Chapter XXIII: Introduction: Industrial and Artistic Development (3)

From the early to the middle Magdalenian period animal sculpture in bone, horn, and ivory was followed as decorative art in a bold and highly naturalistic manner. Adaptation of the animal figure to the surface and to the material employed is nowhere shown in a more remarkable way than in the bâtons, the dart-throwers, and the poniards. Of all the work of the Upper Palæolithic, these decorative heads and bodies are, perhaps, the most highly artistic creations in the modern sense. The famous horse found in the late Magdalenian levels of Mas d'Azil (Fig. 235) and the small horses from the grotto of Espelugues, of the middle Magdalenian, are full of movement and life and show such certainty and breadth of treatment that they must be regarded as the masterpieces of Upper Palæolithic glyptic art. The ibex carved on the dart-thrower from the grotto of Mas d'Azil (Fig. 178) indicates observation and a striking power of expression; while all the details are noted, the treatment is very broad.

The continuation of animal sculpture in the round is seen in the well-known horse statuette from the grotto of Lourdes; the partly decorative striping is a step in the direction of conventional treatment. The sculptured reindeer discovered by Bégouen in the grotto of Enlène is treated in a somewhat similar style.

Small human figurines again appear in the form of statuettes in bone or ivory, representing the renaissance of the spirit of human sculpture. Some of this work is apparently in search of beauty and with altogether different motives from the repellent feminine statuettes of middle and late Aurignacian times, for the subjects are slender and the limbs are modelled with relative skill. As in the earlier works, there is a partial failure to portray the features, which is in striking contrast to the lifelike treatment of animal heads. Very few examples of this work have been found, and most of them have been broken. To this period belong the Venus statuette of Laugerie Basse and the head of a girl carved in ivory found at Brassempouy (Fig. 237) with the features fairly suggested and an elaborate head-dress.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION OF THE MAGDALENIAN CULTURE

In Magdalenian times the Crô-Magnon race undoubtedly reached its highest development and its widest geographic distribution, but it would be a mistake to infer that the boundaries of the Magdalenian culture also mark the extreme migration points of this nomadic people, because the industries and inventions may well have spread far beyond the areas actually inhabited by the race itself.

Absence of Magdalenian influence around the northerly coasts of the Mediterranean is certainly one of the most surprising facts. Breuil has suggested that Italy remained in an Aurignacian stage of development throughout Magdalenian times and indicates that there is much evidence that Magdalenian culture never penetrated into this peninsula, for in Italy the Aurignacian industrial stage is succeeded by traces of the Azilian. This geographic gap, however, may be filled at any time by a fresh discovery. In Spain, also, the Magdalenian culture is known only in the Cantabrian Mountains, but never farther south, one of the earliest sites found in this region being the grotto of Peña la Miel, visited by Lartet in 1865, and one of the most famous the cavern of Altamira, discovered by Sautuola in 1875; to the northeast is the station of Banyolas. So far the eastern provinces of Spain have not yielded any implements of engraved or sculptured bone.

In contrast to this failure to reach southward, the Magdalenian culture is widely extended through France, Belgium, England, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and as far east as Russia. It would appear either that the men of Magdalenian times wandered far and wide or that there was an extensive system of barter, because the discovery of shells brought for personal adornment from the Mediterranean seashores to various Magdalenian sites in France and in central Europe seems to indicate a wide-spread intercourse among these nomadic hunters and a system of trade reaching from the coasts of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic to the valley of the Neckar in Germany and along the Danube in Lower Austria. Another proof of this intercourse is the wide distribution not only of similar forms of implements but of very similar decorations; as an instance, Breuil notes the likeness of schematic engravings on reindeer horn in the two primitive Magdalenian layers of Placard, Charente, to those found in the Polish cavern of Mas̆zycka, near Ojcow, and to others in the corresponding layers of Castillo, near Santander, of Solutré on the Saône, and of various sites in Dordogne. A very distinctive geometric decoration on bone is that of broken zigzag lines with little intercalated transverse lines, which we notice at Altamira, in northern Spain, and which also occurs here and there in Dordogne and in Charente and extends to the grottos of d'Arlay in the Jura. Another style of ornament, with deep pectinate and punctuate lines, found in the very ancient Magdalenian of Placard, also occurs in the most ancient layers of Kesslerloch, Switzerland. Spiral ornaments like those on the bone weapons of Dordogne, of Arudy, and of Lourdes are found at Hornos de la Peña, in the Cantabrian Mountains. The spread of analogous decoration is still more striking when we find it occurring in the details of sculpture or in a certain type of dart-thrower (_propulseur_), which extended from the Pyrenees eastward to the Lake of Constance. Inventions like that of the harpoon and fashions like those of the decorative _motifs_ were carried from point to point.

