Asia and northern Africa there developed the elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotami, lions, hyænas, and jackals, which, taken together, may be known as the African-Asiatic fauna. It contains altogether fourteen species of mammals. The great geographic area from the far east to the far west over which ranged similar or identical species of these pachyderms and carnivores is indicated by the oblique lines in the geographic chart (Fig. 15).

The north temperate belt of Asia and Europe, with its hardy forests and genial meadows, was the home of the even more highly varied Eurasiatic Forest and Meadow fauna. This includes twenty-six or more species. Of these the red deer, or stag, was most characteristic of the forests and the bison and wild cattle[M] of the meadows. Even at the very beginning of Pleistocene times there appear the stag, the wild boar, and the roe-deer with their natural pursuers, the wolf and the brown bear. From the northern woods came the moose and the wolverene. Most of these mammals were so similar to existing forms that the older naturalists placed them in existing species, but the tendency now is to separate them or place them in distinct subspecies. Mingled with these forest and meadow mammals were a few others which have since become extinct, such as the giant deer (Megaceros), the giant beaver (Trogontherium), and the primitive forest and meadow horses. From this region also there developed the cave-bear (Ursus spelæus). Certainly it is astonishing to find the remains of these mammals mingled with those from southern Asia and Africa, as is frequently the case. In early glacial times the bison and wild cattle mingled freely with the hippopotami and rhinoceroses, but in late glacial and Postglacial times they occurred as companions of the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros. In prehistoric times they survived with the mammals brought from the Orient by the Neolithic agriculturists.

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Fig. 15. Zoogeographic map. Range of the large mammals of Africa and southern Asia in Pliocene and Pleistocene times until nearly the close of the Lower Palæolithic (oblique lines). Range of the forest and meadow fauna of Europe and Asia from early Pleistocene to prehistoric times; stag and bison fauna (horizontal lines). Present range of the tundra or barren-ground mammals (dots) which wandered south during the fourth glaciation, expelling the large Asiatic mammals. Present range of mammals of the deserts and steppes of eastern Europe and southern Asia, which also invaded western Europe during the glacial and Postglacial stages (vertical lines). The alpine mammals dwelt in the high mountain regions and invaded the plains and lowlands during Fourth Glacial and Postglacial times.

During a great glaciation, but especially during the severe climate of late Pleistocene times, the Alpine mammals were driven down from the heights into the plains and among the lower mountains and foot-hills. Thus the ibex, chamois, and argali sheep from the Altai Mountains are represented both in drawing and in sculpture by the men of the Reindeer Period.

Still more remarkable is the arrival in Europe of the Steppe Fauna of Russia and of western Siberia, mammals which now survive in the vast Kirghiz steppes, east of the Caspian Sea and the Ural Mountains, where the climate is one of hot, dry summers and prolonged cold winters, with sweeping dust and snow storms. These animals are very hardy, alert, and swift of foot, such as the jerboa, the saiga antelope, the wild asses, and the wild horses, including the Przewalski type, which still survives in the desert of Gobi. From this region also came the Elasmothere (E. sibiricum), with its single giant horn above the eyes. Very distinctive of the fauna frequenting the caverns are the small rodents, including the dwarf pikas, the steppe hamsters, and the lemmings. These animals were attracted into Europe during the 'steppe' and 'loess' periods of cold, dry climate.

The advance of the great Scandinavian glaciers from the north crowded to the south the Tundra or Barren Ground fauna of the arctic circle. The herald of this fauna during the First Glacial Stage was the musk-ox, which appears in Sussex, and then came the reindeer of the existing Scandinavian type. These animals are followed by the woolly mammoth (E. primigenius) and the woolly rhinoceros (D. antiquitatis) with their panoply of hair and wool which had long been developing in the north. Finally in the Fourth Glacial Stage arrived the lemming of the river Obi, also the more northern banded lemming, the arctic fox, the wolverene, and the ermine, as well as the arctic hare. These tundra mammals for a short period mingled in places with survivors of the African-Asiatic fauna, such as Merck's rhinoceros and the straight-tusked elephant (E. antiquus). In general, they swept southward as far as the Pyrenees over country which had long been enjoyed by the African-Asiatic mammals, while the hippopotami and the southern elephants retreated still farther south and became extinct.

The only survivors of the great African-Asiatic fauna in Fourth Glacial and Postglacial times were the hyænas (H. crocuta spelæa) and the lions (Felis leo spelæa). The lion frequently appears in the drawings of the cavemen.

The various species belonging to these five great faunæ apparently succeed each other, and wherever their remains are mingled with the palæoliths, as along the rivers Somme, Marne, and Thames, or in the hearths of the shelters and caverns, they become of extreme interest both in their bearing on the chronology of man and on the development of human culture, art, and industry. They also tell the story of the sequence of climatic conditions both in the regions bordering the glaciers and in the more temperate regions remote from the ice-caps. Thus they guide the anthropologist over the difficult gaps where the geologic record is limited or undecipherable. The general succession of these great faunæ is illustrated in Fig. 14 and also in the above table.

(1) Lamarck, 1815.1.

(2) Schaaffhausen, 1858.1.

(3) Darwin, C., 1909.2.

(4) Lamarck, 1809.1.

(5) Lyell, 1863.1, pp. 84-89.

(6) Darwin, C., 1871.1, p. 146.

(7) Darwin, C., 1909.1, p. 158.

(8) Retzius, A., 1864.1, p. 27.

(9) Op. cit., p. 166.

(10) Broca, 1875.1.

(11) Schwalbe, G., 1914.1, p. 592.

(12) Cartailhac, 1903.1.

(13) Déchelette, 1908.1, vol. I.

(14) Reinach, S., 1889.1.

(15) Schmidt, 1912.1.

(16) Avebury, 1913.1.

(17) Eccardus, 1750.1.

(18) Mahudel, 1740.1.

(19) Buckland, 1824.1.

(20) Godwin-Austen, 1840.1.

(21) Christol, 1820.1.

(22) Schmerling, 1833.1.

(23) Boucher de Perthes, 1846.1.

(24) Op. cit.

(25) Rigollot, 1854.1.

(26) Lubbock, 1862.1.

(27) Avebury, 1913.1, pp. 2, 3.

(28) Lartet, 1861.1.

(29) Lartet, 1875.1.

(30) Breuil, 1912.7, p. 165.

(31) de Mortillet, 1869.1.

(32) Piette, E., 1907.1.

(33) Rivière 1897.1.

(34) de Sautuola, 1880.1.

(35) Schmidt, 1912.1.

(36) Bourgeois, 1867.1.

(37) Schmidt, op. cit., p. 5.

(38) Obermaier, 1912.1, pp. 170-174; 316-320; 332, 545.

(39) Charpentier, 1841.1.

(40) Agassiz, 1837.1; 1840.1; 1840.2.

(41) Morlot, 1854.1.

(42) Chamberlin, 1895.1; 1905.1, vol. III, chap. XIX, pp. 327-516.

(43) Salisbury, 1905.1.

(44) Penck, 1909.1.

(45) Leverett, 1910.1.

(46) Lyell, 1867.1, vol. I, pp. 293-301; 1877.1, vol. I, p. 287.

(47) Dana, 1875.1, p. 591.

(48) Walcott, 1893.1.

(49) Upham, 1893.1, p. 217.

(50) Heim, 1894.1.

(51) Sollas, 1900.1.

(52) Penck, 1909.1, vol. III, pp. 1153-1176.

(53) Geikie, 1914.1, p. 302.

(54) Reeds, 1915.1.

(55) Nüesch, 1902.1.

(56) Geikie, op. cit., pp. 111-114.

(57) Op. cit., p. 108.

(58) Huntington, 1907.1.

(59) Leverett, 1910.1.

(60) Obermaier, 1912.1, p. 132.

(61) Penck, 1908.1; 1909.1.

(62) Geikie, 1914.1, p. 312.

(63) Wiegers, 1913.1.

(64) Boule, 1888.1.

(65) Schuchardt, 1913.1, p. 144.

(66) Obermaier, 1909.2; 1912.1.

(67) Schmidt, 1912.1, p. 266.

(68) Penck, 1909.1, vol. III, p. 1168, Fig. 136.

(69) Neumayr, 1890.1, vol. II, p. 621.

(70) Martins, 1847.1, pp. 941, 942.

(71) Osborn, 1910.1, pp. 386-427.

CHAPTER I

ANCESTRY OF THE ANTHROPOID APES—PLIOCENE CLIMATE, FORESTS, AND LIFE OF WESTERN EUROPE—TRANSITION TO THE PLEISTOCENE, OR AGE OF MAN—THE FIRST GLACIATION, ITS EFFECTS ON CLIMATE, FORESTS, AND ANIMAL LIFE—THE PREHUMAN TRINIL RACE OF JAVA—THE EOLITHS OR PRIMITIVE FLINTS—THE SECOND GLACIATION—THE HEIDELBERG, EARLIEST KNOWN HUMAN RACE—THE THIRD GLACIATION

The partly known ancestors of the anthropoid apes and the unknown ancestors of man probably originated among the forests and flood-plains of southern Asia and early began to migrate westward into northern Africa and western Europe.

As early as Oligocene times a forerunner of the great apes (Propliopithecus), most nearly resembling the gibbons, appears in the desert bordering the Fayum in northern Egypt. Early in Miocene times true tree-living gibbons found their way into Europe and continued throughout the Pliocene in the forms known as Pliopithecus and Pliohylobates, the latter being a true gibbon in its proportions; it ranged northward into the present region of Germany. Another ape which early reached Europe is the Dryopithecus; it is found in Miocene times in southern France; the grinding-teeth suggest those of the orang, the jaw is deep and in some ways resembles that of the Piltdown man. A third ape (Neopithecus) occurs in the Lower Pliocene near Eppelsheim, in Germany, and is known only from a single lower molar tooth, which recalls the dentition of Dryopithecus and more remotely that of Homo. In the Pliocene of the Siwalik hills of Asia is found Palæopithecus, a generalized form which is believed to be related to the chimpanzee, the gorilla, and the gibbon; the upper premolars resemble those of man.

None of these fossil anthropoids either of Europe or of Asia can be regarded as ancestral to man, although both Neopithecus and Dryopithecus have been placed in or near the line of human ancestry by such high authorities as Branco and Gaudry. When Dryopithecus was first discovered by Lartet, Gaudry[(1)] considered it to be by far the most manlike of all the apes, even attributing to it sufficient intelligence for the working of flints, but fuller knowledge of this animal has shown that some of the living anthropoids are more manlike than Dryopithecus. This animal is closely related to the ancestral stock of the chimpanzee, gorilla, and orang. The jaw, it is true, resembles that of the Piltdown man (Eoanthropus), but the grinding-teeth are much more primitive and there is little reason to think that it is ancestral to any human type.[N]

Fig. 16. The gibbon is primitive in its skull and dentition, but extremely specialized in the adaptation of its limbs to arboreal life. Photograph from the New York Zoological Park.

Among these fossil anthropoids, as well as among the four living forms, we discover no evidence of direct relationship to man but very strong evidence of descent from the same ancestral stock. These proofs of common ancestry, which have already been observed in the existing races of man, become far more conspicuous in the ancient Palæolithic races; in fact, we cannot interpret the anatomy of the men of the Old Stone Age without a survey of the principal characters of the existing anthropoid apes, the gibbon, the orang, the chimpanzee, and the gorilla.

Fig. 17. The orang has a high rounded skull and long face.
Photograph from the New York Zoological Park.

The gibbon is the most primitive of living apes in its skull and dentition, but the most specialized in the length of its arms and its other extreme adaptations to arboreal life. As in the other anthropoids, the face is abbreviated, the narial region is narrow, i. e., catarrhine, and the brain-case is widened, but the top of the skull is smooth, and the forehead lacks the prominent ridges above the orbits; thus the profile of the skull of the gibbon (Fig. 16) is more human than that of the other anthropoid apes. When on the ground the gibbon walks erect and is thus afforded the free use of its arms and independent movements of its fingers. In the brain there is a striking development of the centres of sight, touch, and hearing. It is these characteristics of the modern gibbon which preserve with relatively slight changes the type of the original ancestor of man, as noted by Elliot Smith.[(2)]

Fig. 18. The chimpanzee. This figure illustrates the walking powers of the chimpanzee, the great length of the arms, and the abbreviation of the legs. Photograph from the New York Zoological Park.

The limbs of the orang are less elongated and less extremely specialized for arboreal life than those of the gibbon but more so than those of the chimpanzee and the gorilla. The skull is rounded and of great vertical height, with broad, bony ridges above the orbits and a great median crest on top of the skull in old males. The lower jaw of the orang is stout and deep, and, although used as a fighting weapon, the canine tusks are much less prominent than in either the gibbon, chimpanzee, or gorilla. Of all anthropoids this jaw most nearly resembles that of the Piltdown man.

Fig. 19. The Chimpanzee. This figure shows certain facial characteristics which are preserved in the Neanderthal race of men. Note also the shortening of the thumb and the enlargement of the big toe. Photograph from the New York Zoological Park.

In the chimpanzee we observe the very prominent bony ridges above the eyes, like those in the Trinil and Neanderthal races of men. The prognathous or protruding tooth rows and receding chin suggest those in the Heidelberg, Piltdown, and Neanderthal races. When the chimpanzee is walking (Fig. 18) the arms reach down below the level of the knees, whereas in the higher races of man they reach only half-way down the thighs. Thus, the fore limb, although much shorter than that of the gibbon, is relatively longer than that of any human race, recent or ancient. We observe also in the walking chimpanzee (Fig. 18) that the upper part of the leg, the thigh-bone, or femur, is relatively long, while the lower part, the shin-bone, or tibia, is relatively short. Indeed, both in the arm and in the leg the upper bones are relatively long and the lower bones are relatively short. These proportions, which are inheritances of arboreal life, are in very marked contrast to those observed in the arms and legs of the Neanderthal race of men, in which the limbs are of the terrestrial or walking type.

ANCESTRAL TREE OF THE ANTHROPOID APES AND OF MAN

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From the unknown and ancestral stock of the anthropoid apes and man the GIBBON was the first to branch off in Oligocene times; the ORANG then branched off in a widely different direction. The stem of the CHIMPANZEE and of the GORILLA branched off at a more recent date and is more nearly allied to that of man. Five early human races have been found in Europe in Glacial or Pleistocene times, but no traces of other primates except the macaques, which are related to the lower division of the baboons, have been found in Europe in Pleistocene times. Modified after Gregory. (For latest discovery see Appendix, Note VII.)

Fig. 20. The Gorilla. An immature female, about three years of age, showing none of the adult male characteristics. Photograph from the New York Zoological Park.

We observe also in the chimpanzee a contrast between the grasping power of the big toe, which is a kind of thumb, and the lack of that power in the hand, in which the thumb is nearly useless; in all apes this function is characteristic of the foot, in man of the hand alone. The opposable thumb, with its power of bringing the thumb against each of the fingers, is the one character which is lacking in every one of the anthropoid apes and which was early developed among the ancestors of man.

The skull of the chimpanzee is longer than that of the orang, the most prominent feature in the top view being the extreme protuberance of the orbits, which are surrounded by a supraorbital and circumorbital bony ridge, which is also strongly developed in the Neanderthal skull as well as in the Pithecanthropus or Trinil skull but, so far as we know, is entirely lacking in that of Piltdown. As in the orang and the gorilla, a crest develops along the middle of the top of the skull for the insertion of the powerful muscles of the jaws, a crest which is wholly wanting in the gibbon and probably wanting in all the true ancestors of man.

Fig. 21. Contrast of the projecting face (prognathism), retreating forehead, and small brain-case of a young gorilla, as compared with the vertical face, prominent nose, high forehead, and large brain-case of a high race of man. After Klaatsch.

The gorilla illustrates in the extreme the specializations which are begun in the chimpanzee, and which are attributable to a life partly arboreal, partly terrestrial, with the skull and jaws used as powerful fighting organs. The head is lengthened by the forward growth of the muzzle into an extreme prognathism. The limbs and body of the gorilla show a departure from the primitive, slender-limbed, arboreal type of apes and are partly adapted to a bipedal, ground-dwelling habit.

As regards psychic evolution,[(3)] Elliot Smith observes that the arboreal mode of life of the early ancestors of man developed quick, alert, and agile movements which stimulated the progressive development of the posterior and lateral portions of the brain. The sense of smell had been well developed in a previous terrestrial life, but once these creatures left the earth and took to the trees, guidance by the olfactory sense was less essential, for life amidst the branches of the trees is most favorable to the high development of the senses of vision, touch, and hearing. Moreover, it demands an agility and quickness of movement that necessitate efficient motor centres in the brain to co-ordinate and control such actions as tree life calls for. The specialization of sight awakens curiosity to examine objects with greater minuteness and guides the hands to more precise and skilled movements.

Fig. 22. Side view of a human brain of high type, showing the chief areas of muscular control and of the sensory impressions of sight and hearing, also the prefrontal area in which the higher mental faculties are centred. Modified after M. Allen Starr.

The anatomy of man is full of remote reminders of this original arboreal existence, which also explains the very large and early development of the posterior portions of the brain, in which the various senses of sight, touch, and hearing are located.

The first advance from arboreal to terrestrial life is marked by the power of walking more or less erect on the hind limbs and thus releasing the arms; this power is developed to a greater or less degree in all the anthropoid apes; with practice they become expert walkers. The additional freedom which the erect attitude gives to the arms and to the movements of the hands and the separate movements of the fingers is especially noticeable in the gibbon. The cultivation of the powers of the hand reacts upon the further growth and specialization of the brain; thus the brain and the erect attitude react upon each other. In the gibbon there is a marked increase in the size of those portions of the brain which supply the centres of touch, vision, and hearing.

Fig. 23. The evolution of the brain. Outlines (side view) of typical human and prehuman brains, showing the early development of the posterior portions of the brain and the relatively late development of the anterior portions, the seat of the higher mental faculties.

Discussion as to how the ancestors of man were fashioned has chiefly dealt with the rival claims of four lines of structural evolution: first, the assumption of the erect attitude; second, the development of the opposable thumb; third, the growth of the brain; and fourth, the acquisition of the power of speech. The argument for the erect attitude suggested by Lamarck, and ably put by Munro[(4)] in 1893, indicates that the cultivation of skill with the hands and fingers lies at the root of man's mental supremacy. Elliot Smith's argument that the steady growth and specialization of the brain itself has been the chief factor in leading the ancestors of man step by step upward indicates that such an advance as the erect attitude was brought about because the brain had made possible the skilled movements of the hands.

Fig. 24. The evolution of the brain. Outlines (top view) of typical human and prehuman brains, showing the narrow forebrain of the primitive type and the successive expansion of the seat of the higher mental faculties in the successive races.

The true conception of prehuman evolution, which occurred during Miocene and Pliocene times, is rather that of the coincident development of these four distinctively human powers. It appears from the limb proportions in the Neanderthal race that the partly erect attitude and walking gait were assumed much earlier in geologic time than we formerly imagined. The intimate relation between the use of the opposable thumb and the development of the higher mental faculties of man is sustained to-day by the discovery that one of the best methods of developing the mind of the child is to insist upon the constant use of the hands, for the action and reaction between hand and brain is found to develop the mind. A similar action and reaction between foot and brain developed the erect gait which released the hand from its locomotive and limb-grasping function, and by the resultant perfecting of the motion of thumbs and fingers turned the hand into an organ ready for the increasing specialization demanded by the manufacture of flint implements.

This is the stage reached, we believe, in late Pliocene times in which the human ancestor emerges from the age of mammals and enters the age of man, the period when the prehistory of man properly begins. The attitude is erect, the hand has a well-developed opposable thumb, the centres of the brain relating to the higher senses and to the control of all the motions of the limbs, hands, and fingers are well developed. The power of speech may still be rudimentary. The anterior centres of the brain for the storing of experience and the development of ideas are certainly very rudimentary.

Change of Environment in Europe

Considering that the origin and development of any creature are best furthered by a struggle for existence sufficiently severe to demand the full and frequent exercise of its powers of mind and body, it is interesting to trace the sequence of natural events which prepared western Europe for the entrance of the earliest branches of the human race. The forests and plants portray even more vividly than the animals the changing conditions of the environment and temperature which marked the approach and various vicissitudes of the great Ice Age.

The forests of central France in Pliocene times, as well as those of the valley of the Arno in northern Italy, were very similar to the forests of the middle United States at the present time, comprising such trees as the sassafras, the locust, the honey-locust, the sumach, the bald cypress, and the tulip. Thus the regions which harbored the rich forest and meadow fauna of northern Italy in Upper Pliocene times abounded in trees familiar to-day in North and South Carolina, including even such distinctively American forms as the sweet gum (Liquidambar styraciflua), the sour gum (Nyssa sylvatica), and the bay, beside those above mentioned. To the south, along the Mediterranean, there also flourished trees incident to a more tropical climate, the bamboo, the sabal palm, and the dwarf fan-palm; most interesting is the presence of the sabal, which now flourishes in the subtropical rain forests of central Florida. The sequoia also was abundant. Toward the close of the Pliocene the first indications of the coming Glacial Epoch were a lowering of the temperature, and, in the higher mountainous areas perhaps, a beginning of the glacial stages.

The ancestors of the modern forests of Europe predominated in central France: the oak, the beech, the poplar, the willow, and the larch. It is these forests, which survived the vicissitudes of glacial times, that gave descent to the forests of Postglacial Europe, while all the purely American types disappeared from Europe and are now found only in the temperate regions of the United States.[(5)]

We have seen that anthropoid apes have not been discovered either in the Middle or Upper Pliocene of Europe; the gibbon-ape line disappears with the Pliohylobates of the Upper Pliocene. These animals are, however, rarely found in fossil form, owing to their retreat to the trees in times of flood and danger, so that we need not necessarily assume that the anthropoids had actually become extinct in France. The primates which are found in the Upper Pliocene belong to the lower types of the Old World monkeys, related to the living langur of India and to the macaque and baboon. The evidence, as far as it goes, indicates that the ancestors of man were at this time evolving in Asia and not in Europe. This evidence, nevertheless, would be completely offset if it could be proven that the eoliths, or primitive flints, found in various parts of Europe from Oligocene to Pleistocene times are really artifacts of human or prehuman origin.

The mammals of Europe in Pliocene times were derived by very remote migrations from North America and, more directly, from southern Asia. The Oriental element is very strong, including types of rhinoceroses now peculiar to Sumatra and southern Asia, numerous mastodons very similar to the south Asiatic types of the times, gazelles and antelopes, including types related to the existing elands, and primitive types of horses and of tapirs. Among the carnivores in Europe similar to south Asiatic species were the hyænas, the dog bears (Hyænarctos), the civets, and the pandas (Ailurus); there were also the sabre-tooth tigers and numerous other felines. In the trees were found the south Asiatic and north African monkeys; and in the forests the axis deer, now restricted to Asia. But the most distinctive African-Asiatic animal of this period was found in the rivers; namely, the hippopotamus, which arrived in Italy in the early Pliocene and ranged south by way of the Sicilian land bridge into northern Africa and east along the southern shores of the Black Sea to the Siwalik hills of India. Thus, many of the ancestors of what we have termed the African-Asiatic mammal group of Pleistocene times had already found their way into Europe early in Pliocene times. In middle and late Pliocene times there arrived three very important types of mammals which played a great rôle in the early Pleistocene. These are:

The true horses (Equus stenonis) of remote North American origin.

The first true cattle (Leptobos elatus), originating in southern Asia.

The true elephants, first Elephas planifrons and later E. meridionalis, better known as the southern mammoth, both originating in Asia.

The forests and river borders of the valley of the Arno, near Florence, contained all these African-Asiatic animals in Upper Pliocene times. Here they received their names which remind us of this region of Italy as it is to-day, such as the Etruscan rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus etruscus), the Florentine macaque (Macacus florentinus), Steno's horse (Equus stenonis), the Etruscan cattle (Leptobos etruscus), which was the earliest ox to reach Europe.

In Italy and France these African-Asiatic mammals were mingled with ancestors of the more hardy Eurasiatic forest and meadow group. Of these the most graceful were a variety of deer with very elaborate or many-branched antlers, hence known as the 'polycladine' deer. In the forests roamed the wild boars of Auvergne (Sus arvernensis), also the bears of Auvergne (Ursus arvernensis), lynxes, foxes, and wildcats. In the rivers swam the otter and the beaver, closely allied to existing forms. Among the rocks of the high hills were the pikas or tailless hares (Lagomys), also hamsters, moles, and shrews.

Many of the most characteristic animals of the dry modern plateaus of Africa had disappeared from Europe before the close of Pliocene times, namely, species of gazelles, antelopes, and the hipparion horses, all of which were adapted to the dry uplands or deserts of Africa. In the remaining faune Pliocène récente of French authors we find evidence that the Pliocene in all of western Europe closed with a moist, warm, temperate climate, with wide-spread forests and rivers interspersed with meadows favorable to the life of a great variety of browsing deer as well as of grazing elephants, horses and cattle. The flora of the Middle Pliocene as found at Meximieux indicates a mean annual temperature of 62° to 63° Fahr.

One of the proofs of the gradual lowering of temperature toward the close of Pliocene times in Europe is the southward retreat and disappearance of the apes and monkeys; the Upper Miocene gibbon is found as far north as Eppelsheim, near Worms, Germany; in Lower Pliocene times the monkeys and apes are found only in the forests of the south of France; in Upper Pliocene times they are recorded only in the forests of northern Italy; the evidence, so far as it goes, indicates a gradual retreat toward the south.

Finally, at the end of the Pliocene there existed very close geographic relations eastward with the mammalian life of India by way of what was then the isthmus of the Dardanelles and southward with the mammalian life of Africa by way of the Sicilian land bridge. This would indicate that the long lines of eastward and westward migration were open and favorable to the arrival in western Europe of new migrants from the far east, including perhaps the most primitive races of man. There is not the least evidence that Pliocene man or ancestors of man existed in Europe, excepting such as may be afforded by the problematic eoliths, or most primitive flints.

The First Glaciation

In Upper Pliocene times cold marine currents[(6)] from the north began to flow along the southeastern coast of England, with indications of a gradually lowering temperature culminating at a time when the sea abounded in the arctic mollusks, which have been preserved in the 'Weybourn Crags,' a geologic formation along the coast of Norfolk. This arctic current was the herald of the First Glacial Stage.

It does not appear that a glacial cap of any considerable extent was formed in Great Britain at this stage, but about this time the first great ice-cap was formed in British North America west of Hudson Bay, which sent its ice-sheets as far south as Iowa and Nebraska. In the latter State forests of spruce and other coniferous species indicate the appearance of a cool temperate flora in advance of the glaciation. In the Swiss Alps the snow descended 1,200 meters below the present snow-line, and in Scandinavia and northern Germany the first great ice-sheets were formed from which flowed the glaciers and rivers conveying the 'Old Diluvium,' or the 'oldest drift.' Accompanying the cold wave along the eastern coast of England we note, in the famous fossil deposits known as the 'Forest Bed of Cromer,' which overlie the Weybourn Crags, the arrival from the north of the fir-tree (Abies). This is most significant, because it had hitherto been known only in the arctic region of Grinnell Land, and this was its first appearance in central Europe. Another herald of northern conditions was the first occurrence of the musk-ox in England, which is attributed[(7)] to the 'Forest Bed' deposits.

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Fig. 25. The First (Günz) Glacial Stage was far less extensive than that in the above map, which shows Europe in the Second Glacial Stage, during the greatest extension of the ice-fields and glaciers (dots), a period of continental depression in which the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas were connected. The line from Scandinavia to the Atlas Mountains corresponds with the section shown in Fig. 13, p. 37. Drawn by C. A. Reeds, after James Geikie and Penck.

While Great Britain was less affected at this time than other regions, there is no doubt as to the vast extent of the First Glacial Stage in British America, in Scandinavia, and in the Alps; in the latter region it has been termed 'the Günz stage' by Penck and Brückner. The 'drift' deposits have a general thickness of 98½ feet (30 m.), but they are largely covered and buried by those of the far more extensive Second Glacial Stage. The Scandinavian ice-sheet[(8)] not only occupied the basin of the Baltic but overflowed Scania—the southern part of Sweden—and extended as far south as Hamburg and Berlin. In the Alps the glaciers passed down all the great mountain valleys to the low grounds of the foreland, implying a depression of the snow-line to 4,000 feet below its present level.

Fig. 26. The musk-ox, belonging to the tundra region of the arctic circle, which is reported to have migrated as far south as the southern coast of England during the First (Günz) Glacial Stage.

The First Interglacial Stage. Eoliths

Proofs that a prolonged cool wave passed over Britain during the first glaciation are seen in its after effects, namely, in the modernization of the forests and in the disappearance both in Britain and France of a very considerable number of animals which were abundant in Upper Pliocene times. Yet by far the greater part of the Pliocene mammal life survived, a fact which tends to show that, while very cold conditions of climate and great precipitation of moisture may have characterized the regions immediately surrounding the ice-fields, the remainder of western Europe at most passed through a prolonged cool period during the climax of the First Glacial Stage. This was followed during the First Interglacial by the return of a period somewhat warmer than the present.

This First Interglacial Stage is known as the Norfolkian, from the fact that it was first recognized in Europe in the deposits known as the 'Forest Bed of Cromer,' Norfolk, which contain rich records not only of the forests of the period, but of the noble forms of mammals which roamed over Great Britain and France in Norfolkian times. The forests of Norfolk, in latitude 52° 40' N. mainly abounded in trees still indigenous to this region, such as the maple, elm, birch, willow, alder, oak, beech, pine, and spruce, a forest flora closely corresponding to that of the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts of England at the present time, although we find in this fossil flora several exotic species which give it a slightly different character.[(9)] From this tree flora Reid concludes that the climate of southeastern England was nearly the same as at present but slightly warmer.

We note especially that a very great change had taken place in the entire disappearance in these forests of the trees which in Pliocene times were common to Europe and America, as described above; in other words, the flora of Europe was greatly impoverished during the first cold wave.

In southern France, as at the present time, the interglacial climatic conditions were milder, for we find numerous species of plants, which are now represented in the Caucasus, Persia, southern Italy, Portugal, and Japan. Thus the First Interglacial Stage, which was a relatively short one, enjoyed a temperature now belonging about 4° of latitude farther south.

This First Interglacial Stage is also known as the St.-Prestien, because among the many localities in France and Italy which preserve the plant and mammal life of the times that of St. Prest, in the Paris basin, is the most famous. Here in 1863 Desnoyers[(10)] first reported the discovery of a number of mammal bones with incision lines upon them, which he considered to be the work of man. These deposits were regarded at the time as of Pliocene age, and this gave rise immediately to a wide-spread theory of the appearance of man as early as the Pliocene. The human origin of the incisions discovered by Desnoyers has long been a matter of dispute and is now regarded as very improbable. Similar lines may be of animal origin, namely, marks left by claws or teeth, or due to accidental pressure of sharp cutting surfaces. However, we do not pretend to express an opinion of any value as to the cause of these incisions. Supposed confirmation of the evidence of Desnoyers of the existence of Pliocene man was the alleged finding by Abbott of several worked flints, two in situ, in the 'Forest Bed of Cromer,' Norfolk. Many years later in similar deposits at St. Prest were discovered the supposed 'eoliths' which have been referred to the Étage Prestien by Rutot. The age of the St. Prest deposits is, therefore, a matter of the very highest interest and importance.

Fig. 27. The giant deer (Megaceros), which first appears in western Europe during the First Interglacial Stage, probably as a migrant from the forested regions of Eurasia. After a painting by Charles R. Knight, in the American Museum of Natural History.

St. Prest is not Pliocene; it is rather the most ancient Pleistocene deposit in the basin of Paris,[(11)] and these incised mammal bones probably date from the First Interglacial Stage. The bed which has yielded the incised bones and the rich series of fossils consists of coarse river sands and gravels, forming part of a 'high terrace,' 98½ feet (30 m.) above the present level of the river Eure. This, like other 'high terraces,' contains a characteristic First Interglacial fauna, including the southern mammoth (E. meridionalis), and Steno's horse (E. stenonis). We also find here other very characteristic early Pleistocene mammals, such as the Etruscan rhinoceros (D. etruscus), the giant hippopotamus of early Pleistocene times (H. major), the giant beaver of the early Pleistocene (Trogontherium), three forms of the common beaver (Castor), and one of the bison (Bison antiquus). This mammalian life of St. Prest is very similar to that of Norfolk, England; to that of Malbattu in central France, Puy-de-Dôme; of Peyrolles, near the mouth of the Rhône, in southern France; of Solilhac near Puy; of Durfort, Gard; of Cajarc, Lot-et-Garonne; and finally to that of the valley of the Arno, in northern Italy.

One reason why certain authors, such as Boule and Depéret, have placed this stage in the Upper Pliocene is that the mammals include so many surviving Pliocene forms, such as the sabre-tooth tigers (Machærodus), the 'polycladine' deer with the elaborate antlers (C. sedgwicki), the Etruscan rhinoceros, and the primitive Steno's horse. But we have recently discovered that, with the exception of the 'polycladine' deer, these mammals certainly survived in Europe as late as the Second Interglacial Stage, and there is said to be evidence that some even persisted into the Third Interglacial Stage.

It is, therefore, the extinction or disappearance from Europe of many of the animals very abundant even in late Pliocene times which marks this fauna as early Pleistocene. Anthropoid apes are no longer found; indeed, there is no evidence of the survival of any of the primates, except macaques, which survive in the Pyrenees to late Pleistocene times; the tapir has entirely disappeared from the forests of Europe; but the most significant departure is that of the mastodon, which is believed to have lingered in north Africa and which certainly survived in America into very late Pleistocene times. The animal life of western Europe, like the plant life, has lost one part of its Pliocene aspect while retaining another part, both in its mammalian fauna and in its forest flora.

Fig. 28. The sabre-tooth tiger (Machærodus), which survives from the Upper Pliocene and is widely distributed over western Europe until the Middle Pleistocene. After a painting by Charles R. Knight, in the American Museum of Natural History.

The living environment as a whole, moreover, takes on a novel aspect through the arrival, chiefly from the north, of the more hardy animals and plants which had been evolving for a very long period of time in the temperate forests and meadows of Eurasia to the northeast and northwest. From this Eurasiatic region came the stag, or red deer (Cervus elaphus), also the giant deer (Megaceros), and from the northerly swamps the broad-headed moose (Alces latifrons). The presence of members of the deer family (Cervidæ) in great numbers and representing many different lines of descent is one of the most distinctive features of First Interglacial times. Beside the new northerly forms mentioned above, there was the roe-deer (Capreolus), which still survives in Europe, but there is no longer any record of the beautiful axis deer (Axis), which has now retreated to southern Asia. The 'polycladine' deer, first observed in the valley of the Arno, is represented in First Interglacial times by Sedgwick's deer (C. sedgwicki), in Norfolk, and by the species C. dicranius of northern Italy, where there also occurs the 'deer of the Carnutes' (C. carnutorum).

We observe that browsing, forest-living, and river-living types predominate. Among the forest-frequenting carnivores were the wolverene, the otter, two kinds of bear, the wolf, the fox, and the marten; another forest dweller was a wild boar, related to the existing Sus scrofa of Europe.

Thus in the very beginning of Pleistocene times the forests of Europe were full of a wild life very similar to that of prehistoric times, mingled with which was the Oriental element, the great elephants, rhinoceroses, and hippopotami connecting Europe with the far east. Among these eastern migrants in the early Pleistocene were two new arrivals, the primitive wild cattle (Bos primigenius), and the first of the bison (Bison priscus).

The theoretical map of western Europe during First Interglacial times (Fig. 12, also Fig. 56) enables us to understand these migrations from the northeast and from the Orient. As indicated by the sunken river channels discovered on the old continental shelf, the coast-line extended far to the west to the borders of the continental plateau which is now sunk deep beneath the ocean; the British Isles were separated from France not by the sea but by a broad valley, while the Rhine, with the Thames as a western tributary flowed northward over an extensive flood-plain, which is the present floor of the North Sea basin.[(12)] It is not improbable that the rich mammalian life deposits in the 'Forest Bed of Cromer,' Norfolk, were washed down by tributaries of this ancient Rhine River.

In all the great rivers of this enlarged western Europe occurred the hippopotami, and along the river borders and in the forests browsed the Etruscan rhinoceros. Among the grazing and meadow-living forms of the Norfolk country of Britain were species of wild cattle (Bos, Leptobos), together with two species of horses, including a lighter form resembling Steno's horse (E. stenonis cocchi) of the Val d'Arno and a heavier type probably belonging to the forests. The giant elephant of this period is the southern mammoth (E. meridionalis trogontherii), a somewhat specialized descendant of the Pliocene southern mammoth of the valley of the Arno; this animal is best known from a superb specimen discovered at Durfort (Fig. 42) and preserved in the Paris Museum. It is said to have attained a height of over 12 feet as compared with 11 feet 3 inches, the height of the largest existing African elephants. It is probable that all these south Asiatic migrants into Europe were partially or wholly covered with hair, in adaptation to the warm, temperate climate of the summers and the cool winters. To the south, in the still milder climate of Italy, the arrival of another great species, known as the 'ancient' or 'straight-tusked elephant' (E. antiquus), is recorded. This animal had not yet reached France or Britain.

Preying upon the defenseless members of this heterogeneous fauna were the great machærodonts, or sabre-tooth tigers, which ranged over Europe and northern Africa and into Asia. It does not appear that the true lions (Felis leo) had as yet entered Europe.

An intercommunication of life over a vast area extending 6,000 miles from the Thames valley on the west to India on the southeast is indicated by the presence of six or more similar or related species of elephants and rhinoceroses. Twenty-five hundred miles southeast of the foot-hills of the Himalayas similar herds of mammals, but in an earlier stage of evolution, roamed over the island of Java, which was then a part of the Asiatic mainland.

The Trinil Race of Java

The human interest in this great life throng lies in the fact that the migration routes opened by these great races of animals may also have afforded a pathway for the earliest races of men. Thus the discovery of the Trinil race in central Java, amidst a fauna closely related to that of the foot-hills of the Himalayas and more remotely related to that of southern Europe, has a more direct bearing upon our subject than would at first appear.

Fig. 29. Restoration of Pithecanthropus, the Java ape-man, modelled by the Belgian artist Mascré, under the direction of Professor A. Rutot, of Brussels, Belgium.

Fig. 30. The Solo or Bengawan River in central Java. Scene of the discovery of the type specimen of Pithecanthropus erectus in 1894. After Selenka and Blanckenhorn. Compare map (Fig. 32, p. 75).

On the Bengawan River in central Java, a Dutch army surgeon, Eugen Dubois, had been excavating for fossils in the hope of finding prehuman remains. In the year 1891 he found near Trinil a deposit of numerous mammal bones, including a single upper molar tooth which he regarded as that of a new species of ape. On carefully clearing away the rock the top of a skull appeared at about a meter's distance from the tooth. Further excavation at the close of the rainy season brought to light a second molar tooth and a left thigh-bone about 15 meters from the spot where the skull was found, imbedded and fossilized in the same manner. These scattered parts were described by Dubois[(13)] in 1894 as the type of Pithecanthropus erectus,[O] a term signifying the upright-standing ape-man. The specific term erectus refers to the thigh-bone, of which the author observes: "We must therefore conclude that the femur of Pithecanthropus was designed for the same mechanical functions as that of man. The two articulations and the mechanical axis correspond so exactly to the same parts in man that the law of perfect harmony between the form and function of a bone will necessitate the conclusion that this fossil creature had the same upright posture as man and likewise walked on two legs.... From this it necessarily follows that the creature had the free use of the upper extremities—now superfluous for walking—and that these last were no doubt already far advanced in that line of differentiation which developed them in mankind into tools and organs of touch.... From a study of the femur and skull it follows with certainty that this fossil cannot be classified as simian.... And, as with the skull, so also with the femur, the differences that separate Pithecanthropus from man are less than those distinguishing it from the highest anthropoid.... Although far advanced in the course of differentiation, this Pleistocene form had not yet attained to the human type. Pithecanthropus erectus is the transition form between man and the anthropoids which the laws of evolution teach us must have existed. He is the ancestor of man."

Thus the author placed Pithecanthropus in a new family, of the order Primates, which he named the Pithecanthropidæ.

Fig. 31. Geological section of the volcano of Lawoe in the Solo River basin.
Drawn by C. A. Reeds.

Fig. 32. Map of the Solo River, showing the Pithecanthropus discovery site, also two excavations (Pit No. 1, Pit No. 2) in the ancient gravel of the river-bottom, made by the Selenka-Blanckenhorn expedition of 1907. After Selenka and Blanckenhorn.

The geologic age of the bones referred to is a matter of first importance. The remains of Pithecanthropus lay in a deposit about one meter in thickness, consisting of loose, coarse, tufaceous sandstones, below this a stratum of hard, blue-gray clay, and under that marine breccia. Above the Pithecanthropus layer were the 'Kendeng' strata, a many-layered tufaceous sandstone, about 15 meters in thickness. This geologic series was considered by Dubois and others to be of late Tertiary or Pliocene age; Pithecanthropus accordingly became known as the long-awaited 'Pliocene ape-man.' Subsequent researches by expert geologists have tended to refer the age to the early Pleistocene.[(17)] According to Elbert[(18)] the Kendeng strata overlying the Pithecanthropus layer correspond to an early pluvial period of low temperature and, in point of time, to the Ice Age of Europe. For even in Java one can distinguish three divisions of the Pleistocene period, including the first period of low temperature to which the Pithecanthropus layer is referred.

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Fig. 33. Section corresponding to line A-B in Fig. 32, showing the river-drift gravels and sands at the point where the skull-top of Pithecanthropus was found. Drawn by C. A. Reeds.

The fossil mammals contained in the Pithecanthropus layer have also been thoroughly studied,[(19)] and they tend to confirm the original reference to the uppermost Pliocene. They yield a very rich fauna similar to that of the Siwalik hills of India, including the porcupine, pangolin, several felines, the hyæna, and the otter. Among the primates beside Pithecanthropus there is a macaque. Among the larger ungulates are two species of rhinoceros related to existing Indian forms, the tapir, the boar, the hippopotamus, the axis and rusa deer, the Indian buffalo, and wild cattle. It is noteworthy that three species of late Pliocene elephants, all known as Stegodon, and especially the species Stegodon ganeza, occur, as well as Elephas hysudricus, a species related to E. antiquus, or the straight-tusked elephant, which entered Europe in early Pleistocene times. Fossils of the same animals are found in the foot-hills of the Himalayas of India, about 2,500 miles distant to the northwest. The India deposits are considered of uppermost Pliocene age,[(20)] for this is the closing life period of the upper Siwaliks of India.

Certainly Java was then a part of the Asiatic continent, and similar herds of great mammals roamed freely over the plains from the foot-hills of the Himalaya Mountains to the borders of the ancient Trinil River, while similar apes inhabited the forests. At this time the orang may have entered the forests of Borneo, which are at present its home; it is the only ape thus far found in the uppermost Pliocene of India. We may, therefore, anticipate the discovery, at any time, in India of a race similar to Pithecanthropus.

The geologic age of the Trinil race is, therefore, to be considered as late Pliocene or early Pleistocene.

Fig. 34. The top (1) and side (1a) views of the skull-top of Pithecanthropus erectus. After Dubois. One-third life size.

This great discovery of Dubois aroused wide-spread and heated discussion, in which the foremost anatomists and palæontologists of the world took part. Some regarded the skull as that of a giant gibbon, others as prehuman, and still others as a transition form. We may form our own opinion, however, from a fuller understanding of the specimens themselves, always keeping in mind that it is a question whether the femur and the skull belong to the same individual or even to the same race. First, we are struck by the marked resemblance which the top of the skull bears, both on viewing it from the side and from above, to that of the Neanderthal race. This fully justifies the opinion of the anatomist Schwalbe[(21)] that the skull of Pithecanthropus is nearer to that of Neanderthal man than to that of even the highest of the anthropoid apes. As measured by Schwalbe, the index of the height of the cranium (Kalottenhöheindex) may be compared with others as follows:

Fig. 35. Head of chimpanzee—front and side views—exhibiting a head of somewhat similar shape to that of Pithecanthropus, with prominent eyebrow ridges, but much smaller brain capacity. Photograph from the New York Zoological Park.

This accords with the estimate of the brain capacity[P] of 855 c.cm. (Dubois) as compared with 1,230 c.cm., the smallest brain capacity found in a member of the Neanderthal race. Second, as seen from above, we are struck with the great length of the calvarium as compared with its breadth, the cephalic index or ratio of breadth to length being 73.4 per cent (Schwalbe) as compared with 73.9 per cent in the Neanderthal type skull; this dolichocephaly accords with the fact that all of the earliest human races thus far found are long-headed, although according to Schwalbe[(22)] all anthropoids are broad-headed. This is a very important distinction. The third feature is the prominence and width of the bony eyebrow ridges above the orbits, which are almost as great as in the chimpanzee and greatly exceed those of the Neanderthal race and of the modern Australian. The profile of the Trinil head restored by McGregor (Fig. 38) exhibits this prominent bony ridge and the low, retreating forehead. In the latest opinion of Schwalbe[(23)] Pithecanthropus may be regarded as one of the direct ancestors of Neanderthal man and even of the highest human species, Homo sapiens. He also considers that when the lower jaw of the Trinil race becomes known, it will be found to be very similar to that of the Heidelberg man, the final conclusion being that Pithecanthropus and the nearly allied Heidelberg man may be regarded as the common ancestors of the Neanderthal race, on the one hand, and of the higher races on the other. There are, however, reasons for excluding Pithecanthropus from the direct ancestral line of the higher races of man.

Fig. 36. Profile of the skull of Pithecanthropus, as restored by J. H. McGregor. 1914. One-third life size.

This prehuman stage has, none the less, a very great significance in the developmental history of man. In our opinion it is the very stage which, theoretically, we should anticipate finding in the dawn of the Pleistocene. A similar view is taken by Büchner,[(24)] who presents in an admirable diagram (Fig. 117) the result of his comparison of twelve different characters in the skulls of Pithecanthropus, the Neanderthals, the Australians, and the Tasmanians. One of the main objects of Büchner's research was a very detailed comparison of the Trinil skull with that of the lowly and now extinct Tasmanian race, which, we observe in the diagram, occupies a position only a little higher than that of the Spy-Neanderthal race.

Fig. 37. Three views of the skull of Pithecanthropus, as restored by J. H. McGregor, showing the original (shaded) and restored (black lines) portions. About one-quarter life size.