This influence does not lead to identity. Some of the phases of art and of decoration are confined to certain localities; for example, the engravings of deer on the bone shoulder-blades in the caverns near Santander, Spain, are not duplicated in France; also there are numerous local styles witnessed in the forms and decorations of the javelin, the lance, and the harpoon; these variations, however, do not conceal the element of community of culture and of similar fluctuations of industry and art between widely distant stations.

Many Magdalenian stations were crowded around the sheltered cliffs of Dordogne (Fig. 238). Besides these, we observe the Magdalenian sites of Champs, Ressaulier, and the grotto of Combo-Negro in Corrèze; south of Dordogne and Corrèze are other stations along the Garonne and the Adour. Some of the finest examples of Magdalenian art have come from Bruniquel, on the Aveyron, near the boundary between Tarn-et-Garonne and Tarn, where no less than four important sites have been excavated.

The culture map of France in Magdalenian times is covered from north to south with these ancient camp sites, either clustered along the river borders, where erosion has created shelters, or in the great outcrops of limestone along the northern slopes of the Pyrenees, where the exposure of the limestone has led to the formation of grottos and caverns, or on the plateaus where game abounded or flint could be found for the rapidly declining flint industry. Near the Gulf of Lyons are the stations of Bise, Tournal, Narbonne, and Crouzade; extending westward toward the headwaters of the Ariège are La Vache, Massat, and the great tunnel station of Mas d'Azil, formed by the River Arize; here the Magdalenian levels discovered by Piette have yielded some of the most notable Magdalenian works of art, including animal statuettes, bas-reliefs, and engravings with incised contours.

Farther west, on the headwaters of the Garonne, is Gourdan, where Piette began his remarkable excavations in 1871 and discovered two of the ancient Magdalenian phases of sculpture; then comes the more westerly group of Aurensan, Lorthet, and Lourdes, the latter a grotto which has yielded one of the finest examples of the horse sculptured in ivory, and which has since become famous as the site of a miracle and of modern pilgrimage. Between the Garonne and the Bay of Biscay lie the stations of Duruthy and the Grotte du Pape of Brassempouy, the latter occupied in Magdalenian times, but best known as a centre of late Aurignacian sculpture of statuettes.

To the northeast, in the very heart of the mountainous region of Auvergne, is the station of Neschers, where a flow of lava from Mount Tartaret descended over the slopes of Mont-Doré and covered a Mousterian industrial deposit with its mammoth fauna and then, after a lapse of time, became the site of a Magdalenian industrial camp, so that Boule has been able to determine the geologic age of the most recent volcanic eruptions in France, those of the Monts d'Auvergne, as having occurred between the periods of Mousterian and Magdalenian industry.