If the femur belongs with the skull, the Trinils were a tall race, reaching a height of 5 feet 7 inches as compared with 5 feet 3 inches in the Neanderthals. The thigh-bone (Fig. 122) has a very slight curvature as compared with that of any of the apes or lemurs, and in this respect is more human; it is remarkably elongate (455 mm.), surpassing that of the Neanderthals; the shin-bone (tibia) was probably correspondingly short. The two upper grinding-teeth preserved are much more human than those of the gibbon, but they do not resemble those of man closely enough to positively confirm the prehuman theory. Dubois observes:[(25)] "That the tooth belongs to some hominid form needs no further demonstration. Aside from its size and the greater roughness of the grinding surface, it differs from the human grinder in that the less developed cusp of Pithecanthropus is the posterior cusp next the cheek, while in man it is generally the posterior cusp next the tongue. The simplification of the crown and the root of the Trinil grinder is quite as extensive as it usually is in man."

Fig. 38. Profile view of the head of Pithecanthropus, the Java ape-man, after a model by J. H. McGregor. One-quarter life size.

Various efforts have been made to supplement the scattered and scanty materials collected by Dubois. The Selenka expedition of 1907-8 brought back a human left lower molar as the only result of an express search for more Pithecanthropus remains. Dubois is also said to possess the fragment of a primitive-looking lower jaw from the range known as the Kendeng Hills, at the southern base of which lies the village of Trinil.

It remains for us to consider the stage of psychic evolution attained by the Trinil race, and this naturally turns upon the erect attitude and what little is known of the size and proportions of the brain.

Fig. 39. Front view of the head of Pithecanthropus, the Java ape-man, after a model by J. H. McGregor. One-quarter life size.

The assumption of the erect attitude is not merely a question of learning to balance the body on the hinder extremities.[(26)] It involves changes in the interior of the body, the loss of the tail, the freeing of the arms, and the establishment of the diaphragm as the chief muscle of respiration. The thigh-bone of Pithecanthropus is so much like that of man as to support the theory that the erect position may have been assumed by the ancestors of man as early as Oligocene times. It would appear that Pithecanthropus had free use of the arms and it is possible that the control of the thumb and fingers had been cultivated, perhaps in the fashioning of primitive implements of wood and stone. The discovery of the use of wood as an implement and weapon probably preceded that of the use of stone.

Elliot Smith describes this stage of development as follows:[(27)] "... The emancipation of the hands from progression threw the whole responsibility upon the legs, which became more efficient for their purpose as supports once they lost their prehensile powers and became elongated and specialized for rapid progression. Thus the erect attitude became stereotyped and fixed and the limbs specialized, and these upright simians emerged from their ancestral forests in societies, armed with sticks and stones and with the rudiments of all the powers that eventually enabled them to conquer the world. The greater exposure to danger which these more adventurous spirits encountered once they emerged in the open, and the constant struggles these first semihuman creatures must have had in encounters with definite enemies, no less than with the forces of Nature, provided the factors which rapidly weeded out those unfitted for the new conditions and by natural selection made real men of the survivors."

Fig. 40. Side view of brain of high type, illustrating the contrast between the motor, sensory, and ideational centres in a high type of modern brain; and Elliot Smith's characterization of the probable centres in the Pithecanthropus type of brain. Modified after M. Allen Starr.

The undeveloped forehead of Pithecanthropus and the diminutive frontal area of the brain indicate that the Trinil race had a limited faculty of profiting by experience and accumulated tradition, for in this prefrontal area of the brain are located the powers of attention and of control of the activities of all other parts of the brain. In the brain of the ape the sensory areas of touch, taste, and vision predominate, and these are well developed in Pithecanthropus. The central area of the brain, which is the storehouse of the memories of actions and of the feelings associated with them, is also well developed, but the prefrontal area, which is the seat of the faculty of profiting by experience or of recalling the consequences of previous responses to experience, is developed to a very limited degree.[(28)] Thus, while the brain of Pithecanthropus is estimated at 855-900 c.cm., as compared with 600 c.cm. of the largest simian brain, and 930 c.cm. of the smallest brain recorded in the lower members of the human race, it indicates a very low stage of intelligence.

Fig. 41. Diagram showing the side (lower figure) and top (upper figure) views of the outline of the Pithecanthropus brain as compared with that of the chimpanzee and the higher human types of the Piltdown, Neanderthal, and modern races.

Absence of Palæoliths and Presence of Eoliths in Western Europe

Returning to First Interglacial conditions in Europe, we observe that the river courses flowed through the same valleys as at present but that in early glacial times the channels were far broader and were elevated from 100 to 150 feet above the present relatively narrow river levels. The vast floods of the succeeding glaciation filled these valleys, but some of the 'high terraces' were already formed. It is extremely important to note that Pre-Chellean flints or true palæoliths have never been found in the sands or gravels of these 'high terraces.'

Eoliths found on this 'high-terrace' level at St. Prest belong to the Prestien culture of Rutot,[(29)] who regards this station as of Upper Pliocene age. These, like other supposed Eolithic flints, are very rough, but, rude as they are, they generally exhibit one part shaped as if to be grasped by the hand, while the other part is edged or pointed as for cutting. It is generally admitted that these flints are mostly of accidental shapes, and there has been little or no proof of their being fashioned by human hands. On this point Boule[(30)] observes: "As to the eoliths, I have combated the theory not only because it seems to me improbable but because a long geological experience has shown me that it is often impossible to distinguish stones split, cut, or retouched by purely physical agents from certain products of rudimentary workmanship."

On the other side, it is interesting at this point to quote the words of MacCurdy:[(31)] "My opinion, based on personal experience, ... is that the existence of a primitive industry, antedating what is commonly accepted as Palæolithic, has been established. This industry occurs as far back as the Upper Miocene and continues on through the Upper Tertiary into and including the Lower Quaternary. The distinguishing characters of the industry remain but little changed throughout the entire period, the subdivision of the period into epochs being based on stratigraphy [geologic stages] and not on industrial characters. The requirements in the way of tools being very simple and the supply of material in the way of natural flakes and fragments of flint being very plentiful, the inventive powers of the population remained dormant for ages. Hammer and knife were the original tools. Both were picked up ready-made. A sharp-edged, natural flake served for one, and a nodule or fragment served for the other. When the edge of the flake became dulled by use, the piece was either thrown away or the edge was retouched for further use. If hammer or flake did not admit of being held comfortably in the hand, the troublesome points or edges were removed or reduced by chipping. The stock of tools increased slowly with the slowly growing needs. As these multiplied and the natural supply of raw material diminished, the latter was supplemented by the manufacture of artificial flakes. When the lesson of associating definite forms of implements with definite uses was learned, special types arose, notably the amygdaloid implement and the poniard. Then came the transition from the Eolithic to the Palæolithic, a stage that has been so thoroughly investigated by Rutot."

It is not improbable that the Trinil race was in a stage of Eolithic culture; it is highly probable that the prehuman races of this very remote geologic age used more than one weapon of wood and stone.

The Great Second Glaciation

(Fig. 25, p. 65)

In early Pleistocene times a general elevation of southern Europe united the islands of the Mediterranean with Europe on the north and with Africa on the south, forming broad land connections between the two continents which afforded both northward and southward migration routes. At this time certain characteristically African mammals, such as the straight-tusked elephant and the lion, were probably finding their way north; Sicily at this time gained its large fauna of elephants and hippopotami, and the island of Malta was connected with the mainland, as well as the easterly islands of Cyprus and Crete. It appears probable that the connection between the Italian mainland and Malta was renewed more than once.

The approach of the second glaciation is indicated along the southeast coast of Great Britain by the subsidence of the land and the rise of the sea, accompanied by a fresh arctic current, bringing with it an invasion of arctic mollusks which were deposited in a layer of marine beds directly over those which contain the rich warm fauna and flora of the 'Forest Bed of Cromer,' Norfolk.[(32)] It also appears probable that a cold northern current swept along the western coasts of Europe, and Geikie estimates that a lowering of temperature occurred of not less than 20° Fahr., a change as great as is now experienced in passing from the south of England to the North Cape.

Pl. III. Pithecanthropus erectus, the ape-man of Java. Antiquity estimated at 500,000 years. After the restoration modelled by J. H. McGregor. It is not improbable that the prehuman races of this remote geologic age used more than one natural weapon of wood or stone, the latter of the accidental 'Eolithic' type.

The second glaciation was by far the greatest both in Europe and America. In the region of the Pyrenees, which at the very much later period of the Third Interglacial Stage became a favorite country with Palæolithic man, there were glaciers of vast extent. This is realized by comparison with present conditions. The largest of the present glaciers of the Pyrenees is only 2 miles in length and terminates at a height of 7,200 feet above the sea. During the greatest glaciation the snow appears to have descended 4,265 feet below its present level. From the Pyrenees through the Gallego valley into Spain there flowed a glacier 38 miles in length, while to the north the glacier in the valley of the Garonne flowed for a distance of 45 miles to a point near Montréjeau. Even in its lower reaches this glacier was over half a mile in thickness. To the east was a glacier 38 miles in length, filling the valley of the Ariège and covering the sites of such great Palæolithic caverns as that of Niaux; it is probable that at this time the formation of this cavern began. That these glaciers were all prior to the period of the Lower Palæolithic Acheulean culture is proven by the fact that Acheulean implements are frequently met with lying on the surface of the moraines laid down by these ancient ice-floes.[(33)]

To the north was the vast Scandinavian ice-field, which swept over Great Britain and beyond the valleys of the Rhine, Elbe, and Vistula, reaching nearly to the Carpathians. Even the lesser mountain chains were capped with glaciers, including the Atlas Mountains in northern Africa.

In North America from the great centre west of Hudson Bay the ice-cap extended its drift southward into Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska, beyond the limits of earlier and subsequent glaciations.

The materials of the chief 'high terraces' of the great river-valleys of western Europe were deposited at this time.

Life of the Warm Second Interglacial Stage

The long warm period which followed the great glaciation is remarkable in presenting the first proofs of the presence of man in western Europe. It is the period of the Heidelberg race of man (Homo heidelbergensis), known only from a single jaw discovered by Schoetensack in the Mauer sands near Heidelberg, in 1907. No other proofs of the existence of man have been found in any of the deposits which took place during this vast interval of geologic time, unless we accept the theory of Penck and of Geikie that the Pre-Chellean and Chellean quarries of the River Somme belong in the Second Interglacial Stage.

The vast duration of this interglacial time is evidenced both in Europe and America by the deep cutting and wearing away of the 'drifts' brought down by the second glaciation. Penck believes that this 'long warm stage' represents a greater period of time than the entire interval between the third glaciation and the present time. The climate immediately following the retreat of the glaciers was cool and moist in the glaciated regions, but this was followed by such a prolonged period of heat and dryness that the glaciers on the Alps withdrew to a point far above their present limits.

In one of the old 'high terraces' of the River Inn, in the north Tyrol, is a deposit containing the prevailing forest flora of the period, from which Penck concludes that the climate of Innsbruck was 2° C. higher than it is at the present time. Corresponding with this the snow-line stood 1,000 feet above its present level, and the Alps, save for the higher peaks, were almost completely denuded of ice and snow. A characteristic plant is the Pontic alpine rose (Rhododendron ponticum), which flourishes now in an annual temperature of 57°-65° Fahr.,[(34)] indicating that the climate of Innsbruck was as genial as that of the Italian slopes of the Alps to-day. This rhododendron is now found in the Caucasus. Other southern species of the time were a buckthorn, related to a species now living in the Canary Islands, and the box. There were also more hardy plants, including the fir (Pinus sylvestris), spruce, maple, willow, yew, elm, beech, and mountain-ash. The forests of the same period in Provence were, for the most part, similar to those now found in that region; out of thirty-seven species twenty-nine still occur in this part of southern France. On the whole, the aspect of southern France at this time was surprisingly modern. The forests included oaks, elms, poplars, willows, lindens, maples, sumachs, dogwood, and hawthorn. Among the climbing plants were the vine and the clematis. Here also were some forms which have since retreated to the south, such as species of the sweet bay and laurel which are now confined to the Canary Islands. The great humidity of the time is indicated by the presence of certain species of conifers which require considerable moisture. As in First Interglacial times, the presence of the fig indicates mild winters.

It is difficult to imagine forests of this modern character, which farther northward included a number of still more temperate and hardy species, as the setting of the great African and Asiatic life that roamed all over western Europe at this time. It was the presence of hippopotami, elephants, and rhinoceroses which gave to Lyell, Evans, and other early observers the impression that a tropical temperature and vegetation were characteristic of this long life period. These animals were formerly regarded as proofs of an almost tropical climate, but the more trustworthy evidence of the forests, strengthened by that of the presence of very numerous hardy types of forest and meadow animals, has set aside all the early theories as to extremely warm temperatures during Second Interglacial times.

The remains of what is still conveniently known as the 'faune chaude,' or warm fauna, are chiefly found in the sands and gravels of the ancient beds of the Neckar, Garonne, and Thames, and other rivers of the north and south, also in Essex, England. The most surprising fact is that the mammal life of western Europe remained entirely unchanged by the vast second glaciation just described; the few extinctions which occurred as well as a number of new arrivals may be attributed to new geographical connections with Africa on the south and to the steady progress of migration from the far east.

Fig. 42. The hippopotamus (H. major) and the southern mammoth (E. meridionalis trogontherii), a pair of mammals which enjoyed a similar range over western Europe from the close of the Pliocene until the middle of Third Interglacial times, when their remains are found associated with flints of Pre-Chellean, Chellean, and early Acheulean age. One-sixtieth life size. Drawn by Erwin S. Christman.

There were four very important and distinctive new arrivals from the African-Asiatic world, namely, the straight-tusked or ancient elephant (E. antiquus), the broad-nosed rhinoceros (D. merckii), the African lion (Felis leo), and the African hyæna (H. striata), which bespeak close geographical connections with northern Africa. Of these the ancient elephant and the broad-nosed rhinoceros were close companions; they enjoyed the same regions and the same temperatures, their remains are very frequently found together, and they survived to the very end of the great life stage of western Europe, which closed with the advent of the fourth glaciation. They are in contrast to the other pair of great mammals which was already present in Europe in Pliocene and First Interglacial times, namely, the southern mammoth, at this stage known as Elephas trogontherii, which had a preference for the companionship of the hippopotamus (H. major); it would seem that these animals were less hardy because both disappeared from Europe a little earlier than the ancient elephant and Merck's rhinoceros.

Fig. 43. The other and hardier pair of large African-Asiatic mammals, namely, the broad-nosed or Merck's rhinoceros (R. merckii) and the straight-tusked or ancient elephant (E. antiquus), which entered western Europe in Second Interglacial times and survived until Third Interglacial times, when their remains are found intermingled with flints of the Acheulean and early Mousterian cultures. These mammals were doubtless hunted by men of the early Neanderthal races. One-sixtieth life size. Drawn by Erwin S. Christman.

The African lion would appear to have been a competitor of the sabre-tooth tiger, for the latter animal now becomes less abundant, although there is reason to believe that it survived until the Third Interglacial Stage. With the ancient Pliocene type of the sabre-tooth were also found the Etruscan rhinoceros, the primitive bear of Auvergne (Ursus arvernensis), and the giant beaver (Trogontherium cuvieri).

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Fig. 44. Map showing the wide geographic distribution (horizontal lines) of Merck's rhinoceros and the straight-tusked elephant, which first entered western Europe during the First Interglacial Stage and survived until nearly the close of the Third Interglacial Stage. The hippopotamus, which entered Europe in Pliocene times, survived until after the middle of the Third Interglacial Stage and had a more limited distribution. After Boule.

The northern forests of the time were frequented by the broad-faced moose, the giant deer, and the roe-deer, as well as by noble specimens of the stag (Cervus elaphus). In the open forests and meadows the wild cattle (Bos primigenius) began to be more numerous and the bison (Bison priscus) also occurred. Among the meadow or forest frequenting forms were horses of larger size, such as the horses of Mosbach and of Süssenborn. In this assemblage of northern and southern types it is noteworthy that the Eurasiatic forest and meadow types of mammals greatly predominate in numbers and in variety over the African-Asiatic types; this, together with the flora, is an indication that the climate was of a temperate character; it is probable, therefore, that all the mammals were well protected with a hairy covering and adapted to a temperate climate. The fact that the fauna as a whole remained practically unchanged throughout the second glaciation is a proof not that it migrated to the south and then returned but that the non-glaciated regions of western Europe were temperate rather than cold.

The Heidelberg Race

Heidelberg man.
Ancient elephant.
Etruscan rhinoceros.
Mosbach horse.
Wild boar.
Broad-faced moose.
Red deer, or stag.
Roe-deer.
Primitive bison (wisent).
Primitive ox (Aurochs, urus).
Auvergne bear.
Deninger's bear.
Lion.
Wildcat.
Wolf.
Beaver.

To us by far the most interesting mammalian life is that found south of the mouth of the Neckar along the ancient stream Elsenz, where were deposited the lower 'sands of Mauer,' containing the lower jaw of the Heidelberg man and the remains of many animals of the period. The enumeration of this entire fauna is very important, as indicating the temperate climatic conditions which surrounded the first true species of man which has thus far been discovered in Europe. The discoverer, Schoetensack,[(35)] referred these mammals and the Heidelberg man to the First Interglacial Stage, and a similar opinion has recently been expressed by Geikie. The presence of the Etruscan rhinoceros would appear to point to such great antiquity, but the evidence afforded by this primitive animal is overborne by that of three mammals which are highly characteristic of Second Interglacial times; these are the straight-tusked or ancient elephant (E. antiquus), the lion, and the Mosbach horse. Excepting only the Etruscan rhinoceros, all these species frequenting the ancient stream Elsenz and deposited with the 'sands of Mauer' occurred also in the forests and meadows of the region now known as Baden, where the fossil mammal deposits of Mosbach near the Neckar are found. A similar mammalian life of a somewhat more recent time occurs in the river gravels of Süssenborn, near Weimar. The horses of Mauer, of Mosbach, and of Süssenborn[Q] were of much larger size and of more specialized character than Steno's horse of First Interglacial times.

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Fig. 45. Section of the valley of the stream Elsenz, near Heidelberg, showing the location of the Mauer sand-pit in which the Heidelberg jaw was discovered. An ancient layer of river-drift. Drawn by C. A. Reeds.

Thus the Heidelbergs, the first human race recorded in western Europe, appear in northern Germany early in Second Interglacial times, in the midst of a most imposing mammalian fauna of northern aspect and containing many forest-living species, such as bear, deer, and moose; in the meadows and forests browsed the giant, straight-tusked elephant (E. antiquus), which from the simple structure of its grinding-teeth is regarded as similar in habit to the African elephant now inhabiting the forests of central Africa; the presence of this animal indicates a relatively moist climate and well-forested country. The Etruscan rhinoceros differed from the larger Merck's form in the possession of relatively short-crowned grinding-teeth, adapted to browsing habits and a forested country; on the head were borne two horns; it was a long-limbed, rapidly moving type; the herds of bison and of wild cattle (urus) which roamed over the plains were now subject to the attack of the lion.

Fig. 46. Sand-pit at Mauer, near Heidelberg, discovery site of the jaw of Heidelberg man. After Schoetensack.

a-b. 'Newer loess,' either of Third Interglacial or of Postglacial times.

b-c. 'Older loess' (sandy loess) of the close of Second Interglacial times.

c-f. The 'sands of Mauer.'

d-e. An intermediate layer of clay.

The white cross (X) indicates the spot at the base of the 'sands of Mauer' at which the jaw of Heidelberg was discovered.

Fig. 47. The Heidelberg jaw, type of Homo heidelbergensis.
About two-thirds life size. After Schoetensack.

The discovery in 1907 of a human lower jaw in the base of the 'Mauer sands' is one of the most important in the whole history of anthropology. The find was made at a depth of 79 feet (24.10 m.) from the upper surface of a high bluff (Fig. 46), in ancient river sands which had long been known to yield the very old mammalian fauna described above. For years the workmen had been instructed to keep a sharp lookout for human remains. The jaw had evidently drifted down with the river sands and had become separated from the skull, but it remained in perfect preservation. The author's description may first be quoted.[(36)] The mandible shows a combination of features never before found in any fossil or recent man. The protrusion of the lower jaw just below the front teeth which gives shape to the human chin is entirely lacking. Had the teeth been absent it would have been impossible to diagnose it as human. From a fragment of the symphysis of the jaw it might well have been classed as some gorilla-like anthropoid, while the ascending ramus resembles that of some large variety of gibbon. The absolute certainty that these remains are human is based on the form of the teeth—molars, premolars, canines, and incisors are all essentially human and, although somewhat primitive in form, show no trace of being intermediate between man and the anthropoid apes but rather of being derived from some older common ancestor. The teeth, however, are somewhat small for the jaw; the size of the border would allow for the development of much larger teeth; we can only conclude that no great strain was put on the teeth, and therefore the powerful development of the bones of the jaw was not designed for their benefit. The conclusion is that the jaw, regarded as unquestionably human from the nature of the teeth, ranks not far from the point of separation between man and the anthropoid apes. In comparison with the jaws of Neanderthal races, as found at Spy, in Belgium, and at Krapina, in Croatia, we may consider the Heidelberg jaw as pre-Neanderthaloid; it is, in fact, a generalized type.

Fig. 48. Side view of Heidelberg jaw (centre) compared with that of an orang (right) and of an Eskimo (left); the latter an individual of exceptionally large proportions.

In a conservative spirit, Schoetensack named the type represented by this jaw Homo heidelbergensis. Other authors have regarded it as of distinct generic rank; thus it has been termed Palæoanthropus heidelbergensis by Bonarelli.[(37)] The jaw itself is extremely massive; the canine teeth, unlike those of the anthropoid apes and of the Piltdown race, do not project beyond the line of the other teeth and were therefore not used as weapons of offense and defense as in the anthropoids, in which these teeth are prominently developed as tusks. As noted by Schoetensack, the teeth are not very massive in proportion to the jaw itself, which is the most powerful human jaw known, even exceeding the largest Eskimo jaw and indicating a skull of very massive and primitive character. It resembles that of the ape in the recession of the chin, hence it has been termed amentalis. There is a large development of the coronoid process of the mandible for the attachment of the temporal muscle. This jaw may well have been used as a tool in the last stages of the preparation of hides, as is the practice of the Eskimo races. We observe that the powerful bony branches of the jaw, when regarded from above, close in upon the space left for the tongue; in fact, the bone closes in to such an extent as to interfere seriously with the free use of the tongue in articulate speech.

Fig. 49. The jaws shown in Fig. 48 seen from above. A massive Eskimo jaw (above), the Heidelberg jaw (centre), the jaw of an orang (below).

It would seem that in the jaw, and probably in all other characters of the skull, as they become known, the Heidelberg race will be found to be a Neanderthal in the making, that is, a primitive, more powerful, and more ape-like ancestral form. In the matter of the retreating chin, the true Neanderthals of Spy, Malarnaud, Krapina, and La Chapelle rank exactly half-way between the most inferior races of recent man and the anthropoid apes.

Fig. 50. Restoration of the Man of Heidelberg by the Belgian artist Mascré, under the direction of Professor A. Rutot, of Brussels. This restoration presents an advance upon the Pithecanthropus type. In our opinion the Heidelberg man was more human and less ape-like in appearance.

Not only among the Eskimos, but generally throughout the savage races of Australia and of other countries, the jaws are used as tools; among the Australians the teeth are very much worn down but are in admirable preservation. When seen from above, we observe that the 'Heidelberg' grinding-teeth form a perfect arch, or horseshoe-shaped arrangement, whereas in all the apes the two lines of grinding-teeth are almost parallel with each other. Thus, while there may be wide differences of opinion as regards the relationships of the Heidelberg man, all agree that Schoetensack's discovery affords us one of the great missing links or types in the chain of human development.

The typical mammalian life of Second Interglacial times as found at Mosbach and Süssenborn belongs perhaps to a somewhat more recent stage of Second Interglacial times than that of the 'Mauer sands,' for in these localities the Etruscan rhinoceros is wanting and the more specialized broad-nosed rhinoceros is abundant; this animal differs from the Etruscan form in the possession of relatively long-crowned grinding-teeth, which were better adapted to grazing habits. On the head were borne two horns. A variety of the southern mammoth (E. trogontherii) is so highly characteristic of Second Interglacial times that Pohlig refers to this life period as the E. trogontherii stage. From the structure of its grinding-teeth it is regarded as similar in habit to the Asiatic elephant, which now inhabits the forests of India, but it has the peculiar concave forehead distinctive of the mammoth and quite unlike the convex forehead of the Indian elephant. The bears of this period belong to the primitive species U. deningeri and U. arvernensis, for so far there is no certain record of the presence of the true brown bear of Europe (U. arctos). The sabre-tooth tiger of this time is preserved in the caverns of the Pyrenees near Montmaurin, associated with the remains of the striped hyæna (H. striata), a species which was widely distributed over western Europe in early Pleistocene times. This species was contemporary with, and later replaced by, the spotted hyæna (H. crocuta), from which the very hardy cave-hyæna (H. crocuta spelæa) of the 'Reindeer Period,' descended. We observe that the 'polycladine' deer of Upper Pliocene and First Glacial times has disappeared from western Europe; nor are there any traces of the axis deer. The hippopotamus is still represented by the giant species, H. major.

Early Northern Migrations of the Reindeer

The animals that we have described belong in the warmer and more temperate regions of Europe. In the regions near the glaciers the reindeer was already to be found; in fact, this characteristically northern animal is recorded in the gravels of Süssenborn, near Weimar.

There is evidence of a succession of climatic changes in the region of Heidelberg. The Heidelberg jaw with its temperate mammalian fauna occurred at the very base of the Mauer bluff, but higher up the bluff (Fig. 46) on a corresponding level are found the remains of mammals which indicate a marked lowering of temperature and which are referred by some authorities to the period of chilling climate that characterized northern Europe toward the close of Second Interglacial times. The reindeer also occurs in the 'high terrace' gravels of the River Murr, near Steinheim; thus, at Mauer, at Süssenborn, and at Steinheim, we find proof that the reindeer had begun to spread over the colder regions of Europe, and there is some ground for belief that it found its way even as far south as the Pyrenees.

The evidence of the first cold, arid period which for the time greatly affected the climate of western Europe is also found in the layer of so-called 'ancient loess' which lies in the bluff above the 'sands of Mauer.' This loess covers the warm mammalian deposits of the 'sands of Mosbach' as well as the 'high terraces' of many of the ancient river-valleys. Both in Europe and America the climatic sequence of the Second Interglacial Stage from moist to dry appears to have been the same.

Thus, after the recession of the ice-fields of the second glaciation, the climate was at first cold and moist; then followed a long warm stage, favorable to the spread of forests; this was finally succeeded by a period of aridity in which the most ancient 'loess' deposits occurred. In Russia, also, the third glaciation was preceded by an arid and steppe-like climate with high winds favorable to the transportation of 'loess.'

No palæoliths or other proofs of human occupation have been found in this cold, dry period, for there is no evidence in any part of Europe of camping stations in this 'ancient loess' such as we find in the 'loess' which was deposited during the similar arid period toward the close of Third Interglacial and again during Postglacial times. Nor have we any record of the mammalian life in this 'ancient loess' of Europe.

The Third Glaciation[R]

This arid period in northern Europe and in North America was followed by the moist, cool climate of the third glaciation. It is estimated by Penck that the advance of these new ice-fields began 120,000 years ago and that the period of advance and retreat of the glaciers was not less than 20,000 years. In the Alps the snow-line descended 1,250 metres below the present level; consequently this glaciation was more severe than the first but somewhat less severe than the second. In northern Europe the Scandinavian ice-field did not cover so wide an area as during the second glaciation, although Britain and Scandinavia were again deeply buried by ice; the glacial cap and glaciers flowed in a westerly and southwesterly direction across Denmark and the southern portion of the basin of the Baltic into Holland and northern Germany. In the Alps the third glaciation sent vast ice-floes along the valley of the Rhine, into eastern France, and into the valley of the Po, where this glaciation was even more extensive than the second. But the greatest glacier of this time was that of the Isar, a southern tributary of the Danube, which rises in the Bavarian Alps.[(38)]

During the Third Glacial Stage certain of the 'middle terraces' along the Rhine and other rivers flowing from the Alps were formed. In Britain,[(39)] whereas during the second glaciation the ice-fields extended as far south as the Thames, during the third glaciation they did not extend beyond the midlands; yet an arctic climate prevailed over southern England, with tundra conditions and temperature, as indicated by the plant deposits at Hoxne[(40)] in Suffolk. Even before the third glaciation began in Europe a great ice-cap had formed over Labrador, on the eastern coast of North America, and the ice-sheets flowing to the south and southwest extended as far as Illinois, depositing the great Illinoian 'drifts.'

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Fig. 51. The ice-fields and glaciers of the Third Glacial Stage are seen to be much less extensive than those of the Second Glacial Stage, shown in Fig. 25, p. 65. The continental depression and invasion of the sea is also believed to have been less extensive. At this stage there are broad areas free from ice between the Scandinavian, the Alpine, and the Pyrenean ice-caps. Drawn by C. A. Reeds, after James Geikie. (Compare Fig. 13.)

Along the borders of these great ice-fields in both countries a cold and moist climate prevailed, for a prime condition of glaciation is the heavy precipitation of snow. In northern Europe, between the great Alpine and Scandinavian ice-fields of the third glaciation a cold climate undoubtedly prevailed; in the region of the Neckar River, near Cannstatt, is found a deposit known as 'mammoth loam,' which Koken believed to be contemporaneous with the period of the third glaciation, although the evidence is certainly not convincing.[(41)] Here are found fossil remains of the Scandinavian reindeer, also of two very important new arrivals in Europe from the tundra regions of the far northeast, animals which had wandered along the southern borders of the Scandinavian ice-sheet from the tundras of northern Russia and Siberia. This is the first appearance in western Europe of the woolly mammoth (E. primigenius) and the woolly rhinoceros (D. antiquitatis). In this 'mammoth loam' there also occur two species of horse, the giant deer (Megaceros), the stag, the wisent, and the Aurochs. If the woolly mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros actually entered eastern Germany at this time, they certainly retreated to the north with the approach of the warm temperate climate of the Third Interglacial Stage, because no trace of these animals has been found again in Europe until the advent of the fourth glaciation.

(1) Gaudry, 1890.1.

(2) Smith, G. E., 1912.1, p. 582.

(3) Op. cit.

(4) Munro, 1893.1.

(5) Osborn, 1910.1, pp. 306, 307.

(6) Geikie, J., 1894.1, pp. 329-336; 1914.1, p. 227.

(7) Dawkins, 1883.1, pp. 576-579.

(8) Geikie, J., 1914.1, p. 248.

(9) Reid, C., 1908.1.

(10) Desnoyers, 1863.1.

(11) Haug, 1911.1, p. 1807.

(12) Geikie, J., 1894.1, p. 682; 1914.1, p. 250.

(13) Dubois, 1894.1.

(14) Fischer, 1913.1.

(15) Schwalbe, 1899.1; 1914.1.

(16) Büchner, 1914.1.

(17) Volz, 1907.1.

(18) Elbert, 1908.1.

(19) Selenka, 1911.1.

(20) Pilgrim, 1913.1.

(21) Schwalbe, 1899.1, pp. 227, 228.

(22) Op. cit., p. 223.

(23) Schwalbe, 1914.1, pp. 601-606.

(24) Büchner, 1914.1, p. 129.

(25) Dubois, 1894.1, p. 14.

(26) Keith, 1912.1.

(27) Smith, G. E., 1912.1, p. 595.

(28) Op. cit.

(29) Rutot, 1907.1.

(30) Boule, 1913.1, pp. 266, 267.

(31) MacCurdy, 1905.1, pp. 468, 469.

(32) Geikie, J., 1914.1, p. 251.

(33) Op. cit., p. 255.

(34) Op. cit., p. 238.

(35) Schoetensack, 1908.1.

(36) Op. cit., pp. 25-43.

(37) Bonarelli, 1909.1.

(38) Penck, 1909.1.

(39) Geikie, J., 1914.1, p. 258.

(40) Op. cit., pp. 257-262.

(41) Schmidt, 1912.1, p. 181.

CHAPTER II

ARRIVAL OF THE PRE-CHELLEAN FLINT WORKERS DURING THE THIRD INTERGLACIAL—GEOGRAPHY, CLIMATE, AND THE RIVER DRIFTS—PRE-CHELLEAN FLINT INDUSTRY—THE PILTDOWN RACE—MAMMALIAN LIFE—CHELLEAN AND ACHEULEAN INDUSTRIES—THE USE OF FIRE—THE SECOND PERIOD OF ARID CLIMATE—THE NEANDERTHAL RACE OF KRAPINA, CROATIA

The geologic epoch of the arrival of the Pre-Chellean flint workers in western Europe is by far the most important and interesting one before the prehistorian. Upon it depends the question of the duration of the Old Stone Age, the date of appearance of the Piltdown and of the Neanderthal races, and the whole sequence of climatic and geographic changes surrounding the early history of man. After weighing all the evidence very carefully, the balance of opinion seems to sustain the view that this epoch should be placed after the close of the third glaciation and before the advent of the fourth, that is, during the Third Interglacial Stage.

Penck estimated that the third warm interglacial stage[S] opened about 100,000 years ago and lasted between 50,000 and 60,000 years. According to the theory that we have adopted in this work, the Third Interglacial and Fourth Glacial embraced the entire period of Lower Palæolithic time, a period of from 70,000 to 100,000 years, much longer than that of Upper Palæolithic time, which is estimated at 16,000 to 25,000 years.

Geologic Antiquity of the Beginning of the Stone Age

Attention should first be called to the fact that, preceding the epoch we have now entered, the glacial and interglacial forces operating over the great peninsula of western Europe had left their impress chiefly on the glaciated areas and only to a minor degree on the free, non-glaciated areas. Until toward the close of Third Interglacial times no traces of northern much less of arctic forests and animals are discovered anywhere, except along the borders of the ice-fields. It would appear as if the animal and plant life of Europe were, in the main, but slightly affected by the first three glaciations. We cannot entertain for a moment the belief that in glacial times all the warm flora and fauna migrated southward and then returned, because there is not a shred of evidence for this theory. It is far more in accord with the known facts to believe that all the southern and eastern forms of life had become very hardy, for we know how readily animals now living in the warm earth belts are acclimatized to northern conditions.

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Fig. 52. Human types and culture stages of the last third of the Glacial Epoch. Theoretic estimates of the geologic and time divisions and introduction of human races during the Third Interglacial, Fourth Glacial, and Postglacial Stages (see Fig. 14, p. 41). Prepared by the author with the aid of C. A. Reeds.

If, on the other hand, we depend solely on the testimony of the life conditions, we might conclude that the Pre-Chellean flint workers reached western Europe either in Second Interglacial times, or during the third glaciation, or again during Third Interglacial times. Let us consider this evidence of the fossil mammals more closely.

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Fig. 53. Distribution of the principal Pre-Chellean and Chellean industrial stations in western Europe.

In favor of the theory that the Pre-Chellean culture is as ancient as Second Interglacial times, we should consider the fact that in several localities palæoliths of Pre-Chellean if not of Chellean type have been recorded in association with the remains of a number of the more primitive mammals which we have described above as characteristic of Second Interglacial times. For example, at Torralba, Province of Soria, Spain, there has been discovered[(1)] an old typical Chellean camp site, containing abundant remains of the broad-nosed rhinoceros and of the southern mammoth, mingled with the remains of other mammals of very ancient type, identified as the Etruscan rhinoceros and as Steno's horse. Again, along the River Somme, near Abbeville, in the gisement du Champ de Mars,[(2)] it is said that Pre-Chellean and Chellean implements have been found in association with the Etruscan rhinoceros, Steno's horse, and very numerous specimens of the sabre-tooth tiger and of the striped hyæna. Moreover, in Piltdown, Sussex, Pre-Chellean flints and the Piltdown skull are said to have occurred in a layer containing a rhinoceros which may be identified with the Etruscan. If these very ancient species of animals are rightly recognized and determined, and if they are truly found as reported in close association in the same layers with Pre-Chellean and Chellean flints, the evidence may be considered as quite strong that the beginning of Chellean culture dates from Second Interglacial times; unless, indeed, it should prove that these primitive species of mammals survived into Third Interglacial times in certain favored districts. We should also consider the possibility that these more ancient animals, the sabre-tooth tiger, Steno's horse, the Etruscan rhinoceros, and the giant beaver, did not really belong in the same layer with these old palæoliths but were accidentally washed into this layer from other more ancient deposits. As a rule, it is the most recent animals which establish a prehistoric date, because we know that a palæolith cannot be older than the most recent mammal with which it occurs.

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Fig. 54. Western Europe during the extension of the ice-fields and glaciers (dots) of the Third Glacial Stage—a period of continental depression believed to have been less extensive than that of the Second Glacial Stage (see Fig. 25, p. 65). The line from Scandinavia to northern Africa corresponds to the section shown in Fig. 13, p. 37. Drawn by C. A. Reeds, after Geikie and Penck. (Compare Fig. 13.)

Fig. 55. Excavation at Chelles-sur-Marne, the Palæolithic station where Chellean flint implements were first discovered. We observe the very close, regular, and unbroken succession of the geological layers containing the Chellean, Acheulean, and Mousterian flints.

The record of the three early glaciations is not fully written in the animal and plant life, but it appears to be found in the river channels. Both in England and France these channels attest flooded conditions during the earlier glaciations, in which large quantities of gravels and sands were transported, and it is of these materials that the 'high terraces' were built up. It is chiefly the geologic evidence which establishes the Pre-Chellean date.

Geologic and climatic lines of evidence in France indicate that the Pre-Chellean culture is first witnessed during the beginning of Third Interglacial times. This is the opinion of Boule, Haug, Obermaier, Breuil, Schmidt, and many other geologists and archæologists. That the first Palæolithic flint workers found their way into western Europe during the early part of Third Interglacial times is consistent with our observations on the sequence of climate, on the formation of the 'low river terraces,' where palæoliths of the earliest type occur, as well as with the general succession of mammalian life throughout the climatic changes of this interglacial period. It would appear, in explanation of the facts cited above regarding the fossil mammals, that when the Pre-Chellean flint workers established their camps along the valley of the River Somme in northern France a very genial climate prevailed in this region, favorable even, as we shall see, to the survival of some of the Pliocene types of mammals, such as the sabre-tooth tiger and the Etruscan rhinoceros.

During the early part of the Third Interglacial Stage the climate, so far as we can judge by the unchanged aspect of the animal life, remained of the same warm temperate character. Two only of the surviving Pliocene forms, namely, the sabre-tooth tigers and the Etruscan rhinoceroses, became rare or extinct. From evidence afforded in Kent's Hole, Devonshire, Dawkins is led to believe that the sabre-tooth tiger survived in Britain until Postglacial times. All the rest of the animal world, both the African-Asiatic and the Eurasiatic mammals, continued to flourish throughout western Europe.

Not until the latter part of Acheulean times do we discover proofs of a decided change of climate; in the approach of arid conditions similar to those of the steppes of western Asia there was a renewal of the great dust-storms and depositions of 'loess,' such as had previously occurred toward the close of Second Interglacial times; this was followed by the still colder climate of the fourth glaciation, which corresponds with the closing period of Lower Palæolithic culture.

The evolution of the Pre-Chellean into the Chellean and finally into the Lower Acheulean palæoliths certainly occupied a very long period of time if we assign it merely the 50,000 or 60,000 years allotted to the Third Interglacial; but even this allotment seems far too long when we observe the relatively limited depth of the river deposits in which these flint cultures succeed each other. For we cannot fail to be impressed by the regular and very close and unbroken succession of the geologic layers containing the Chellean and Acheulean artifacts. (See Fig. 55.)

None the less it follows that a long lapse of time must be allowed for each culture period, and for the advance in technique.[(3)] It is this wide distribution that has enabled the de Mortillets (father and son), Capitan, Rivière, Reboux, Daleau, Peyrony, Obermaier, Commont, Schmidt, and others to establish in various parts of Europe the main stages of the industrial evolution of the Old Stone Age, or Lower Palæolithic.

Subdivisions of the Lower Palæolithic Cultures[(4)][T]

Mousterian. Late industry of the Neanderthal races. Extensive use of the 'flake.'

Late Mousterian. La Quina scrapers, small 'coups de poing,' and bone anvils, closing with the Abri Audit culture.

Middle Mousterian. Culmination of the Mousterian 'point' finely flaked and chipped on one side, the best examples approaching the Solutrean perfection of technique.

Early Mousterian. Heart-shaped 'coups de poing' and Mousterian flake 'points' and flake scrapers.

Acheulean. Early industry of the Neanderthal races. Extensive use of the nodular core.

Late Acheulean. Miniature 'lance points' of La Micoque type, triangular 'coups de poing,' and flint flakes of Levallois type.

Middle Acheulean. Pointed oval 'coups de poing,' much lighter than the Chellean types, and small implements similar to the Chellean but much improved in workmanship.

Early Acheulean. Broad oval 'coups de poing' much more symmetrical than the Chellean but still rather heavy. Small types.

Chellean.

Late Chellean. Long pointed 'coups de poing,' in most cases flaked on both sides, with little of the crust of the nodule adhering and the edges still unsymmetrical. First appearance of the oval 'coups de poing.'

Early Chellean. First appearance of 'coups de poing' of almond shape. Small implements, including scrapers, planes, and borers. All implements unsymmetrical and with uneven edges.

Pre-Chellean. Probable industry of the Piltdown and of the (Pre-Neanderthaloid) Heidelberg races. Use of chance and accidental forms. Forms partly accidental; retouch limited to the few strokes necessary to give a point or edge to the tool, or to allow a firm grasp (protective retouch). Prototypes of 'coup de poing' formed of flint nodules with crust only partially removed.

If we suppose that the Pre-Chellean flint workers arrived in Europe not earlier than Third Interglacial times, we can explain all the gradations in the evolution of their implements in connection with the changes of climate and of animal life which the geologic and fossil deposits reveal, especially in the valleys of the Somme and of the Thames.

If, on the other hand, the Pre-Chellean is dated in Second Interglacial times,[U] it carries this culture back another hundred thousand years and involves our prehistory in great difficulties. First, there is no proof whatever that the Pre-Chellean and Chellean flint workers lived during the period of the formation of the 'high river terraces' of the third glaciation, for no Palæolithic flints have ever been found buried in the sands or gravels of the 'high terraces.' The occurrence of archaic flints on the 'high terraces' of the Somme and of the Seine is in superficial gravel beds which were deposited long after these 'terraces' had been cut by river action; this is best seen in the Somme, where archaic flints occur alike in the gravels deposited upon the 'low,' 'middle,' and 'high terraces.' Second, there is no proof that the Pre-Chellean and Chellean flint workers passed through the cold climatic period of the third glaciation; nowhere in Europe have any records been found of their camps or stations in association with the cold fauna or flora of Third Glacial times. Third, the geographical evidence is equally at variance with the theory that the Pre-Chellean flint workers entered Europe during the Second Interglacial Stage, for we know positively that in many of the great river-valleys of Europe, especially those surrounding the Alps, the rivers were at much higher levels than at present and that they were transporting the materials out of which the 'high terraces' were being formed or cutting these 'terraces' down by erosion.

In other words, the geography of Europe in First and Second Interglacial times was very different from what it is at present; most of the river-valleys were broader and less deep; some of them had been eroded to a point below their present levels and had begun to silt up in alluvial deposits. In Third Interglacial times the river geography of Europe was substantially as it is to-day, although the coast-lines were still very different.

When Pre-Chellean man appeared, we shall see that the river-valleys of the Somme and Marne, in northern France, as well as of the Thames, in southeastern England, were closely similar to what they are at present in respect to their water-levels; in other words, the inland geography of Europe in the north in Chellean times and in central and southern France in the immediately succeeding Acheulean times was very much like it is at present. The superficial characters of the valleys were different; the streams in Chellean times flowed through gravels and sands, partaking of a glacial aspect; one or more of the 'river terraces' composed of sands and gravels were still sharply defined, for the soft covering of 'loam' and alluvial soil from the surrounding uplands and hills had not yet washed down to soften the outlines of the 'terraces.' Neither were the 'terraces' covered with the newer deposits of 'loess.'

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Fig. 56. Restoration of the geography of western Europe during the Third Interglacial Stage, showing the ancient land areas (dots) and the ancient river channels now submerged by the sea. Modified after Avebury's Prehistoric Times by permission of Henry Holt & Co. The six white crosses (X) indicate the location of the principal Pre-Chellean stations of Piltdown on the Ouse, and Gray's Thurrock on the Thames, in England; of Abbeville, on the north bank, and St. Acheul, on the south bank of the Somme, and Chelles on the Marne, in France; and of Helin in Belgium. It will be observed that the English stations are separated from the others only by the ancient broad valley corresponding with the present English Channel.

Secular Changes of Climate in Lower Palæolithic Times

We find evidences of four climatic and life phases during the long period of Lower Palæolithic evolution, as follows:

4. Cold Moist Climate.—Advent of the fourth glaciation. Arrival of the 'full Mousterian' culture and of the Neanderthal race in Belgium and France. Repair of men to the warmer shelters, grottos, and entrances to the caverns. Final disappearance of the hardy Merck's rhinoceros and the straight-tusked elephant. Arrival of the tundra fauna, the reindeer, the woolly mammoth, and the woolly rhinoceros. Refrigeration of western Europe as far south as northern Spain and Italy. Wide distribution of cold alpine, tundra, and steppe mammals all over Germany and France, and into northern Spain. Cold tundra flora in the Thames valley, and at Hoxne, in Suffolk. Migration of the tundra mammals, the reindeer, mammoth, and rhinoceros all over southern Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, and Austria.

3. Arid Climate in Western Europe.—Period of the close of the Acheulean culture; some of the flint workers seeking the shelter of cliffs and approaching the entrances to the grottos during the cold season of the year. A dry steppe climate, prevailing westerly winds, and deposits of 'loess' all over northern France and Germany. Appearance of the first Neanderthaloid men in Krapina, Croatia. Cool forest flora in the region of La Celle-sous-Moret near Paris, followed by depositions of 'loess' and increasingly cool and arid climate. Early Mousterian industry. Disappearance first of the more sensitive pair of Asiatic mammals, the hippopotamus and the southern mammoth (E. trogontherii); persistence of the more hardy, straight-tusked elephant (E. antiquus) and the broad-nosed rhinoceros (D. merckii).

2. Continued Warm Temperate Period.—Time of the Chellean culture found at Chelles, St. Acheul, Gray's Thurrock, Ilford, Essex, and southward in Torralba, Spain. Abundance of hippopotami, rhinoceroses, southern mammoths, and straight-tusked elephants in northern Germany at Taubach, Weimar, Ehringsdorf, and Achenheim. Rare appearance of sabre-tooth tigers. Temperate forest and alpine flora of Dürnten and Utznach, Switzerland. Early Acheulean culture widely distributed over all of western Europe.

1. Early Warm Temperate Period.—The warm climate of the Pre-Chellean culture period, as seen in the valleys of the Somme, of the Thames, and of the Seine near Paris, favorable to the southern mammoth and the hippopotamus. Apparent survival of the sabre-tooth tiger and the Etruscan rhinoceros in favored regions. A warm temperate forest flora in La Cellesous-Moret near Paris and in Lorraine. Arrival of the Pre-Chellean flint workers and of the Piltdown race in southern England.