In view of the frequent occurrence of Aurignacian and Solutrean camps as well as of Neolithic stations in southeastern France, we are surprised at the extreme rarity there of Magdalenian flint implements. However, Capitan has recognized a Magdalenian station at Solutré, near the headwaters of the Saône, and not far from this site is the station of Goulaine, which has yielded an enormous flint scraper or anvil, the largest Upper Palæolithic implement ever found; it is carefully chipped around the entire curved edge and weighs over 4-1/4 pounds. To the north of the Dordogne is the celebrated grotto of Placard, in Charente, where the dawn of the Magdalenian industry has been discovered, and again directly north of this is the grotto of Chaffaud, at Savigné, where the first engraved bone of the 'Reindeer Age' was discovered in 1834; not far from this is the shelter of Garenne, near St. Marcel (Indre), which has afforded a fine figure of a galloping reindeer.

These geographic and artistic records are of intense interest as carrying the Périgord or Dordogne culture northward. Somewhat to the east, on the headwaters of the Cure, a tributary of the Yonne, there is an important group including over sixty open shelters formed in the Jurassic limestone, in which characteristic Magdalenian bone implements have been found. Of these the most famous are the Grotte des Fées, and the Grotte du Trilobite, both of which were first entered by the Neanderthals in Mousterian times and were again sought by the Crô-Magnons in Magdalenian times. Passing still farther north, the Crô-Magnons visited the borders of the Somme and sought the historic flint station of St. Acheul, which had been frequented by races of men for thousands of years previous, back to Pre-Chellean times.

To the northeast are the stations of Belgium, chiefly made known through the labors of Dupont, distributed along the valleys of the Lesse and of the Meuse and yielding characteristic Magdalenian flints as well as a number of engravings on bone. We may be sure that this region was under Crô-Magnon rule and that their control extended over into Britain, where, it will be recalled, a Crô-Magnon skeleton was found at Paviland, in western Wales. Here, again, in Magdalenian times the Crô-Magnon race was probably wide-spread over southern Britain. At Bacon's Hole, near Swansea, Wales, there is a wall decoration consisting of ten red bands, which, according to Breuil and Sollas, may possibly be of Palæolithic age. More definite is the Magdalenian industry observed at the Cresswell Crags, in Derbyshire; while near Torquay, Devonshire, is the famous station of Kent's Hole, discovered in 1824, in which a bone needle has been found and several harpoons with double rows of barbs belonging to the late Magdalenian industry.

In Germany, whereas only three Solutrean stations have been discovered,(29) there are no less than fourteen Magdalenian stations to attest the wide spread of that culture. Thus the favorite grotto of Sirgenstein, near the centre of the Magdalenian stations on the upper waters of the Danube, although abandoned in Solutrean times, was again entered by man during the early Magdalenian culture stage. Coincident with the return of man to this great grotto was the arrival of the banded lemming (_Myodes torquatus_), the herald of the cold tundra wave of life in the far north. At the very same time man with the banded lemming arrived at Schweizersbild, near the Lake of Constance; at a slightly earlier period, with the dawn of Magdalenian culture, man entered the sister station of Kesslerloch. It certainly appears that a cold moist climate accompanying the Bühl advance influenced all the Crô-Magnon peoples of this region just north of the Alpine glaciers and compelled them to seek the grottos and shelters. There are, however, some open stations in this general region, for example, at Schussenried, Württemberg; the Magdalenian culture layer is not found in a grotto, but lies under a deposit of peat mingled with the remains of the reindeer, horse, brown bear, and wolf. Again, among the best-known sites along the middle Rhine is the open-air station of Andernach. Demonstrating the eastward distribution of the art of engraving on ivory and bone is the presence in Andernach and in the grotto of Wildscheuer, near Steeten, on the Lahn, of engravings of this character. Thus far these are the only German stations in which such engravings have been found.

Of especial interest also is the open Magdalenian 'loess' station of Munzingen, on the upper Rhine, because it proves that the highest layers of the 'upper loess,' corresponding with the dry or steppe period of climate, were contemporaneous with the advanced or late Magdalenian industry, also because this final 'upper loess' stage about corresponds with the period when the last of the arctic tundra mammals began to abandon central Europe. It was at this critical geologic time that the late Magdalenian culture began to draw to a close. Kesslerloch, Switzerland, has yielded a considerable number of engravings on bone, including one of the finest examples of a browsing reindeer (Fig. 241), and Schweizersbild also has yielded a considerable number of rather crude engravings.