It is believed that the climate of Third Interglacial times when it reached its maximum warmth was again somewhat milder than the present climate in the same region. In the Alps the glaciers and the snow-line retreated once more to their present levels. The period opened with humid continental conditions. The areas left bare by the ice were gradually reforested. A picture of the climate in this warm period is presented in the region near Paris in the so-called tuf de La Celle-sous-Moret (Seine-et-Marne). This tufa, which is a hot-springs deposit, overlies river-gravels of Pleistocene age.[(7)] The lower levels of the tufa contain the sycamore-maple (Acer pseudoplatanus), willows, and the Austrian pine, indicating a temperate climate. Higher up in the same deposits we find evidences of increasingly mild temperatures in the presence of the box (Buxus) and not infrequently of the fig-tree; the Canary laurel (Laurus nobilis) is somewhat rarer and both it and the fig indicate that the winters were mild, because these plants have the peculiarity of flowering during the winter season; we infer, therefore, that the climate was somewhat milder and more damp than it is in the same region at the present time. The mollusks also indicate greater equability of climate. These deposits are believed to correspond with the period of Chellean and early Acheulean industry.

The plants in the highest levels of the same tufa, however, indicate the advent of a colder climate and also connect this with the Acheulean culture stage through the presence of Acheulean flints. The deposit of tufa is covered by a sheet of 'loess' corresponding with the return of an arid period in late Acheulean times, in the very heart of northern France. Thus we have a record in the region near the present city of Paris of three climatic phases, which are also more or less completely indicated in deposits to the north along the River Somme and in the valley of the ancient Thames.

In western France we again interpret the fossil flora of Lorraine as belonging to the cooler closing period of Third Interglacial times and to the advent of the fourth glaciation, for here the most northern varieties of the larch (Larix) and of the mountain-pine (Pinus lambertiana) predominate.

The clearest view of the contemporary alpine forests is found near Zürich in the lignitic deposits of Dürnten and of Utznach, which are so characteristic of the temperate period of the Third Interglacial Stage that Geikie has proposed to call this stage the Dürntenian.[(8)] It was, we recall, at Dürnten that Morlot[(9)] found the first proofs of a warm or temperate interglacial flora, between the deposits of a retreating glacier and those of an advancing glacier; for Dürnten is well within the region which was covered by the vast ice-fields both of the third and fourth glaciations. The forests which flourished there in Third Interglacial times were similar to those now found in the same region, consisting of the spruce, fir, mountain-pine, larch, beech, yew, and sycamore, with undergrowth of hazel. With this hardy flora are associated the remains of the straight-tusked elephant, of Merck's rhinoceros, of wild cattle, and of the stag; another evidence for our opinion that all these Asiatic mammals had become habituated to the cool temperate climate of the north.

Life on the River Somme from Pre-Chellean to Neolithic Times

The borders of the River Somme at St. Acheul give us a vista of the whole story of the succession of geologic events; the great changes of climate, the procession of animal life, the sequence of human races and cultures. Here Commont[(10)] has found the key to the history of this entire country and enabled us to parallel events here with those occurring far away in Taubach, on the borders of the Thuringian forest, and at Krems in Lower Austria, as studied by Obermaier. This is because the 'older' and 'newer' loess periods, the succession of climates and of mammals, and the development of human cultures were all not local but continental events. The purely local events are found in the kinds of gravels and soils which washed down over the terraces.

It is very important first to clearly picture in our minds and understand the geography of the Somme at the time of the arrival of the Pre-Chellean flint workers. It appears certain that all three of the old river terraces composed of limestone had been cut long before and that the river had already reached the bottom level of the underlying chalk rock.[(11)] The higher terrace, then as now, was 100 feet above the Somme, the middle terrace about 70 feet, and the lowest terrace extended from a height of about 40 feet down underneath the present river level (see Fig. 59).

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Fig. 57. Three ancient river terraces (I, II, III), on the west bank of the Connecticut River in Vermont, believed to be of Postglacial age. The terraces are respectively 140, 60, and 20 feet above the river, and thus show a profile similar to that of the terraces on the Somme in Pre-Chellean times previous to the accumulation of the deposits bearing Palæolithic flints. Photograph by H. H. H. Langill.

Since the most primitive Pre-Chellean flints occur in the coarse gravels which lie on the floors of these terraces immediately above the chalk, they prove that the entire excavation of the valley had been completed when the Pre-Chellean workers arrived there. Commont believes that this was the actual topography of the valley during the Third Interglacial Stage. The occurrence of Chellean flints in the white sands overlying the coarse gravels of the middle and upper terraces does not indicate that the flint workers were encamped here while these terraces were being cut out by the River Somme but rather that they sought these convenient bluffs for their quarries during the time that these sands and gravels were washing down from the sides of the valleys and from the plateaus above.

Fig. 58. Four typical forms of the Chellean coup de poing, or 'hand-stone,' from the ancient quarries of St. Acheul. About one-half actual size.

a. Disc-shaped—upper left.

b. Oval—upper right.

c. Poniard-shaped—lower left.

d. Almond-shaped—lower right.

In the collection of the American Museum of Natural History.

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Fig. 59. Section of the ancient river terraces on the south bank of the River Somme at St. Acheul-Amiens, showing stations on the low, middle, and high terraces where flints were worked from the very beginning to the very end of the Old Stone Age. After Commont, 1908, 1909—modified and redrawn. The section shown runs northwest and southeast, in a gentle slope nearly 1½ miles in length, from the summit, 70 meters (about 230 feet) above sea-level, down to the river 47.3 meters (155 feet) below. Since Rigollot's excavations in 1851 sixteen flint-working stations have been discovered here, chiefly through building operations, most of them being on the middle and high terraces. This gives some idea of the vast extent of these ancient encampments, which cover the entire period of the Old Stone Age—perhaps 125,000 years.

Prehistory of St. Acheul

NEOLITHIC.
Campignian, recent earth and loam.

UPPER PALÆOLITHIC.
Solutrean.
Upper Aurignacian, loam.
Middle Aurignacian, 'newer loess' and gravel.

LOWER PALÆOLITHIC.
Late Mousterian, gravel and 'newer loess.'
Early Mousterian, base of 'newer loess' (l'ergeron).
Middle Acheulean, 'older loess' and drift.
Early Acheulean, gravels below 'older loess' (E. antiquus).
Late Chellean, fluviatile sands and mollusk fauna.
Early Chellean, first coups de poing; old 'white sands' (E. antiquus).
Pre-Chellean, prototypes of coup de poing; old 'lower gravels' (E. antiquus).

The history of the climatic changes in the ancient valley of the Somme is most clearly written in these successive deposits, 15 feet in thickness, above the 'lower gravels' at St. Acheul. Along with the Pre-Chellean and Chellean flints in the 'old gravels' and 'white sands' we find records of the moist warm temperate climate which then prevailed in northern France and which undoubtedly was most favorable to the hippopotami, rhinoceroses, and elephants of those times. The river mollusks found with the late Chellean flints are another indication of the temperate forest climate which continued through early Acheulean times.

In the middle Acheulean are found the earliest deposits of 'older loess' which indicate a climate still temperate but arid, belonging to the middle of the Third Interglacial Stage. In Mousterian times we find heavy deposits of gravels corresponding to the moist cold climate of the Fourth Glacial Stage, followed in middle Aurignacian times by fresh layers of 'newer loess,' indicating the return of a dry climate. Finally, the layers of loam which were washed down over the sides of the valley, and in which the remains of Solutrean and Aurignacian camps are found, indicate the renewal of moist and probably forested conditions.

Thus, two dry loess periods are indicated in this valley, the first or 'older loess' belonging to Third Interglacial times, and the second or 'newer loess' to Postglacial times; and we clearly perceive that in the culture layers here there is no evidence whatever of more than one glacial stage preceded by a dry climatic period and deposits of loess. If the Pre-Chellean flint workers had arrived in this river-valley as early as Second Interglacial times, we should find proofs of three periods of arid climate and loess deposition and of two glaciations.

Beginning with middle Acheulean times the flints are found in deposits of gravels, loams, brick-earths, and 'older loess,' which all belong to a succeeding geologic stage and are of more recent date than the lower gravels and sands on the terraces which they overlap and conceal. Deposits of this kind have also been drifted down from the highest levels toward the bottom of the valley, and Commont distinguishes three different depositions or layers of 'loess loam,' the lowest or oldest of which contain Acheulean flints, while the middle loams contain Mousterian implements.

Even toward the close of the Third Interglacial Stage there were periods of warmth, perhaps during the height of the hot summer season, when animals of the warm fauna migrated from the south. Thus Commont has recently discovered in the valley of the Somme a station of Mousterian flint workers, whose industry is associated with remains of the three animals typical of the warmer climatic phase; namely, the straight-tusked elephant, the broad-nosed rhinoceros, and the hippopotamus. He has reaffirmed his belief that the greater part of this chapter of human prehistory, both as to the surface topography of the Somme valley and the evolution of the flint cultures from Pre-Chellean to Mousterian times, occurred during the Third Interglacial Stage.

The Early Warm Temperate Period of the Pre-Chellean Culture[V]

Pre-Chellean Fauna

Southern mammoth.
Etruscan rhinoceros.
Hippopotamus.
Primitive horse (Equus stenonis)?
Sabre-tooth tiger.
Broad-nosed rhinoceros.
Straight-tusked elephant.
Giant beaver (Trogontherium cuvieri).
Short-faced hyæna.
Typical Eurasiatic forest and meadow fauna, including deer, bison, and wild cattle.

We have observed that from Torralba in the Province of Soria, Spain, to Abbeville, near the mouth of the Somme, in the north of France, three types of animals which entered Europe as early as Upper Pliocene times, namely, the Etruscan rhinoceros, the horse of Steno, and the sabre-tooth tiger, are said to occur in connection with early Chellean artifacts. The two former species may possibly be confused with early forms of Merck's rhinoceros and the true forest horses of Europe, but there can be no question as to the identification of the sabre-tooth tiger, numbers of which were found by M. d'Ault du Mesnil, at Abbeville, on the Somme, with early Chellean flints.

The mammalian life of the Somme at this time, as found in the gisement du Champ de Mars near Abbeville, is very rich. Among the larger forms there is certainly the great southern mammoth (E. meridionalis trogontherii), and possibly also the straight-tusked elephant (E. antiquus). There are unquestionably two species of rhinoceros, the smaller of which is recognized by Boule as the Etruscan, and the larger as Merck's rhinoceros. Steno's horse is said to occur here, and there are abundant remains of the great hippopotamus (H. major); the sabre-tooth tigers were very numerous as attested by the discovery of the lower jaws of thirty or more individuals. The short-faced hyæna (H. brevirostris) is also found, and there are several species of deer and wild cattle.

This remarkably rich collection of mammals is associated with flints of primitive Chellean or, possibly, of Pre-Chellean type.[(12)] In Torralba, Spain, the same very ancient animals occur, and it appears possible that this was the prevailing mammalian life of Pre-Chellean times.

We may conclude, therefore, that there is considerable evidence, although not as yet quite convincing, that the early Chellean flint workers arrived in western Europe before the disappearance of the Etruscan rhinoceros and the sabre-tooth tiger.

The Pre-Chellean Stations

(See Figs. 53 and 56.)

The dawn of the Palæolithic Age is indicated in various river-drift stations by the appearance of crude flint weapons as well as tools or implements, in addition to the supposed tools of Eolithic times. There is an unmistakable effort to fashion the flint into a definite shape to serve a definite purpose: there can no longer be any question of human handiwork. Thus there gradually arise various types of flints, each of which undergoes its own evolution into a more perfect form. Naturally, the workers at some stations were more adept and inventive than at others. Nevertheless, the primitive stages of invention and of technique were carried from station to station; and thus for the first time we are enabled to establish the archæological age of various stations in western Europe.

Only a few stations have been discovered where the Palæolithic men were first fashioning their flints into prototypes of the Chellean and Acheulean forms. With relation to the theory that these primitive flint workers may have entered Europe by way of the northern coast of Africa, we observe that these stations are confined to Spain, southern and northern France, Belgium, and Great Britain. Neither Pre-Chellean nor Chellean stations of unquestioned authenticity have been found in Germany or central Europe, and, so far as present evidence goes, it would appear that the Pre-Chellean culture did not enter Europe directly from the east, or even along the northern coast of the Mediterranean, but rather along the northern coast of Africa,[W] where Chellean culture is recorded in association with mammalian remains belonging to the middle Pleistocene Epoch.

The southernmost stations of Chellean culture at present known in Europe are those of Torralba and San Isidro, in central Spain. In the Department of the Gironde is the Chellean station of Marignac, and it is not unlikely that other stations will be discovered in the same region, because the Palæolithic races strongly favored the valleys of the Dordogne and Garonne, but thus far this is the only station known in southern France which represents this period of the dawn of human culture.

Fig. 60. Very primitive palæoliths from Piltdown, Sussex, consisting chiefly of tools and points of triangular and oval form, fashioned out of flint nodules split in two and flaked on one side only, with very coarse marginal retouch. After Dawson. Nos. 1 and 2 are nearly one-half actual size; No. 3 nearly one-quarter actual size.

The chief Pre-Chellean and Chellean stations were clustered along the valleys of the Somme and Seine. Of those rare sites presenting a typical Pre-Chellean culture, we may note the neighboring stations of St. Acheul and Montières, both in the suburbs of Amiens on the Somme, and the station of Helin, near Spiennes, in Belgium, explored by Rutot. A very primitive and possibly Pre-Chellean culture was found on the site of the Champ de Mars, at Abbeville. This culture also extended westward across the broad plain which is now the Strait of Dover to the valley of the Thames, on whose northern bank is the important station of Gray's Thurrock, while farther to the south is the recently discovered site of Piltdown, in the valley of the Ouse, Sussex.

The flint tools (Fig. 60) found in the layer immediately overlying the Piltdown skull are excessively primitive and indicate that the Piltdown flint workers had not attained the stage of craftsmanship described by Commont as 'Pre-Chellean' at St. Acheul. "Among the flints," observes Dawson, "we found several undoubted flint implements besides numerous 'eoliths.' The workmanship of the former is similar to that of the Chellean or Pre-Chellean stage; but in the majority of the Piltdown specimens the work appears chiefly on one face of the implements."

Fig. 61. Primitive coups de poing or 'hand-stones' of Pre-Chellean type, found in the lower gravels of the middle and high terraces at St. Acheul. After Commont. One-quarter actual size.

In the Helin quarry near Spiennes[(13)] occur rude prototypes of the Palæolithic coup de poing associated with numerous flakes which do not greatly differ from those in the lowest river-gravels of St. Acheul; there is a close correspondence in the workmanship of the two sites, so that we may regard the Mesvinian of Rutot[X] as a culture stage equivalent to the Pre-Chellean. The river-gravels and sands of Helin which contain the implements also resemble those of St. Acheul in their order of stratification. Of special interest is the fact that a primitive flint from this Helin quarry, known as the 'borer,' is strikingly similar to the 'Eolithic' borer found in the same layer with the Piltdown skull in Sussex. By such indications as this, when strengthened by further evidence of the same kind, we may be able eventually to establish the date both of this Pre-Chellean or Mesvinian culture and of the Piltdown race.

In considering the Pre-Chellean implements found at St. Acheul in 1906, we note[(14)] that at this dawning stage of human invention the flint workers were not deliberately designing the form of their implements but were dealing rather with the chance shapes of shattered blocks of flint, seeking with a few well-directed blows to produce a sharp point or a good cutting edge. This was the beginning of the art of 'retouch,' which was done by means of light blows with a second stone instead of the hammer-stone with which the rough flakes were first knocked off. The retouch served a double purpose: Its first and most important object was further to sharpen the point or edge of the tool. This was done by chipping off small flakes from the upper side, so as to give the flint a saw-like edge. Its second object was to protect the hand of the user by blunting any sharp edges or points which might prevent a firm grip of the implement. Often the smooth, rounded end of the flint nodule, with crust intact, is carefully preserved for this purpose (Fig. 61). It is this grasping of the primitive tool by the hand to which the terms 'coup de poing,' 'Faustkeil,' and 'hand-axe' refer. 'Hand-stone' is, perhaps, the most fitting designation in our language, but it appears best to retain the original French designation, coup de poing.

Fig. 62. Primitive grattoir, or planing tool (side and edge views), of Pre-Chellean type, found in the lowest gravels of the terraces at St. Acheul. After Commont. One-quarter actual size.

As the shape of the flint is purely due to chance, these Pre-Chellean implements are interpreted by archæologists chiefly according to the manner of retouch they have received. Already they are adapted to quite a variety of purposes, both as weapons of the chase and for trimming and shaping wooden implements and dressing hides. Thus Obermaier observes that the concave, serrated edges characteristic of some of these implements may well have been used for scraping the bark from branches and smoothing them down into poles; that the rough coups de poing would be well adapted to dividing flesh and dressing hides; that the sharp-pointed fragments could be used as borers, and others that are clumsier and heavier as planes (see Fig. 62).

The inventory of these ancestral Pre-Chellean forms of implements, used in industrial and domestic life, in the chase, and in war, is as follows:

Grattoir, planing tool.
Racloir, scraper.
Perçoir, drill, borer.
Couteau, knife.
Percuteur, hammer-stone.
Pierre de jet? throwing stone?
Prototypes of coup de poing, hand-stone.

It includes five, possibly six, chief types. The true coup de poing, a combination tool of Chellean times, is not yet developed in the Pre-Chellean, and the other implements, although similar in form, are more primitive. They are all in an experimental stage of development.

Indications that this primitive industry spread over southeastern England as well, and that a succession of Pre-Chellean into Chellean culture may be demonstrated, occur in connection with the recent discovery of the very ancient Piltdown race.

The Piltdown Race[(15)]

The 'dawn man' is the most ancient human type in which the form of the head and size of the brain are known. Its anatomy, as well as its geologic antiquity, is therefore of profound interest and worthy of very full consideration. We may first review the authors' narrative of this remarkable discovery and the history of opinion concerning it.

Piltdown, Sussex, lies between two branches of the Ouse, about 35 miles south and slightly to the east of Gray's Thurrock, the Chellean station of the Thames. To the east is the plateau of Kent, in which many flints of Eolithic type have been found.

Fig. 63. Discovery site of the famous Piltdown skull near Piltdown, Sussex. After Dawson. A shallow pit of dark-brown gravel, at the bottom of which were found the fragments of the skull and a single primitive implement of worked flint (see Fig. 65).

The gravel layer in which the Piltdown skull occurred is situated on a well-defined plateau of large area and lies about 80 feet above the level of the main stream of the Ouse. Remnants of the flint-bearing gravels and drifts occur upon the plateau and the slopes down which they trail toward the river and streams. This region was undoubtedly favorable to the flint workers of Pre-Chellean and Chellean times. Kennard[(16)] believes that the gravels are of the same age as those of the 'high terrace' of the lower valley of the Thames; the height above the stream level is practically the same, namely, about 80 feet. Another geologist, Clement Reid,[(17)] holds that the plateau, composed of Wealden chalk, through which flowed the stream bearing the Piltdown gravels, belongs to a period later than that of the maximum depression of Great Britain; that the deposits are of Pre-Glacial or early Pleistocene age; that they belong to the epoch after the cold period of the first glaciation had passed but occur at the very base of the succession of implement-bearing deposits in the southeast of England.

On the other hand, Dawson,[(18)] the discoverer of the Piltdown skull, in his first description states: "From these facts it appears probable that the skull and mandible cannot safely be described as being of earlier date than the first half of the Pleistocene Epoch. The individual probably lived during the warm cycle in that age."

The section of the gravel bed (Fig. 64) indicates that the remains of the Piltdown man were washed down with other fossils by a shallow stream charged with dark-brown gravel and unworked flints; some of these fossils were of Pliocene times from strata of the upper parts of the stream. In this channel were found the remains of a number of animals of the same age as the Piltdown man, a few flints resembling eoliths, and one very primitive worked flint of Pre-Chellean type, which may also have been washed down from deposits of earlier age. These precious geologic and archæologic records furnish the only means we have of determining the age of Eoanthropus, the 'dawn man,' one of the most important and significant discoveries in the whole history of anthropology. We are indebted to the geologist Charles Dawson and the palæontologist Arthur Smith Woodward for preserving these ancient records and describing them with great fulness and accuracy as follows (pp. 132 to 139):

Several years ago Dawson discovered a small portion of an unusually thick human parietal bone, taken from a gravel bed which was being dug for road-making purposes on a farm close to Piltdown Common. In the autumn of 1911 he picked up among the rain-washed spoil-heaps of the same gravel-pit another and larger piece of bone belonging to the forehead region of the same skull and including a portion of the ridge extending over the left eyebrow. Immediately impressed with the importance of this discovery, Dawson enlisted the co-operation of Smith Woodward, and a systematic search was made in these spoil-heaps and gravels, beginning in the spring of 1912; all the material was looked over and carefully sifted. It appears that the whole or greater part of the human skull had been scattered by the workmen, who had thrown away the pieces unnoticed. Thorough search in the bottom of the gravel bed itself revealed the right half of a jaw, which was found in a depression of undisturbed, finely stratified gravel, so far as could be judged on the spot identical with that from which the first portions of the cranium were exhumed. A yard from the jaw an important piece of the occipital bone of the skull was found. Search was renewed in 1913 by Father P. Teilhard, of Chardin, a French anthropologist, who fortunately recovered a single canine tooth, and later a pair of nasal bones were found, all of which fragments are of very great significance in the restoration of the skull.

Fig. 64. Geologic section of the Piltdown gravel bed, showing in restored outlines at the bottom of layer 3 the position in which the fragments of the skull and jaw were found. After Dawson.

1. Surface soil, with flints. Thickness = 1 foot.

2. Pale-yellow sandy loam with gravel and flints. One Palæolithic worked flint was found in the middle of this bed. Thickness = 2 feet, 6 inches.

3. Dark-brown gravel, with flints, Pliocene rolled fossils and Eoanthropus skull, beaver tooth, 'eoliths' and one worked flint. Thickness = 18 inches.

4. Pale-yellow clay and sand. Thickness = 8 inches.

5. Undisturbed strata of Wealden age.

The jaw appears to have been broken at the symphysis, and somewhat abraded, perhaps after being caught in the gravel before it was completely covered with sand. The fragments of the cranium show little or no signs of stream rolling or other abrasion save an incision caused by the workman's pick.

Analysis of the bones showed that the skull was in a condition of fossilization, no gelatine or organic matter remained, and mingled with a large proportion of the phosphates, originally present, was a considerable proportion of iron.[Y]

Fig. 65. The single worked flint of very primitive type found in the same layer (3) with the fragments of the Piltdown skull. After Dawson. One-half actual size.

The dark gravel bed (Fig. 64, layer 3), 18 inches in thickness, at the bottom of which the skull and jaw were found, contained a number of fossils which manifestly were not of the same age as the skull but were certainly from Pliocene deposits up-stream; these included the water-vole and remains of the mastodon, the southern mammoth, the hippopotamus, and a fragment of the grinding-tooth of a primitive elephant, resembling Stegodon. In the spoil-heaps, from which it is believed the skull of the Piltdown man was taken, were found an upper tooth of a rhinoceros, either of the Etruscan or of Merck's type; the tooth of a beaver and of a hippopotamus, and the leg-bone of a deer, which may have been cut or incised by man. Much more distinctive was a single flint (Fig. 65), worked only on one side, of the very primitive or Pre-Chellean type. Implements of this stage, as the author observes, are difficult to classify with certainty, owing to the rudeness of their workmanship; they resemble certain rude implements occasionally found on the surface of the chalk downs near Piltdown. The majority of the flints found in the gravel were worked only on one face; their form is thick, and the flaking is broad and sparing; the original surface of the flint is left in a smooth, natural condition at the point grasped by the hand; the whole implement thus has a very rude and massive form. These flints appear to be of even more primitive form than those at St. Acheul described as Pre-Chellean by Commont.