Frequented in Magdalenian times was that part of the Swabian Jura lying between the headwaters of the Neckar and of the Danube; along the course of the Danube, from Propstfels, near Beuron, in the southwest, to Ofnet, in the northeast, extend the other stations of Höhlefels bei Hütten, Schmiechenfels, and Bocksteinhöhle.

West of the Danube the industry was carried into the present region of Bavaria, as indicated by the recent discovery of Kastlhäng.(30) Here, beginning with the early Magdalenian (_Gourdanien inférieur_ of the French school) and extending to the middle or high Magdalenian (_Gourdanien supérieur_), we find a complete series of Magdalenian stations; the middle Magdalenian layer is of exactly the same type as that found in the Abri Mège of Dordogne and in the lower levels of the Grotte de la Mairie; the same culture stage is again observed in southern Germany in the stations of Schussenquelle and of Höhlefels, and it extends eastward into Austria in the station of Gudenushöhle as well as into several Moravian stations, for example, that of Kostelík.

These facts are of extraordinary interest, for they show that the civilization, such as it was, of the Upper Palæolithic was very widely extended. This marks an important social characteristic, namely, the readiness and willingness to take advantage of every step in human progress, wherever it may have originated. At this point, therefore, it is interesting to compare the Magdalenian industry of Germany with that of France.(31) Germany shows the same technical and stylistic tendencies and the same evolutionary direction as France. The mammalian life was, of course, the same in both countries, for in each region the giant types of mammals still survived, and the banded lemming of the arctic appears in the sheltered valleys of the Dordogne as well as in Belgium and in Germany. The vicissitudes of climate were undoubtedly the same; we observe the alternation of cold moist climate in the early Magdalenian along the upper Danube as well as in the early Magdalenian of the type station of La Madeleine, Dordogne. Again, we observe the transition into the dry cold climate in the steppe character of the fauna both along the upper Rhine, at Munzingen, and also beneath the shelter station of La Madeleine, as recorded by Peyrony.

More vital still for this community of industrial culture was the community of race, for at Obercassel we find the same Crô-Magnon type as that discovered beneath the sheltering cliffs of Dordogne. It appears probable that the inventions of the central region of Dordogne travelled eastward when we note the fact that none of the prototypes of early forms of the harpoon which were common in southern France occur in any of the stations of central Europe, but the single-rowed harpoon is characteristic of the middle Magdalenian all over Germany. Other primitive Magdalenian bone implements, such as the bone spear point with the cleft base, the bâtons, and the needles, are also of rare occurrence in the German stations. In late Magdalenian times, however, a complete community of culture is established, for the industry of both countries in flint and bone appears to be very similar: flint microliths appear in increasing number and variety; beside the small flint flakes with blunted backs, numerous feather-shaped flakes of Pre-Tardenoisian type are found, as well as the types of graving flints. Some specialties of French Magdalenian culture did not find their way into Germany; for example, the graver of the 'parrot-beak' type has been found in France but has not been traced far eastward. In both countries, however, are found upper Magdalenian chisels of reindeer horn and perfected bone needles, bâtons, and harpoons with double rows of barbs. On the other hand, works of art and decorative designs in horn and bone are almost entirely wanting in German localities, with the exception of the stations of Andernach and Wildscheuer previously mentioned. In late Magdalenian times, both in Germany and France, we find the Eurasiatic forest fauna becoming more abundant.