Fig. 66. Eoliths found in or near the Piltdown gravel-pit. After Dawson. One-half actual size.

a. Borer (above).

b. Curved scraper (below).

The eoliths found in the gravel-pit and in the adjacent fields are of the 'borer' and 'hollow-scraper' forms; also, some are of the 'crescent-shaped-scraper' type, mostly rolled and water-worn, as if transported from a distance. This is a stream or river bed, not a Palæolithic quarry.

There can be little doubt, however, that the Piltdown man belonged to a period when the flint industry was in a very primitive stage, antecedent to the true Chellean. It has subsequently been observed that the gravel strata[(3)] containing the Piltdown man were deeper than the higher stratum containing flints nearer the Chellean type.

The discovery of this skull aroused as great or greater interest even than that attending the discovery of the two other 'river-drift' races, the Trinil and the Heidelberg. In this discussion the most distinguished anatomists of Great Britain, Arthur Smith Woodward, Elliot Smith, and Arthur Keith, took part, and finally the original pieces were re-examined by three anatomists of this country.[Z]

Fig. 67. Skull of South African Bushman (upper) exhibiting the contrast in the structure of the jaw and forehead. One-quarter life size. Original restoration of the Piltdown skull (lower) made by Smith Woodward in 1913. One-quarter life size.

It is important to present in full the original opinions of Smith Woodward, who devoted most careful study to the first reconstruction of the skull (Fig. 67), a model which was subsequently modified by the actual discovery of one of the canine teeth. In his original description it is observed that the pieces of the skull preserved are noteworthy for the great thickness of the bone, it being 11 to 12 mm. as compared with 5 to 6 mm., the average thickness in the modern European skull, or 6 to 8 mm., the thickness in the skull of the Neanderthal races and in that of the modern Australian; the cephalic index is estimated at 78 or 79, that is, the skull is believed to have been proportionately low and wide, almost brachycephalic; there was apparently no prominent or thickened ridge above the orbits, a feature which immediately distinguishes this skull from that of the Neanderthal races; the several bones of the brain-case are typically human and not in the least like those of the anthropoid apes; the brain capacity was originally estimated at 1070 c.cm., not equalling that of some of the lowest brain types in the existing Australian races and decidedly below that of the Neanderthal man of Spy and La Chapelle-aux-Saints; the nasal bones are typically human but relatively small and broad, so that the nose was flattened, resembling that in some of the existing Malay and African races.

Fig. 68. Three views of the Piltdown skull as reconstructed by J. H. McGregor, 1915. This restoration includes the nasal bones and canine tooth, which were not known at the time of Smith Woodward's reconstruction of 1913. One-quarter life size.

The jaw presents profoundly different characters; the whole of the bone preserved closely resembles that of a young chimpanzee; thus the slope of the bony chin as restored is between that of an adult ape and that of the Heidelberg man, with an extremely receding chin; the ascending portion of the jaw for the attachment of the temporal muscles is broad and thickened anteriorly. Associated with the jaw were two elongated molar teeth, worn down by use to such an extent that the individual could not have been less than thirty years of age and was probably older. These teeth are relatively longer and narrower than those in the modern human jaw. The canine tooth, identified by Smith Woodward as belonging in the lower jaw, strengthened by the evidence afforded by the jaw itself, proves that the face was elongate or prognathous and that the canine teeth were very prominent like those of the anthropoid apes; it affords definite proof that the front teeth of the Piltdown man resembled those of the ape.

The author's conclusion is that while the skull is essentially human, it approaches the lower races of man in certain characters of the brain, in the attachment of the muscles of the neck, in the large extent of the temporal muscles attached to the jaw, and in the probably large size of the face. The mandible, on the other hand, appears precisely like that of the ape, with nothing human except the molar teeth, and even these approach the dentition of the apes in their elongate shape and well-developed fifth or posterior intermediate cusp. This type of man, distinguished by the smooth forehead and supraorbital borders and ape-like jaw, represents a new genus called Eoanthropus, or 'dawn man,' while the species has been named dawsoni in honor of the discoverer, Charles Dawson. This very ancient type of man is defined by the ape-like chin and junction of the two halves of the jaw, by a series of parallel grinding-teeth, with narrow lower molar teeth, which do not diminish in size backward, and by the steep forehead and slight development of the brow ridges. The jaw manifestly differs from that of the Heidelberg man in its comparative slenderness and relative deepening toward the symphysis.

The discussion of this very important paper by Smith Woodward and Dawson centred about two points. First, whether the ape-like jaw really belonged with the human skull rather than with that of some anthropoid ape which happened to be drifted down in the same stratum; and second, whether the extremely low original estimate of the brain capacity of 1070 c.cm., was not due to incorrect adjustment or reconstruction of the separate pieces of the skull.

Keith,[(19)] the leader in the criticism of Woodward's reconstruction, maintained that when the two sides of the skull were properly restored and made approximately symmetrical, the brain capacity would be found to equal 1500 c.cm.; the brain cast of the skull even as originally reconstructed was found to be close to 1200 c.cm. This author agreed that skull, jaw, and canine tooth belonged to Eoanthropus but that they could not well belong to the same individual.

In defense of Woodward's reconstruction came the powerful support of Elliot Smith.[(20)] He maintained that the evidence afforded by the re-examination of the bones corroborated in the main Smith Woodward's identification of the median plane of the skull; further, that the original reconstruction of the prognathous face was confirmed by the discovery of the canine tooth, also that there remained no doubt that the association of the skull, the jaw, and the canine tooth was a correct one. The back portion of the skull is decidedly asymmetrical, a condition found both in the lower and higher races of man. A slight rearrangement and widening of the bones along the median upper line of the skull raise the estimate of the brain capacity to 1100 c.cm. as the probable maximum.

Elliot Smith continued that he considered the brain to be of a more primitive kind than any human brain that he had ever seen, yet that it could be called human and that it already showed a considerable development of those parts which in modern man we associate with the power of speech; thus, there was no doubt of the unique importance of this skull as representing an entirely new type of "man in the making." As regards the form of the lower jaw, it was observed that in the dawn of human existence teeth suitable for weapons of offense and defense were retained long after the brain had attained its human status. Thus the ape-like form of the chin does not signify inability to speak, for speech must have come when the jaws were still ape-like in character, and the bony changes that produced the recession of the tooth line and the form of the chin were mainly due to sexual selection, to the reduction in the size of the grinding-teeth, and, in a minor degree, to the growth and specialization of the muscles of the jaw and tongue employed in speech.

Fig. 69. The Piltdown skull with the right half removed to display the extreme thickness of the bones and the shape of the brain. As restored by J. H. McGregor. One-quarter life size.

Fig. 70. Outline of the left side of the Piltdown brain, compared with similar brain outlines of a chimpanzee and of a high type of modern man. One-half life size.

At first sight the brain-case resembles that of the Neanderthal skull found at Gibraltar, which is supposed to be that of a woman; it is relatively long, narrow, and especially flat, but it is smaller and presents more primitive features than those of any known human brain. Taking all these features into consideration, we must regard this as being the most primitive and most ape-like human brain so far recorded; one such as might reasonably be associated with a jaw which presented such distinctive ape characters. The brain, however, is far more human than the jaw, from which we may infer that the evolution of the brain preceded that of the mandible, as well as the development of beauty of the face and the human development of the bodily characters in general.

The latest opinion of Smith Woodward[AA] is that the brain, while the most primitive which has been discovered, had a bulk of nearly 1300 c.cm., equalling that of the smaller human brains of to-day and surpassing that of the Australians, which rarely exceeds 1250 c.cm.

The original views of Smith Woodward and of Elliot Smith regarding the relation of the Piltdown race to the Heidelberg and Neanderthal races are also of very great interest and may be cited. First, the fact that the Piltdown and Heidelberg races are almost of the same geologic age proves that at the end of the Pliocene Epoch the representatives of man in western Europe had already branched into widely divergent groups: the one (Heidelberg-Neanderthal) characterized by a very low projecting forehead, with a subhuman head of Neanderthaloid contour; the other with a flattened forehead and with an ape-like jaw of the Piltdown contour. We should not forget that in the Piltdown skull the absence of prominent ridges above the eyes may possibly be due in some degree to the fact that the type skull may belong to a female, as suggested by certain characters of the jaw; but among all existing apes the skull in early life has the rounded shape of the Piltdown skull, with a high forehead and scarcely any brow ridges. It seems reasonable, therefore, to interpret the Piltdown skull as exhibiting a closer resemblance to the skulls of our human ancestors in mid-Tertiary times than any fossil skull hitherto found. If this view be accepted, we may suppose that the Piltdown type became gradually modified into the Neanderthal type by a series of changes similar to those passed through by the early apes as they evolved into typical modern apes, with their low brows and prominent ridges above the eyes. This would tend to support the theory that the Neanderthal men were degenerate offshoots of the Tertiary race, of which the Piltdown skull provides the first discovered evidence—a race with a simple, flattened forehead and developed eye ridges.

Fig. 71. Restoration of the head of Piltdown man, in profile, based upon the reconstruction shown in Fig. 68, p. 137. After model by J. H. McGregor. One-quarter life size.

Elliot Smith concluded that members of the Piltdown race might well have been the direct ancestors of the existing species of man (Homo sapiens), thus affording a direct link with undiscovered Tertiary apes; whereas, the more recent fossil men of the Neanderthal type, with prominent brow ridges resembling those of the existing apes, may have belonged to a degenerate race which later became extinct. According to this view, Eoanthropus represents a persistent and very slightly modified descendant of the type of Tertiary man which was the common ancestor of a branch giving rise to Homo sapiens, on the one hand, and of another branch giving rise to Homo neanderthalensis, on the other.

Fig. 72. Restoration of the head of Piltdown man, full front, after model by J. H. McGregor. One-quarter life size. (Compare Figs. 68 and 71.)

Another theory as to the relationships of Eoanthropus is that of Marcelin Boule,[(21)] who is inclined to regard the jaws of the Piltdown and Heidelberg races as of similar geologic age, but of dissimilar racial type. He continues: "If the skull and jaw of Piltdown belong to the same individual, and if the mandibles of the Heidelberg and Piltdown men are of the same type, this discovery is most valuable in establishing the cranial structure of the Heidelberg race. But it appears rather that we have here two types of man which lived in Chellean times, both distinguished by very low cranial characters. Of these the Piltdown race seems to us the probable ancestor in the direct line of the recent species of man, Homo sapiens; while the Heidelberg race may be considered, until we have further knowledge, as a possible precursor of Homo neanderthalensis."

The latest opinion of the German anatomist Schwalbe[(22)] is that the proper restoration of the region of the chin in the Piltdown man might make it possible to refer this jaw to Homo sapiens, but this would merely prove that Homo sapiens already existed in early Pleistocene times. The skull of the Piltdown man, continues Schwalbe, corresponds with that of a well-developed, good-sized skull of Homo sapiens; the only unusual feature is the remarkable thickness of the bone.[AB]

Finally, our own opinion is that the Piltdown race was not related at all either to the Heidelbergs or to the Neanderthals, nor was it directly ancestral to any of the other races of the Old Stone Age, or to any of the existing species of man. As shown in the human family tree in Chapter VI, the Piltdown race represents a side branch of the human family which has left no descendants at all.

Mammalian Life of Chellean and Acheulean Times[(23)]

Southern mammoth.
Hippopotamus.
Straight-tusked elephant.
Broad-nosed rhinoceros.
Spotted hyæna.
Lion.
Bison and wild ox.
Red deer.
Roe-deer.
Giant deer.
Brown bear.
Wolf.
Badger.
Marten.
Otter.
Beaver.
Hamster.
Water-vole.

The mammalian life which we find with the more advanced implements of Chellean times apparently does not include the old Pliocene mammals, such as the Etruscan rhinoceros and the sabre-tooth tiger. With this exception it is so similar to that of Second Interglacial times that it may serve to prove again that the third glaciation was a local episode and not a wide-spread climatic influence. This life is everywhere the same, from the valley of the Thames, as witnessed in the low river-gravels of Gray's Thurrock and Ilford, to the region of the present Thuringian forests near Weimar, where it is found in the deposits of Taubach, Ehringsdorf, and Achenheim, in which the mammals belong to the more recent date of early Acheulean culture. The life of this great region during Chellean and early Acheulean times was a mingling of the characteristic forest and meadow fauna of western Europe with the descendants of the African-Asiatic invaders of late Pliocene and early Pleistocene times.

Pl. IV. The Piltdown man of Sussex, England. Antiquity variously estimated at 100,000 to 300,000 years. The ape-like structure of the jaw does not prevent the expression of a considerable degree of intelligence in the face. After the restoration modelled by J. H. McGregor.

The forests were full of the red deer (Cervus elaphus), of the roe-deer (C. capreolus), and of the giant deer (Megaceros), also of a primitive species of wild boar (Sus scrofa ferus) and of wild horses probably representing more than one variety. The brown bear (Ursus arctos) of Europe is now for the first time identified; there was also a primitive species of wolf (Canis suessi).

The small carnivora of the forests and of the streams are all considered as closely related to existing species, namely, the badger (Meles taxus), the marten (Mustela martes), the otter (Lutra vulgaris), and the water-vole (Arvicola amphibius). The prehistoric beaver of Europe (Castor fiber) now replaces the giant beaver (Trogontherium) of Second Interglacial times.

Among the large carnivora, the lion (Felis leo antiqua) and the spotted hyæna (H. crocuta) have replaced the sabre-tooth tiger and the striped hyæna of early Pleistocene times. Four great Asiatic mammals, including two species of elephants, one species of rhinoceros, and the hippopotamus, roamed through the forests and meadows of this warm temperate region. The horse of this period is considered[(24)] to belong to the Forest or Nordic type, from which our modern draught-horses have descended. The lions and hyænas which abounded in Chellean and early Acheulean times are in part ancestors of the cave types which appear in the succeeding Reindeer or Cavern Period. In general, this mammalian life of Chellean and early Acheulean times in Europe frequented the river shores and the neighboring forests and meadows favored by a warm temperate climate with mild winters, such as is indicated by the presence of the fig-tree and of the Canary laurel in the region of north central France near Paris.

Undoubtedly the Chellean and Acheulean hunters had begun the chase both of the bison, or wisent (B. priscus), and of the wild cattle, or aurochs.[AC]

This warm temperate mammalian life spread very widely over northern Europe, as shown especially in the distribution (Fig. 44) of the hippopotamus, the straight-tusked elephant, and Merck's rhinoceros. The latter pair were constant companions and are seen to have a closely similar and somewhat more northerly range than the hippopotamus, which is rather the climatic companion of the southern mammoth and ranges farther south. These animals in the gravel and sand layers along the river slopes and 'terraces' mingled their remains with the artifacts of the flint workers. For example, in the gravel 'terraces' of the Somme we find the bones of the straight-tusked elephant and Merck's rhinoceros in the same sand layers with the Chellean flints. Thus the men of Chellean times may well have pursued this giant elephant (E. antiquus) and rhinoceros (D. merckii) as their tribal successors in the same valley hunted the woolly mammoth and woolly rhinoceros.

Distribution of the Chellean Implements

All over the world may be found traces of a Stone Age, ancient or modern, primitive implements of stone and flint analogous to those of the true Chellean period of western Europe but not really identical when very closely compared. These represent the early attempts of the human hand, directed by the primitive mind, to fashion hard materials into forms adapted to the purposes of war, the chase, and domestic life. The result is a series of parallels in form which come under the evolution principle of convergence. Thus, in all the continents except Australia—in Europe, in Asia, and even in North and South America—primitive races have passed through an industrial stage similar to the typical Chellean of western Europe. This we should rather attribute to a similarity in human invention and in human needs than to the theory that the Chellean industry originated at some particular centre and travelled in a slowly enlarging wave over the entire world.

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Fig. 73. Distribution of the principal Pre-Chellean and Chellean industrial stations in western Europe.

In western Europe the Chellean culture certainly had a development all its own, adapted to a race of bold hunters who lived in the open and whose entire industry developed around the products of the chase. For them flint and quartzite took the place of bronze, iron, or steel. This culture marked a distinct and probably a very long epoch of time in which inventions and multiplications of form were gradually spread from tribe to tribe, exactly as modern inventions, usually originating at a single point and often in the mind of one ingenious individual, gradually spread over the world.

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Fig. 74. Section of the middle and high terraces at St. Acheul, from southwest to northeast. After Commont, 1908, 1909, modified and redrawn. The Pre-Chellean workers first established themselves here at the time when the Somme was visited by the straight-tusked elephant and other primitive mammals of the warm African-Asiatic fauna. (Compare Fig. 59, p. 122.)

The clearest examples of the evolution of the seven or eight implements of the Chellean culture from the five or six rudimentary types of the Pre-Chellean have been found at St. Acheul by Commont. The abundance and variety of flint at this great station on the Somme made it a centre of industry from the dawn of the Old Stone Age to its very close. It was probably a region favorable to all kinds of large and small game. The researches of Commont show that with the exception of Castillo in northern Spain no other station in all Europe was so continuously occupied. From Pre-Chellean to Neolithic times the men of every culture stage except the Magdalenian and Azilian-Tardenoisian found their way here, and thus the site of St. Acheul presents an epitome of the entire prehistoric industry. Even during the colder periods of climate this region continued to be visited—possibly during the warm weather of the summer seasons. At Montières, along the Somme, we find deposits of Mousterian culture which is generally characteristic of the cold climatic period but is here associated with a temperate fauna, including the hippopotamus, Merck's rhinoceros, and the straight-tusked elephant. Great geographic and climatic changes took place in the valley of the Somme during this long period of human evolution. The Pre-Chellean workers first established their industry on the middle and high 'terraces' at the time when the Somme was visited by the straight-tusked elephant and other much more primitive mammals of the warm Asiatic fauna. The early Acheulean camps on the same terraces were pitched in the gravels below layers of 'loess' which betoken an entire climatic change. The fourth glaciation passed by, and the Upper Palæolithic flint workers again returned and left the débris of their industry in the layers of loam which swept down the slopes of the valley from the surrounding hills. This succession will be studied more in detail in connection with the industry.

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Fig. 75. Excavation on the 'high terrace' at St. Acheul, known as the ancienne carrière Dupont and more recently as the carrière Bultel, showing eight geologic layers from the Upper Palæolithic deposits of brick-earth at the top(9) down to the sub-Chellean yellow gravels(2) overlying the chalk terrace at the bottom.

As contrasted with the four or more Pre-Chellean stations already known, namely, St. Acheul, Montières, Helin, Gray's Thurrock, and possibly Abbeville and Piltdown, there are at least sixteen stations in western Europe which are characteristically Chellean. In addition to the sites named above, all of which show deposits of typical Chellean implements above the Pre-Chellean, we may note the important Chellean stations of San Isidro and Torralba in central Spain; Tilloux and Marignac in southwestern France; Créteil, Colombes, Bois Colombes, and Billancourt on the Seine, in the immediate vicinity of Paris; Cergy on the Oise; the type station of Chelles on the Marne; Abbeville on the northern bank of the Somme; and the famous station of Kent's Hole, Devon, on the southwestern coast of England. Thus far no typical Chellean station has been discovered in Portugal, Italy, Germany, or Austria, nor, indeed, in any part of central Europe. This leaves the original habitat of the tribes that brought the Chellean culture to western Europe still a mystery; but, as already observed, the location of the stations favors the theory of a migration through northern Africa rather than through eastern Europe.

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Fig. 76. Principal forms of small, late Chellean scraping, planing, and boring tools of flint, after Commont and Obermaier. One-half actual size. 1. Combination tool—small flake with a sharp point (a), cutting edge (b), and curved-in scraper (c). 2. Cutting tool with protective retouch for the index finger on the upper edge (a), and a sharp cutting edge (b). 3. Primitive knife. 4. 'Point.' 5. Combination tool—small flake with scraper edge (b), and two curved-in scraper edges (a and a1). 6. Borer. 7. Pointed scraper. 8. Knife with coarse boring point at one end. 9. Thick scraper or planing tool. 10. Curved scraper.

Compared with the Pre-Chellean flint workers the Chellean artisans advanced both by the improvement of the older types of implements and by the invention of new ones.[(25)] As observed by Obermaier, the flint worker is still dependent on the chance shape of the shattered fragments of flint which he has not yet learned to shape symmetrically. In the experimental search after the most useful form of flint which could be grasped by the hand, the very characteristic Chellean coup de poing was evolved out of its Pre-Chellean prototype. This implement was made of an elongate nodule, either of quartzite or, preferably, of flint, and flaked by the hammer on both sides to a more or less almond shape; as a rule, the point and its adjacent edges are sharpened; the other end being rounded and blunted. Like most, if not all, of the Chellean implements, it was designed to be grasped by the bare hand and not furnished with a wooden haft or handle. It is not impossible that some of the pointed forms may have been wedged into a wooden handle, but there is no proof of it. In size the coup de poing varies from 4 to 8 inches in length, and examples have been found as large as 9½ inches. That it served a variety of purposes is indicated by the existence of four well-defined, different forms: first, a primitive, almond-shaped form; second, an ovaloid form; third, a disk form; and fourth, a pointed form resembling a lance-head. De Mortillet[(26)] speaks of it as the only tool of the Chellean tribes, but in its various forms it served all the purposes of axe, saw, chisel, and awl, and was in truth a combination tool. Capitan[(27)] also holds that the coup de poing is not a single tool but is designed to meet many various needs. The primitive almond and ovaloid forms were designed for use along the edges, either for heavy hacking or for sawing; the disk forms may have been used as axes or as sling-stones; the more rounded forms would serve as knives and scrapers; while the pointed, lance-shaped forms might be used as daggers, both in war and in the chase.

The Chellean flint workers also developed especially a number of small, pointed forms from the accidentally shaped fragments of flint, showing both short and long points carefully flaked and chipped. Thus, out of the small types of the Pre-Chellean there evolved a great variety of tools adapted to domestic purposes, to war, and to the chase.

Chellean Geography in England and France

The type station of the Chellean culture is somewhat east of the present town of Chelles. Here in Chellean times the broad floods of the ancient River Marne were transporting great quantities of sand and débris, products of the early pluvial periods of Third Interglacial times; and here, on the right bank, embedded in sands and gravels 24 feet thick, are found the typical Chellean implements mingled with remains of the hippopotamus, straight-tusked elephant, Merck's rhinoceros, giant beaver, hyæna, and many members of the Asiatic forest and meadow fauna.

The flint-working stations at St. Acheul were on bluffs from 40 to 80 feet above the present level of the Somme. The Chellean and the following Acheulean industry was carried on here on a very extensive scale. In one year Rigollot collected as many as 800 coups de poing from the ancient quarries; near by are other quarries equally rich in material, and we may imagine that the products of the flint industry in this favorable locality were carried far and wide into other parts of the country.

In the vicinity of Paris, and again at Arcy, in the valley of the Bièvre, the workers of Chellean, Acheulean, and Mousterian flints sought in succession the old river-gravels belonging to the lower levels; these 'low terraces' are only 15 feet above the present height of the river and are still occasionally flooded by the high waters of the Seine, indicating that the Seine borders have not altered their levels. The animal life here was identical with that of the Somme and of the Thames and included the hippopotamus, Merck's rhinoceros, and the straight-tusked elephant.