The two famous Swiss stations of Kesslerloch and Schweizersbild, near Lake Constance, appear throughout Magdalenian times to have been in very close touch with the cultural advances of Dordogne. Kesslerloch(32) has yielded 12,000 flints of small dimensions, resembling in their succession those of the type station of La Madeleine; also needles, single and double harpoons, dart-throwers, bâtons, as well as the fine engravings mentioned above; bone sculpture is represented here in the unique head of a musk-ox (_Ovibos moschatus_), in carvings of the reindeer and of other animals on the batons and weapons of the chase. Kesslerloch lies on the edge of a moderately wide valley, traversed by a brook; in this sheltered, well-watered, hilly region, the trees flourished and harbored the forest animals, while the glaciers, retreating and leaving damp and stony areas, were closely followed by the tundra fauna; the woolly rhinoceros and mammoth persisted here longer than in other parts of Europe; the horse of Kesslerloch is said to show resemblances to the Przewalski horse of the desert of Gobi, in central Asia, and is consequently referred to the steppe type. The development of the flints takes place step by step with that of the sister cavern of Schweizersbild, and in early Magdalenian times these flints are found associated with the arrival of the great migration of the arctic tundra rodents, the banded lemmings (_Myodes torquatus_). A hearth with ashes and coals and many charred bones of old and young mammals, including the woolly rhinoceros, has been found here; the animal life altogether includes twenty-five species of mammals, among them the woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, reindeer, and lion.

Less than four miles distant from Kesslerloch, in a small valley about two miles north of Schaffhausen, is the other famous Swiss station of Schweizersbild. The Crô-Magnons were attracted to this spot by the protecting cliff of isolated limestone rock rising sheer from the meadow-land, at the base of which is a shelter facing southwest, with an entrance of about 30 feet in height, commanding a wide view of the distant valley. In the accumulations at the base of this shelter we find a complete prehistory of the human, industrial, faunal, and climatic changes of this region of Switzerland from early Magdalenian into Neolithic times. It was not until the true early Magdalenian, after both the Aurignacian and Solutrean stages had closed, that man first found his way here during the _Bühl_ advance, the period of the deposition of the _Upper Rodent Layer_ with its cold arctic and steppe fauna;(33) but from this time the grotto was occupied at intervals until full Neolithic times. The beginning of these industrial deposits is estimated by Nüesch as having occurred between 24,000 and 29,000 years ago, but we have adopted a somewhat lower and more conservative estimate. In descending order the various layers of this shelter, as studied by Nüesch, are as follows:

SECTION OF THE SCHWEIZERSBILD DEPOSITS

_Neolithic_

6. Layer of humous earth, between 15 and 19 inches in thickness,
containing Neolithic implements.

5. Gray culture layer, about 15 inches in thickness, including many
fire-hearths, ornaments of shell, polished Neolithic flints, and
unglazed pottery. The true forest fauna includes the brown bear,
badger, marten, wolf, fox, beaver, hare, squirrel, short-horned wild
ox (_Bos taurus brachyceros_), and reindeer, also the domesticated
goat and sheep.

_Upper Palæolithic_

4. Thin layer of forest-living rodents, principally squirrels. Split
bones and worked flints; no carvings in bone or horn; industry of late
Magdalenian or close of _Magdalenian_ Upper Palæolithic age; evidences
that climate was changing, steppe conditions passing away, and forests
becoming more dominant; only a few steppe species; the forest species
include the reindeer, hare, pika, squirrel, ermine, and marten.

3. Yellow culture layer, steppe period, rich in fire-hearths and
yielding 14,000 flints of _middle_ [? and late] _Magdalenian_ age;
engravings on reindeer antlers, ornaments of shells and teeth. Mixed
fauna with steppe and forest types predominant; of the few tundra
forms, reindeer very abundant and also arctic fox, but banded lemming
and other tundra types entirely lacking; steppe and desert fauna
includes the kiang, Persian maral deer, Pallas's cat (_Felis manul_),
steppe horse, and steppe suslik; of alpine type, the ibex; numerous
forest species, pine marten, beaver, squirrel, red deer, roe-deer, and
wild boar.