Thus it would appear that, in regard to the river courses and the hills through which they flowed, the topography and landscape of northern France and of southern Britain were everywhere the same as at the present time. The forests which clothed the hills were not greatly different from the present, except for the presence of a few trees of a warmer clime, nor was there anything strange or unfamiliar in the majority of the animals that roamed through forest and meadow. The three chief archaic elements consisted in the presence of two very ancient races of men and their rude stage of culture, in the great forms of Asiatic and African life which mingled with the more familiar native types, and in the broad, continuous land surfaces which swept off unbroken to the west and southwest.

For in those days Europe, though even then little more than a great peninsula, extended far beyond its present limits. England and Ireland were still part of the mainland, and great rivers flowed through the broad valleys that are now the Irish Sea, the North Sea, and the English Channel—rivers that counted the Seine, the Thames, the Garonne, and even the Rhine, as mere tributaries. The Strait of Gibraltar was then the Isthmus of Gibraltar—a narrow land bridge connecting Europe with Africa. The Mediterranean was then an inland lake, or rather two inland lakes, for Italy and Sicily stretched out in a broad, irregular mass to join the northern coast of Africa, while Corsica and Sardinia formed a long peninsula extending from the Italian mainland and almost, if not quite, reaching to the African coast.

The Thames Valley in Chellean Times

The interpretation of the features of stratification in the valley of the Somme is especially interesting because it gives us a key to the understanding of a similar sequence of prehistoric events in the valley of the Thames.

The station of Gray's Thurrock in this valley is barely 120 miles distant from the Chellean station of Abbeville, in the valley of the Somme, and it is apparent that the old flint workers were freely passing across the broad intervening country and interchanging their ideas and inventions. Thus it happened that Chellean implements identical with, or closely related to, the types of the Somme valley were being fashioned all over southern Britain from the Thames to the Ouse. The ancient River Thames (Lyell,[(28)] Geikie[(29)]) was then flowing over a bed of boulder-clays which had been deposited during the preceding glaciations. Its broad, swift stream was bringing down great deposits of ochreous gravels and of sands interstratified with loams and clays. It is these old true river-gravels which display their greatest thickness on the lowest levels of the Thames and which are largely made up of well-bedded and distinctly water-worn materials. On these low levels the flint workers sought their materials, and here they left behind them the archaic Chellean implements which are now found embedded in these older river-gravels, just as they occur in the gravels washed down over the three terraces of the Somme and the Marne. In the Thames this old gravel wash seems to have been down-stream, whereas on the middle and upper terraces of the Somme the gravel wash came directly down the sides of the valley, except, perhaps, in very high floods. These deep beds of gravel, sand, and loam lie for the most part above the present overflow plain of the Thames, although in some places they descend below it; which proves that the main landscape of the Thames also, except for the changes of the flora and of animal life, was the same in Pre-Chellean and Chellean times as it is at present. Thus the Somme, the Thames, and the Seine had all worn their channels to the present or even to lower levels when the Pre-Chellean hunters appeared. Since Chellean times all three rivers have silted up their channels.

The changes along the Thames which have since occurred are in the superficial layers brought down from the sides of the valley which have softened the contours of the old terraces and have also entombed the later phases of the valley's prehistory.

Sections on the south bank at Ilford, Kent, and on the north bank at Gray's Thurrock, Essex, confirm this view. At the latter station, in low-lying strata of brick-earth, loam, and gravel, such as would be formed by the silting up of the bottom of an old river channel, are found the remains of the straight-tusked elephant, broad-nosed rhinoceros, and hippopotamus. All the discoveries of recent years lead to the conclusion that the old fluviatile gravels which contain these ancient mammals and flints are restricted to the lower levels of the Thames valley, while the high level gravels and loams are of later date. Old Chellean flints also occur occasionally on the higher levels, but here it would seem that they have been washed down from the old land surfaces above, because they are found mingled with flints of the late Acheulean and early Mousterian industry.

England in Early Palæolithic Times

It is on the higher levels of the Thames, as of the Somme, and in the superficial deposits covering the sides of the valley that we read the story of the subsequent Palæolithic cultures and of an early warm temperate climate being followed by a cold climate with frozen subsoil belonging to the fourth glaciation and the contemporary Mousterian flint industry. The Palæolithic history of the Thames[(30)] has not yet been fully interpreted, but it would appear that the relics of the old stations of Kent and Norfolk will yield all the forms of Chellean and Acheulean implements, and probably also those of the Mousterian which have been discovered in the valley of the Somme, thus proving that the Lower Palæolithic races of this region pursued the same culture development as the neighboring tribes of France and Belgium, as well as those of Spain, up to the close of middle Acheulean times.

A similar sequence of events appears to be indicated at Hoxne, Suffolk, where archaic palæoliths were discovered as far back as 1797. This discovery was neglected for upward of sixty years, until in 1859 these flints were re-examined by Prestwich and Evans after their visit to the stations of the Somme (Geikie,[(31)] Avebury[(32)]). This site was in the hollow of a surface of boulder-clay, overlain by the deposit of a fresh-water stream; in the bed of its narrow channel, besides flint implements of early Acheulean type, abundant plant remains were found which give us an interesting vision of the flora of the time.

These plants are decidedly characteristic of a temperate climate, including such trees as the oak, yew, and fir, and mostly of species which are still found in the forests of the same region. This life gave place, as indicated in plant deposits of a higher level, to an arctic flora, probably corresponding with the tundra climate of Mousterian times, the period of the fourth glaciation. Above these are found again layers of plants and of mollusks which point to the return of a temperate climate.

Spread of the Acheulean Industry

It is noteworthy that not a single 'river-drift,' Pre-Chellean or Chellean, station has been found in Germany or Switzerland, or, in fact, in all central Europe in the region lying between the Alpine and Scandinavian glaciers. Either this region was unfavorable to human habitation or the remains of the stations have been buried or washed away.

It is significant that the earliest proof of human migration into this region, whether from the east or from the west we do not certainly know, is coincident with the dry climate of Acheulean times. The 'loess' conditions of climate seem to be coincident with the earliest Acheulean stations in Germany, such as Sablon. 'Loess' deposition is by no means a proof of a cold climate but rather of an arid one, especially in regions where areas of finely eroded soil were liable to be raised by the wind; such areas were found over the whole recently glaciated country north of the Alps and south of the Scandinavian peninsula.

The Palæolithic discovery sites of Germany are principally grouped in three regions[(33)] as follows:

To the south, along the headwaters of the Rhine and the Danube, among the limestones of Swabia and the Jura were formed the caverns sought by early Mousterian man. To the west of these were many older stations in the 'loess' deposits of the upper Rhine, between the mountain ridges of the Vosges and the Black Forest, and still nearer the sources of the Rhine, extending over the border into Switzerland, are a number of famous cave sites in the valleys cut by the Rhine and its tributaries through the white Jurassic limestone. To the west is the group of the middle Rhine and of Westphalia, which includes the open Acheulean camps in the 'loess' deposits above the river and a number of cavern stations. To the north is the scattered group of stations, both of Acheulean and Mousterian times, of north Germany. Here the sites are few and far between. The open-country camps were established chiefly in the valley of the Ilm and near the caves of the Harz Mountains, in the neighborhood of Gera. No discoveries of certain date or unquestioned authenticity are reported from eastern Germany.

Along the upper Rhine the flint workers of Acheulean times established their ancient camps mostly in the open on the broad sheets of the 'lower loess,' which, constantly drifted by the wind, covered and preserved the stations. These stations are widely scattered, but they were frequented from earliest Acheulean times, and the region was revisited to the very close of the Upper Palæolithic.

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Fig. 77. Flint working stations of the Men of the Old Stone Age along the waters of the Ilm, the Rhine, and the Danube, from Acheulean to Azilian times. After R. R. Schmidt, modified and redrawn. These Palæolithic sites of Germany lie between the terminal moraines of the successive glacial advances of the Second, Third, and Fourth (II, III, IV) Glacial Stages, extending from the borders of the Scandinavian ice-fields on the north to those of the Alpine ice-fields on the south. The dotted surface represents the area covered by the drift of the Fourth Glacial Stage.

Early in Acheulean times the important 'loess' station of Achenheim was established. This is a most famous locality and is of especial importance because it is the only station in Germany which was continuously frequented from late Acheulean times throughout the Lower Palæolithic and into the beginning of the Upper Palæolithic; here the 'older loess' of the Third Interglacial Stage yields a typical Acheulean industry.

Thus far the region of the middle Rhine and of Westphalia has not shown any evidence of Acheulean culture. The north German stations, however, were entered in Acheulean times, and the principal open stations of this region lie along the valley of the Ilm. Here, at Taubach, Ehringsdorf, and Weimar, we find implements of typical Acheulean form belonging to the early warm temperate Acheulean period. The stations of the Ilm valley southwest of Leipsic are also of great importance because of the rich record which they contain of the warm temperate animal life of early Acheulean times; the flint culture is typically Acheulean, and the climatic conditions are read both in the travertines and in the subsequent deposits of the 'lower loess,' which belong to the cold dry period of late Acheulean times. Here lingered the straight-tusked elephant and Merck's rhinoceros, contemporary with the workers of the Acheulean flints.

It will be observed that in Germany the early Acheulean was a warm period which in certain regions was also arid and subject to great dust-storms. At this time the camps were for the most part in the open country. In the late period, also arid and subject to high winds but with a cooler climate, the flint workers continued to frequent the open Acheulean stations in the 'loess.' If there were shelter and cavern stations in this region, they have not as yet been discovered. This would appear to indicate that the climate had not yet become severe.

Similar testimony is found in the great scarcity of cavern and shelter stations in Acheulean times in every part of western Europe; yet occasionally the tribes repaired to the vicinity of sheltering cliffs, as along the Vézère. In some scattered localities they sought the caverns, as at Krapina, in Croatia, at Spy, on the Meuse in Belgium, and at Castillo, in northern Spain. These rare exceptions to the open camps would tend to prove that the caverns were sought rather for protection from enemies and as rain shelters than as retreats from a bitter-cold climate.

In the valley of the Beune, a small tributary of the Vézère, in Dordogne, we find a true Acheulean station quite close to the river shore. This proves that in Acheulean times this valley was already deepened to the same degree as it is to-day. In the valley of the Somme the Acheulean culture stretches from the 'highest terrace' down below the present level of the river, which has made for itself a new high channel. The fact that two Acheulean stations are found on the upper Garonne, high above the present water-level, is of little significance, as at that time the water-level was also high.

In general the Acheulean flint workers preferred the open stations throughout all Acheulean times, and their camps are found on the open plateaus between the rivers or on the various 'terrace' levels, as on the higher, middle, and lower 'terraces' of the Somme at St. Acheul, or again close along the borders of the rivers and streams, as in the Dordogne region.

Even during the early Acheulean stage a dry climate had begun to prevail in certain parts of Germany. Near Metz is the 'older loess' station of Sablon, which was occupied in early Acheulean times, indicating a warm period of arid climate favorable to the transportation of the wind-blown 'loess'; doubtless, this fine dust at times filled the entire atmosphere and obscured the sun, as is the case to-day on the high steppes and deserts of eastern Asia.

An exception to the open-country life preferred by the Acheulean flint workers is found in the great grotto[AD] of Castillo, near Puente Viesgo, in the Province of Santander, northern Spain. The deposits which filled this grotto to a thickness of 45 feet from the floor to the roof were explored by Obermaier, who found them divided into thirteen layers, covering eleven periods of industry and presenting the most wonderful epitome of the prehistory of western Europe from Acheulean times to the Age of Bronze, in Spain (Fig. 79).

Fig. 78. Entrance (white cross) to the great grotto of Castillo in northern Spain. This grotto was frequented by the Men of the Old Stone Age from Acheulean to Azilian times, an archæologic sequence surpassed only by that of the open camps along the terraces of the Somme. Photograph from Obermaier.

As early as 1908, Breuil[(34)] discovered in the interior of the cave back of the grotto some quartzites worked into Acheulean types, proving that the cavern was entered in Acheulean times. Obermaier,[(35)] in the course of three years' work, has found that the floor of the grotto was possibly used as a flint-making station in Acheulean and, possibly, in Chellean times. The culture section which he has revealed here under the direction of the Institut de Paléontologie humaine can be compared only with that which Commont has found on the 'terraces' of the Somme at St. Acheul. The difference is that in the shelter of the Castillo grotto the climate is recorded only through the changing forms of animal life which are mingled around the fire-hearths and with the flints in the ascending levels.

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Fig. 79. Stratigraphic section showing the archæologic layers of the great grotto of Castillo. After Obermaier.

(13) Eneolithic Age. Small, triangular dagger in copper.

(12) Azilian. Flint industry—Age of the Stag.

(11) Upper Magdalenian. Artistic engravings on stag-horn.

(10) Lower Magdalenian. Flints and fine engravings on bone. Reindeer bâton.

(9) Archaic Solutrean. Feuilles de laurier, retouched on one side only.

(8, 7, 6) Upper Aurignacian in three layers. Remains of the reindeer and burins.

(5) Lower Aurignacian. Implements of stone and bone. Remains of an infant.

(4) Upper Mousterian. Rich in small implements and large tools of quartzite. Merck's rhinoceros very abundant.

(3) Typical Mousterian flints and quartzites. Merck's rhinoceros.

(2) Early Mousterian industry. Bones of cave-bear and Merck's rhinoceros.

(1) Acheulean flints.

The entrance to this grotto is on the side of a high hill overlooking the valley and might easily have been barricaded against attack. In early Acheulean times, when the flint workers were on the very floor of the grotto, the lower entrance of the cavern was still open, leading far into the heart of the mountain. The successive accumulations of débris, cave loam, fire-stones, bones, and innumerable flints, together with great blocks falling over the entrance of the cavern, reached a height of 45 feet, so that during the Upper Palæolithic only the upper entrance to the cavern was used by the artists of Magdalenian times. The subsequent Azilian and Eneolithic cultures were crowded under the very roof of the grotto at the sides.

This station, repaired to and then abandoned by tribe after tribe over a period estimated at present as not less than 50,000 years, is a monumental volume of prehistory, read and interpreted by the archæologist almost as clearly as if the whole record were in writing.

The first positive evidences of the use of fire are the layers of charred wood and bones frequently found in the industrial deposits of early Acheulean times.

Geographic and Climatic Changes

During the early period of development of the Acheulean industry, the geography, the climate, and the plant and animal life continued to present exactly the same aspect as during Chellean times. The mammals which we find in Thuringia in the lower travertines of the valley of the Ilm, at Taubach, near Weimar, and at Ehringsdorf, mingled with flints of early Acheulean industry, are of the same species as those found in the valley of the Somme mingled with the implements of the Chellean industry. The southern mammoth occurs at Taubach, and we find the straight-tusked elephant (E. antiquus), Merck's rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, the lion, and the hyæna representing the ancient African-Asiatic migrants, while the north European and Asiatic life is represented by the giant deer, roe-deer, wild goat, brown bear, wolf, badger, marten, otter, beaver, meadow hamster, and shrew. Grazing in the meadows were the aurochs, or wild ox, and the wisent, or bison. There was one variety of horse, probably of the forest type. Thus, the fauna as a whole contains six Asiatic types, or eight if we include the bison and wild cattle. Of the forest life there are nine species, including the wild boar (Sus scrofa ferus) not mentioned above.

The layers of travertine are indicative of very important geographical changes which were occurring in central and southern Europe in the middle period of Third Interglacial times. The travertines of the Ilm and of other parts of central Germany were due to wide-spread volcanic disturbances and eruptions, accompanied by the deposition of travertines, gypsums, and tufas. To this volcanic disturbance in central France is attributed the deposition of the tuf de La Celle-sous-Moret, near Paris, which records the warm temperate climate of early Acheulean times, as well as the somewhat cooler succeeding climate of late Acheulean times. This uplift in the centre of Germany and France apparently left the region between France and Great Britain undisturbed, because there is evidence of continued free migration of the tribes and of the Acheulean cultures; but there appears to have been a wide-spread subsidence of the coasts of southern Europe by which the islands of the Mediterranean became isolated from the mainland, and the migrating routes between Europe and Africa across the central Mediterranean region were cut off. Thus, Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia were separated from the mainland after having received a large contingent of mammalian life from the continents both to the north and to the south. While descendants of the African and Asiatic mammals, as well as of the northerly European forest and meadow types, survive on these islands, there is, thus far, no indication that they were invaded by hunters carrying the implements of the Acheulean culture, although these Acheulean flint workers ranged over all parts of the Italian peninsula (Fig. 80), as indicated by the discovery of nine stations.

Distribution of Acheulean Stations

The Acheulean stations are widely distributed along the Seine, Marne, and Somme in northern France, where flint is abundant and well adapted for fine workmanship. In central and southern France, where large flints are scarce, the Acheulean tribes were forced to use quartz, which fashions into clumsier forms. In the north the Acheulean workers continued on the old Chellean sites at Chelles, St. Acheul, Abbeville, and Helin. In late Acheulean times were established the new stations of Wolvercote on the Thames, near Oxford, and of Levallois on the Seine, near Paris, both famous for their 'Levallois' flint knives or blades. Near Levallois is the late Acheulean station of Villejuif, south of Paris, where the flints are buried in drifts of loess. In Normandy are the important stations of Frileuse, Bléville, and La Mare-aux-Clercs, which give the whole Acheulean development, both early and late. On a small tributary valley of the Vézère, in Dordogne, in late Acheulean times there was established the station of La Micoque, which gives its name to a number of miniature flints of distinctive form which were first found there and are known as the 'type of La Micoque.' Other stations, such as Combe-Capelle, also show examples of this 'miniature' Acheulean workmanship.

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Fig. 80. Distribution of the principal Acheulean industrial stations in western Europe.

Altogether, over thirty Acheulean stations have been found in France, two—Castillo and San Isidro—in northern and central Spain, the single station of Furninha in Portugal, over eight in Germany, three in Austria, and three in Russian Poland. Especially remarkable is the wide distribution of this culture all over Italy, where explorations by no means exhaustive have resulted in the discovery of at least nine or ten very prolific stations extending from Goccianello in the north to Capri in the south, but not into Sicily as far as is at present known. Thus all of western Europe, excepting the area covered by the Scandinavian ice-fields on the north and by the Alpine ice-fields on the south, was penetrated by the workers of Acheulean flints, probably members, for the most part, of the Neanderthal race.

Fig. 81. Late Acheulean station of La Micoque, in Dordogne, where miniature flints of distinctive late Acheulean form are found. Photograph by N. C. Nelson.

The general uniformity of Acheulean workmanship in all parts of western Europe is an indication that these Neanderthaloid tribes were more or less migratory and that the inventions of new and useful implements, such as the lance-pointed coup de poing of La Micoque and the flint-flakes of Levallois, which probably originated at an especial centre, or perhaps even in the inventive mind of a single workman, became widely distributed and highly distinctive of certain periods. The development of the implements in different regions is so uniform as to prove that the evolution of the early Palæolithic cultures extended all over western Europe and that the various types or stages were essentially contemporary.

Forms of Acheulean Implements

There is a close sequence between the coup de poing of the Chellean workers and its development into the finer and more symmetrical forms of the Acheulean. The latter, according to Obermaier,[(36)] is distinguished by the flaking of the entire surface, by the far more skilful fashioning, and by the really symmetrical almond form which is attained by retouching both the surface and the edges. This more refined retouch becomes the means of producing symmetrical instruments, with straight, convex, or concave cutting edges, as well as finer and lighter tools.

Fig. 82. Illustrating the method of 'flaking' flint implements by direct or indirect blow with a hammer-stone.

The early Acheulean industry belonged to a warm temperate climatic period and directly succeeds the Chellean, as shown in a most perfect manner in the quarries of the type station of St. Acheul on the Somme. In these earlier strata the prevailing forms of coup de poing are the 'pointed oval' and the 'lance-pointed,' the latter showing very simple chipping, a broad point, and a thick base. The oval coups de poing are smaller than the Chellean tools of the same kind, carefully fashioned on all sides and round the base, and very symmetrical; there are four distinct varieties of these: the almond type, oval almond-shaped, elongate oval, and subtriangular—the latter evolving into the finely modelled type of late Acheulean times. It may have been from these oval types that the disc form was finally evolved.

Fig. 83. Illustrating the method of 'chipping' flint implements by pressure with a bone or wooden implement, to produce the finer retouch of the surfaces and edges.

There is wide difference of opinion regarding the use of these thin ovaloid, triangular, and disc forms. Obermaier considers that they may have been clamped in wood, or furnished with a shaft, thus forming a spear head. Another suggestion is that they were used with a leather guard to protect the hand; and there is no doubt that in either case they would have served as effective weapons in chase or war. Another view is that of Commont,[(37)] who believes that not a single implement down to the very end of Acheulean times can be regarded as a weapon of war; this author maintains that many of these implements, including those dressed on both edges, were still in various ways grasped by the hand, although they do not present the firm, blunted grip of the ancient coups de poing.

We also note the development of a type of coup de poing, with cutting blade fashioned straight across the end: this primitive chisel or adze-shaped tool may have been used as a chopper, or as an axe, in fashioning wooden tools.

Fig. 84. Method of producing the long flake and the central core of flint by sharp blows at the indicated point of percussion. After R. R. Schmidt. In this case a series of flakes have been cut off the entire periphery of the core. The primitive use of the flake begins in the Pre-Chellean.

In the lance-pointed coup de poing of narrow, elongate shape, the flaking is very simple and the edges are continued into the short base, generally very thick, and often showing part of the original crust of the flint nodule, which is well adapted for the grip of the hand. This implement, which serves the original idea of the coup de poing, develops into the round-pointed and lance-pointed forms. There is no question that, whether in industrial use, in war, or in the chase, these implements were held only by the hand.

Industrial.
Coup de poing.
Ovaloid.
Double-edged.
Subtriangular.
Straight cutting blade across the end.
Disc-shaped.
Triangular—very thin and flat.
Hachette, chopper.
Grattoir, planing tool.
Racloir, scraper.
Perçoir, drill, borer.
Couteau, knife.
'Pointe' (Levallois blade).
'Pointe,' point—oval and chisel-shaped.
War and Chase.
Coup de poing.
Of pointed and lance-pointed types.
Pierre de jet, throwing stone.
Couteau, knife.
'Pointe,' dart and spear heads.

The small implements of the early Acheulean included a great variety of designs developing out of the far more primitive tools of Chellean and Pre-Chellean times, namely, the planing tool, the scraper, the borer, and the knife. Each of these types develops its own variety, often fashioned with great care, primitive blades, straight-edged cutting tools, with the back rounded or blunted for the grip of the fingers, scrapers with straight or curved edges, and perçoirs or borers. The scraping and planing tools, doubtless used for the dressing of hides, are now more carefully fashioned. We also observe the racloir and the scraper finished to a point which is the precursor of the graving tool of the Upper Palæolithic.[(38)]

Characteristic of this stage is the systematic use of large 'flakes' or outlying pieces of flint struck off from the core, which were used as scrapers or planes, or developed into small 'haches,' or coups de poing.

The core or centre of the flint nodule still constitutes the material out of which the large typical implements are fashioned; but the flake begins to lend itself to a great variety of forms, as witnessed in the evolution of the Levallois knives of the Upper Acheulean and the highly varied flake implements of the Mousterian and Aurignacian industries.

The 'pointe,' or point, is a special implement chipped out of a short, sharply convex flake, taking the form of a blunt dart or spear head, pointed at one end and oval or flat at the other.

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Fig. 85. Large, typical Acheulean implements, chiefly described as coups de poing, after de Mortillet. One-quarter actual size. One of these [(41)] shows at one end a part of the crust of the flint nodule left intact to afford a smooth, firm grip to the hand. Another [(43)] shows a part of the crust remaining along the left side, for the same purpose. Two of the coups de poing [(47 and 48)] show, the one a double-curved, the other a straight, lateral edge. Another coup de poing [(49)], from a submarine deposit near the shore at Havre, is partly covered by acorn shells.

Late Acheulean Climate

The Acheulean industry continued over a very long period, and by the time the late Acheulean culture stage had been reached a decided change of climate ensued in western Europe. Along the borders of the Danube and of the Rhine, in the valley of the Somme, and even in central and southern France there are indications of a cool dry continental climate, similar to that which is now found on the southern steppes of Russia, in the Ural Mountains, and in the vicinity of the Caspian Sea. Indications of this climate have been mentioned above, as seen in the plant life in the tuf de La Celle-sous-Moret, near Paris, where there are evidences that trees of a cool temperate climate took the place of the warm temperate forests of early Acheulean times.

That the climate should be considered as cool and arid rather than comparable with the bitter-cold climate of the 'upper loess' period, when a true steppe fauna entered Europe for the first time, is further indicated by the fact that late Acheulean implements are more frequently found in the centre and north of France than in the south.

To the far north, before the close of Acheulean times, the Scandinavian ice-fields had again begun to advance southward; the region bordering the glaciers was cold and moist and favored the migration from the tundra regions of the woolly mammoth and woolly rhinoceros to the locality still frequented by the Acheulean flint workers, for it is said[(39)] that Acheulean flints are occasionally associated even with the remains of these tundra mammals. At the very same time the Acheulean flint workers along the Somme may have enjoyed a more genial climate.

It is only through this interpretation of the various climatic and life zones in western Europe that we can explain the survival on the River Somme, or return to this river from the south, of a warm temperate fauna, hippopotami, rhinoceroses, and elephants, in the Mousterian period, which is even subsequent to the close of Acheulean times.

The valleys of the two great river-systems of southwestern France, the Dordogne draining the central plateau, and the Garonne draining the eastern Pyrenees, were now sought by the Acheulean flint workers. The valley of the Vézère, a northern tributary of the Dordogne, cuts through a broad plateau of limestone in which the streams have hollowed out deep beds with vertical sides. Here the landscape of late Acheulean times bore the same general aspect as at present.[(40)] Evidences of a change of climate are observed even in the sheltered valleys where the flint workers were seeking the warmer and sunnier river-slopes. The river channels were the same as they are to-day, and the quarries of the early Acheulean flint workers are found quite close to the streams; but as the period progressed they moved up nearer to the cliffs and shelters. Here, too, there is evidence that a dry continental climate prevailed. On the upper levels of the old plateaus of Dordogne we still find the Quercus ilex occurring quite frequently, a tree which belongs to relatively dry regions and which in southern Russia is reckoned with the flora of the steppes. Yet the greater aridity toward the close of the Acheulean stage was probably not such as to prevent the growth of forests along the borders of the streams. Thus, in the mammalian life of the period there was, perhaps, a division between the more hardy forms which frequented the dry plateaus above and the forest-loving and less hardy forms which frequented the river-valleys.

Fig. 86. "Valleys of the two great river-systems of southwestern France, the Dordogne draining the central plateau and the Garonne draining the eastern Pyrenees." After Harlé.

The most convincing proof of an arid climate in the north of France with prevailing high westerly winds is found in the layers of 'loess' which occur on the 'terraces' of the Somme, the Seine, the Rhine, and the Danube. These 'lower loess' layers of Third Interglacial times frequently contain implements of the late Acheulean industry. Thus, at Villejuif, south of Paris, late Acheulean implements are found embedded in drifts of 'loess.' In the valley of the Somme, flints of the middle Acheulean stage are also found in the loess ancien and 'river-drift.' In the tuf de La Celle-sous-Moret the layer of 'loess' immediately overlies the tufa layer containing late Acheulean implements and proofs of a cooler climate.

Fig. 87. "The valley of the Vézère, a northern tributary of the Dordogne, cuts through a broad plateau of limestone in which the streams have hollowed out deep beds with vertical sides," favorable to the formation of caverns, grottos, and shelters. "Here the landscape of late Acheulean times bore the same general aspect as at present." Photograph by N. C. Nelson.

Among the most famous of the 'loess' stations of late Acheulean times is that of Achenheim on the upper Rhine, west of Strasburg. Here the 'older loess' contains a typical Acheulean culture.

With this prolonged epoch of cooler temperature the hippopotamus and the southern mammoth retreated to the warmer portions of southern Europe, and their remains are no longer found associated with the late Acheulean flints. The more hardy straight-tusked elephant and Merck's rhinoceros still continued in the north, apparently well adapted to sustain a very considerable fall in temperature.

Forms of Late Acheulean Implements

The coups de poing of the late Acheulean exhibit a great advance upon the Chellean, being fashioned into dagger or lance forms, with all the edges carefully chipped. The ovaloid implements of late Acheulean times are often worked into fine and sharp blades, which may have been used like butcher-knives for dismembering the carcasses of game and for cutting up the pelts, while the fine almond and disc shapes may have been used as scrapers to cut off the tissues of the inner surfaces of the hides, which were finally dressed by the grattoir, or flint planing tool. In brief, the coup de poing reaches its acme of development in late Acheulean times, both in the fineness of flaking and retouching and in its symmetry of form. The use of large flakes of flint and the retouching both of the borders and of the extremities of these flakes shows a constantly improving technique. It is in the thin, flat, triangular blades and in the lance-pointed forms that the coup de poing reaches its culmination; but we still observe the development of the oval or almond-shaped forms and of the flattened discs. The implements of this time reach their greatest perfection in the north of France, where flint is so abundant.

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Fig. 88. Varied shapes of the Acheulean flints described as coups de poing, including some 'miniature' forms, after de Mortillet. The oval, the pointed, the almond, the triangular, the disc-shaped. The late Acheulean is distinguished by an advance in all the finer and smaller implements, tools, and weapons; yet the finest work of Acheulean times appears thick and clumsy when contrasted with the best Solutrean work of the Upper Palæolithic. One-quarter actual size.

The late Acheulean is further distinguished by an advance in all the finer and smaller implements and tools. The knives are now very fine and perfect, although they retain the broad, thick form of the original flint fragment and seldom attain the symmetrical shape which characterizes the blades of the Upper Palæolithic.[(41)] The 'points' are also of finer technique, with their edges converging from a broad base to a well-formed point. It is generally assumed that these were held in the bare hand, but it is quite as probable that they were attached to wooden shafts and used as dart or spear heads. By far the most numerous as well as the most varied of the smaller tools were the racloirs, or scrapers, which were developed, doubtless, by the increasing use of skins for clothing as a protection against the somewhat more rigorous climate of late Acheulean times. Probably the women of the tribe were employed in dressing hides by means of these scrapers, which were either flat and broad with crescent-shaped edges, flat and narrow, or double-edged with rounded ends. The development of other fine tools—borers, small discs, triangular and ovaloid shapes, miniature coups de poing, and many varied forms besides—is best witnessed in the station of La Micoque, close to the junction of the Vézère with the Dordogne. These miniature implements may well have been used in the final dressing of skins for clothing, in the chase of smaller kinds of game, or at feasts for splitting marrow-bones.

Fig. 89. The chef-d'œuvre of the Acheulean industry is the Levallois flake, which may have evolved from the large flakes of Chellean times. After Worthington Smith.

No bone implements whatever have been found even with these late Acheulean flints, but it is important to observe that the majority of these stations are open and exposed to the weather and that bone implements would not be preserved here as they would in the sheltered grottos and caverns to which the flint workers repaired in the Mousterian and succeeding times.

As regards the finish of these flint implements, it is important to note that it is fine only by comparison with the crude work of the early Acheulean or the still coarser types of Chellean times and that the very finest work of Acheulean times appears thick and clumsy when contrasted with the finer work of the Upper Palæolithic.

The chef-d'œuvre of the late Acheulean industry is the Levallois flake, first found at Levallois-Perret, near Paris, which de Mortillet believed to be fashioned out of a divided coup de poing with a flat under-side, but which may have been evolved from the very large primitive flakes of Pre-Chellean date. These flakes date back earlier than the Chellean coup de poing but continued in use after its invention and may have been greatly perfected into the Levallois type. This type of 'couteau' is a large, wide, thin flake of fairly symmetrical shape, with a flat back formed by the original smooth surface of the flake. These implements are pointed, oval, or sharply rectangular in form and present the most characteristic tool of the closing stage of the Acheulean industry.

It is most interesting at this point to observe the two modes of evolution which seem to pervade all nature: first, the gradual perfection and modification in size and proportion of a certain older form; second, the sudden change or mutation into a new form, which in turn enters the stage of gradual improvement.

The late Acheulean is seen to present the climax of a gradual and unbroken development from the early Chellean industries and ideas; and to our mind this is strongly suggestive of a corresponding evolution of manual skill and mental development in the workmen themselves, who may have been partly of Pre-Neanderthaloid race.

The next industrial stage, namely, the Mousterian, which certainly presents the closing workmanship of the Neanderthal race, shows a marked retrogression of technique in contrast to the steady progression which we have observed up to this time. We have, in fact, witnessed a number of successive stages of progression, which are to be followed in the Mousterian by a stage of retrogression. Such a retrogression in industrial development may for certain known or unknown reasons occur in the same race. It is a noteworthy parallel that in the Upper Palæolithic, where the Solutrean culture represents the climax and perfection of flint working, the succeeding Magdalenian shows marked retrogression in the technique of flint retouch.

The Krapina Neanderthaloids

In northern Croatia, near the small town of Krapina, in the valley of the Krapinica River, is the now famous cavern of Krapina, where in 1899 was made the fourth discovery of the remains of men of the Neanderthaloid race in western Europe, twelve years after the discovery of the men of Spy, in Belgium, and forty-three years after the discovery of the man of Neanderthal. Even now opinion is divided as to the age of the human remains found in this cavern. The discoverer, Professor Gorjanovič-Kramberger of Agram considered that the stone implements and chips were of Mousterian age, and Breuil still refers them to the early, or so-called warm, Mousterian period; this opinion is shared by Déchelette. Schmidt, however, regards Krapina as a true Acheulean station, lacking in some of the typical implements, and of the same age as the 'loess' station of Ehringsdorf.

Fig. 90. The grotto of Krapina, overlooking the valley of the Krapinica River, near Krapina, Croatia, in Austria-Hungary. After Kraemer.

The mammals found in the cavern certainly belong to the very late Acheulean period and include Merck's rhinoceros, the cave-bear, the urus, a species of horse, the giant deer (Megaceros), the beaver, and the marmot (Arctomys marmotta).

The cavern was originally washed out by the river, but now it is 82 feet above the present water-level. When found it was completely filled with sand and gravel deposits, weathered fragments from the roof and walls, and loose stones and boulders.[(42)] Enclosed in this mass, in separate strata which are perfectly distinguishable, there lay, variously distributed through the different layers, thousands of animal bones, mingled with hundreds of human bones, and hundreds of stone implements and chips.

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Fig. 91. Cross-section of the valley traversed by the Krapinica River showing the location of the grotto known as the Krapina recess on the bank to the left. Drawn by C. A. Reeds.

During the years 1899-1905 Gorjanovič-Kramberger made a thorough exploration of the contents of this cavern, and published a complete account of his researches in 1906.[(43)] There were about three hundred pieces of human bones, among them many small fragments, also many sizable pieces of skull and several entire limb bones perfectly preserved. The bones are of a strongly characterized type, and the lower jaws, face bones, bones of the thigh and arm, the teeth, and the bones of many children establish the Krapina race as belonging unquestionably in the same group with that of Neanderthal and of Spy.

Fig. 92. Detail showing the interior contents of the Krapina grotto before its excavation in the years 1899 to 1905. After Gorjanovič-Kramberger.

The skull of the Krapina man (Fig. 93) is somewhat broader or more brachycephalic than that of any other members of the Neanderthal race. In general, the race is somewhat dwarfed, of broader head form and with less prominent supraorbital processes. The species is unquestionably Homo neanderthalensis, of which the Krapina men constitute a local race. Schwalbe and Boule observe that the greater breadth of the Krapina skull is partly due to the manner in which the bones have been put together,[(44)] and they do not consider that the Krapina man represents a different subrace (Homo neanderthalensis krapinensis) as held by the discoverer. The cephalic index of one Krapina skull is recorded as 83.7 per cent (?) as compared with 73.9 per cent, the cephalic index of the true H. neanderthalensis, a difference which, as above noted, may be partly due to the restoration. The bones are in such a fragmentary condition that it is impossible to form a proper estimate of the brain capacity in either the males or females of this race; nor is it possible to estimate the stature. The space between the eyes is the same as in the Neanderthal race; the angle of the retreat of the forehead (52°) is nearly the same as in the Gibraltar female Neanderthal skull (50°), this high forehead being due to the lesser development of the supraorbital ridges. That the brain was of a low, flat-headed Neanderthal type is shown by the close similarity of the index of the height of skull (42.2) to that of one of the men of Spy (44.3), as compared with the lowest index among the existing races of men (48.9); yet the Krapina man presents a considerable advance over Pithecanthropus, in which the index of the height of skull is only 34.2.

Fig. 93. Profile view, right side, of one of the skulls from Krapina. This skull is much broader than that of the typical Neanderthaloid. After Gorjanovič-Kramberger. One-quarter life size.

The jaw is more slender than that of the Heidelberg man but is still thick and massive; the chin is receding, a characteristic of all the Neanderthal races.

The broken condition of all the human bones in this cavern, and the abundant indications of fire, have led to the charge that the Neanderthals of Krapina were cannibals, and that these mingled remains are the bones of animals and men collected here during cannibalistic feasts. Against this supposition Breuil observes that none of the human bones are split lengthwise, as is the usual practice when extracting the marrow, but they are broken crosswise. This is the only evidence of such practice that has been found during all Palæolithic times, and we should hesitate to accept it unless corroborated by other localities.

The various layers indicate that the cavern was successively occupied by man; in or near the hearths are found stone implements, broken and incinerated bones, and pieces of charcoal, which may indicate that this grotto was visited only at intervals, perhaps during the colder seasons of the year.

(1) Harlé, 1910.1.

(2) d'Ault du Mesnil, 1896.1, pp. 284-296.

(3) Obermaier, 1912.1, p. 146.

(4) Schmidt, 1912.1, pp. 118-126.

(5) Boule, 1888.1.

(6) Obermaier, 1912.1, pp. 327-329.

(7) Haug, 1907.1, vol. II, pp. 327-329.

(8) Geikie, 1914.1, p. 262.

(9) Morlot, 1854.1.

(10) Commont, 1906.1.

(11) Geikie, 1914.1, pp. 107-111.

(12) d'Ault du Mesnil, op. cit.

(13) Schmidt, 1912.1, pp. 124, 125.

(14) Obermaier, 1912.1, p. 118.

(15) Dawson, 1913.1; 1913.2; 1913.3.

(16) Kennard, 1913.1.

(17) Reid, 1913.1.

(18) Dawson, 1913.1, p. 123; 1914.1, pp. 82-86.

(19) Keith, A., 1913.1; 1913.2; 1913.3.

(20) Smith, G. E., 1913.1; 1913.2; 1913.3; 1913.4.

(21) Boule, 1913.1, pp. 245, 246.

(22) Schwalbe, 1914.1, p. 603.

(23) Osborn, 1910.1, pp. 404-409.

(24) Ewart, 1904.1; 1907.1; 1909.1.

(25) Obermaier, 1912.1, p. 120.

(26) de Mortillet, 1869.1.

(27) Obermaier, op. cit., p. 116.

(28) Lyell, 1863.1, p. 164.

(29) Geikie, 1914.1, pp. 119, 263, 264.

(30) Schmidt, 1912.1, pp. 125, 126.

(31) Geikie, op. cit., p. 228.

(32) Avebury, 1913.1, p. 342, Fig. 236.

(33) Schmidt, op. cit., pp. 17-105.

(34) Breuil, 1912.5, p. 14.

(35) Obermaier, 1912.1, p. 164.

(36) Obermaier, op. cit., pp. 124, 125, 127, 130.

(37) Commont, 1908.1.

(38) Déchelette, 1908.1, vol. I, pp. 80-90.

(39) Geikie, 1914.1, p. 255.

(40) Hilzheimer, 1913.1, p. 145.

(41) Obermaier, 1912.1, p. 127.

(42) Fischer, 1913.1.

(43) Gorjanovič-Kramberger, 1901.1; 1903.1; 1906.1.

(44) Schwalbe, 1914.1, p. 597.

CHAPTER III

CLOSE OF THE THIRD INTERGLACIAL, TEMPERATE, AND ARID CLIMATE, ACHEULEAN INDUSTRY—ADVENT OF THE FOURTH GLACIATION, PROFOUND CHANGES IN ANIMAL AND PLANT LIFE—THE ARCTIC TUNDRA PERIOD OF MAMMALIAN AND PLANT LIFE—CHARACTERS OF THE NEANDERTHAL RACE, OF THEIR MOUSTERIAN FLINT INDUSTRY—SUPPOSED CAUSES OF EXTINCTION OR DISPERSAL

We now reach a prolonged and important stage in the prehistory of Europe, namely, the period of the fourth glaciation, of the final development of the Neanderthal race of man, of the Mousterian industry, of the beginnings of cave life, of the chase of the reindeer, and its use for food and clothing.

In all Europe the Acheulean industry appears to have come to a close during a period of arid climate, warm in some parts of western Europe and cool or even cold in others. The seasonal variations may well have been extreme, as on the steppes of southern Russia, where exceedingly hot summers may be followed by intensely cold winters, with high winds and snow-storms destructive of life.

It is this seasonal alternation, as well as the recurrence, either seasonal or secular, of milder climate, which explains the survival or return of the Asiatic fauna even after the close of the Acheulean industry and when the Mousterian industry was well advanced.

From deposits found at Grimaldi, in the Grotte des Enfants and in the Grotte du Prince, it has long been said that men of early Mousterian times lived contemporary with the hippopotamus, the straight-tusked elephant, and Merck's rhinoceros in the genial climate of the Mediterranean Riviera. More recently the same animals have been found as far north as the Somme valley in the 'river-drifts' of Montières-les-Amiens.[(1)] Here, again, we find remains of the hippopotamus, the straight-tusked elephant, and its companion, Merck's rhinoceros, in Mousterian deposits, a surprising discovery, because it had always been supposed that a cold climatic period had set in all over western Europe even before the close of the Acheulean culture. But there is also evidence of a temperate climate still prevailing in the Thames valley in the period of the Mousterian 'floors.'[(2)] Again, along the Vézère valley, Dordogne, we find that at the station of La Micoque, where the industry marks the transition between late Acheulean and early Mousterian times, Merck's rhinoceros is found in the lowest layers associated with remains of the moose (Alces).

There is evidence that Merck's rhinoceros and the straight-tusked elephant lingered in western Europe during the whole period of the early development of the Mousterian industry. As observed above, these animals were hardier than the southern mammoth, which was the first of the Asiatic mammals to disappear, soon to be followed by its companion, the hippopotamus. Even after the advent of the closely associated tundra pair, the woolly mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros, Merck's rhinoceros persists, as, for example, in the deposits of Rixdorf, near Berlin, where this ancient type occurs in the same deposits with the woolly mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the reindeer, and the musk-ox, as well as with the forest forms, the moose, stag, wolf, and forest horse. The extreme northern latitude of this deposit explains the absence of the straight-tusked elephant, which may at the time have been living farther to the south. The same mingling of south and north Asiatic mammals is found at Steinheim, in the valley of the Murr, some degrees to the west and south of Rixdorf, not far from Göttingen, where we find Merck's rhinoceros[(3)] and the straight-tusked elephant in association with the woolly mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the giant deer, and the reindeer.

Thus the Neanderthal races were entering the Mousterian stage of culture during the close of the Third Interglacial Stage and during the early period of the advance of the ice-fields from the great centres in Scandinavia and the Alps. As these ice-fields slowly approached each other from the north and from the south a very great period of time must have elapsed during which all the south Asiatic mammals abandoned western Europe or became extinct, with the exception of the lions and hyænas, which became well fitted to the very severe climate that prevailed over Europe during the fourth glaciation, and even during the long Postglacial Stage which ensued. The large carnivora readily become thoroughly adapted to cold climates, as they subsist on animal life wherever it may be found; tigers of the same stock as those of India have been found as far north as the river Lena, in latitude 52° 25', where the climate is colder than that of Petrograd or of Stockholm, while the lion throve in the cold atmosphere of the upper Atlas range. Thus the cave-lion (Felis leo spelæa) and the cave-hyæna (H. crocuta spelæa) doubtless evolved an undercoating of fur as well as an overcoating of long hair, like the tundra mammals. In size the lion of this period in France often equalled and sometimes surpassed its existing relatives, the African and west Asiatic lion; it frequently figures in the art of the Upper Palæolithic artists and survived in western Europe to the very close of Upper Palæolithic times.

The Fourth Glaciation

Penck[(4)] has estimated that the first maximum of the fourth glaciation in the Alps was reached 40,000 years ago, and that after the recession period the second maximum ended not less than 20,000 years ago. This would extend the Mousterian industry over a very long period of time, for there can be no doubt that the Mousterian culture was practically contemporaneous with the fourth glaciation, even if a briefer period of time should be allotted to this great natural event.

The fourth glaciation, like the first, is believed to have been contemporaneous in Europe and North America,[(5)] a fact which is of especial importance to American anthropologists in connection with the question of the date of arrival of primitive man in America. In both countries the glaciation reached an early maximum, which was followed by a period of recession of the ice-fields, a time during which a somewhat more temperate climate prevailed, but this in turn gave way to a second advance of as great severity as the first.[AE]

[Larger Image]

Fig. 94. Europe during the extension of the ice-fields and glaciers of the Fourth Glacial Stage. This is also supposed to have been a period of land depression and of extension of the inland seas of southern Europe. Britain was probably connected with France. The ice-covered areas in western Europe and Britain were far more limited than during the Third Glacial Stage, yet the climate appears to have been more severe than at any previous period. For the snow-level compare Fig. 13. Drawn by C. A. Reeds after Geikie and De Geer.

In the north, Scandinavia and Finland were again enshrouded in ice, and a great mer de glace occupied the basin of the Baltic Sea, sending its terminal moraines into Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein and over the northern provinces of Germany, but this great ice-field did not again become confluent with that of Great Britain.[(7)] At the commencement of the fourth glaciation large glaciers descended over the Scottish mountain valleys and filled many of them even to the sea; the coast subsided at least 130 feet in this region. In southern Britain along the valley of the Thames there spread an arctic flora, with the polar willow (Salix polaris) and the dwarf birch (Betula glandulosa); an arctic plant bed has also been discovered in the valley of the Lea. Thus the tundra climate extended from the Scottish lowlands to the south of England, the land being bleak and almost treeless.[(8)] This, we believe, was also the period of the arctic flora at Hoxne, Suffolk, and of the arctic plant bed in the valley of the Thames. At this time the valley was frequented by the reindeer, the woolly rhinoceros, and the mammoth, whose remains are entombed in the low-level alluvia swept down from the sides of the valley, so that the remains of this arctic fauna may in places actually overlie those of the more deeply buried and far more ancient warm Asiatic fauna of Chellean times. Like the Somme, the Thames[(9)] was then from 10 to 25 feet below its present level, the bottom having since silted up with alluvial soil.