2. Arctic tundra rodent layer, 20 inches in thickness; period of the
_Bühl_ Postglacial advance; the banded lemming (_Myodes torquatus_)
most abundant, mingled with _early Magdalenian_ flint and bone
implements; one fire-hearth; abundant tundra fauna, including all
tundra types except the Obi lemming, and the musk-ox (_Ovibos
moschatus_) which is found in Kesslerloch; indications of a very cold,
moist climate; the banded lemming, arctic fox, arctic hare, reindeer,
wolverene, ermine, also such forest forms as the wolf, fox, bear,
weasel, and a number of northern birds.

1. Gravel bed and old river deposit, recognized by Boule as belonging
to the moraines of the fourth glaciation.

This wonderful deposit of human artifacts and animal remains gives us a complete registration of the changes of climate in this region accompanying the changes of culture and the development of the Magdalenian race.

Turning our survey to the course of the Danube, we note that several Magdalenian stations extend into the provinces of Lower Austria, chief among them being both the open 'loess' station of Aggsbach, and that of Gobelsburg; there is also the Hundssteig near Krems, better known as the station of Krems, and the cavern known as the Gudenushöhle; in the latter station the characteristic bâtons, javelins, and bone needles have been found.[BB]

The cavern district of Moravia attracted a relatively large population, and among the numerous stations are the grottos of Kr̆íz̆, Žitný, Kostelík, Bycis̆kala, Schoschuwka, Balcarovaskala, Kůlna, and Lautsch. Near the Russian border bone implements like those of Gudenushöhle on the Danube have been found at the station of Kůlna, and the industrial stratification of Šipka is very clear. Not far from Cracow, across the Russian border, the caverns in the region of Ojcow were entered by men carrying the Magdalenian culture. Another site in Russia is the grotto of Mas̆zycka, and characteristic Magdalenian harpoons, needles, and bâtons de commandement with other implements have also been found to the eastward, in the neighborhood of Kiev, in the Ukraine.

DECLINE OF THE MAGDALENIAN CULTURE

The highest point touched by the Crô-Magnon race in the middle or high Magdalenian appears to correspond broadly with the cold arid period of climate in the interval between the _Bühl_ and _Gschnitz_ advances in the Alpine region, during which the steppe mammals spread widely over southwestern Europe. The saiga antelope, for example, a highly characteristic steppe type, is represented in one of the most skilful bone carvings found in the late Magdalenian layers of Mas d'Azil; also the steppe type of horse is frequently represented in the most advanced engravings of late Magdalenian times. How far this cold, relatively dry climate influenced the artistic and creative energy of the Crô-Magnons is largely a matter of conjecture. The entirely independent records of La Madeleine, of Schweizersbild, and of Kesslerloch concur in associating the highest stage of Magdalenian history of art with the predominance of the steppe fauna and evidences of a cold dry climate. That the mammoth still abounded is seen in the mammoth engravings which are superposed on those of the bison in Font-de-Gaume.

The succeeding life period is that of the retreat of the tundra and steppe mammals and of the increasing rarity of the reindeer and of the mammoth in southwestern Europe; it corresponds broadly with the returning cold and moist climate of the second Postglacial advance known in the Alps as the _Gschnitz_ stage. With the spread of the forests and the retreat to the north of the reindeer, the principal source both of the supply of food and clothing and of all the bone implements of industry and of the chase, a new set of life conditions may have gradually become established. If it is true, as most students of geographical conditions and of the climate maintain, that Europe at the same time became more densely forested, the chase may have become more difficult, and the Crô-Magnons may have begun to depend more and more upon the life of the streams and the art of fishing. It is generally agreed that the harpoons were chiefly used for fishing and that many of the microlithic flints, which now begin to appear more abundantly, may have been attached to a shaft for the same purpose. We know that similar microliths were used as arrow points in predynastic Egypt.

Breuil(35) observes very significant industrial changes in closing Magdalenian times: first, the beginning of small geometric forms of flints suggesting the Tardenoisian types; second, the occasional use of stag horn in place of reindeer horn; third, a modification in the form of bone implements toward the patterns of Azilian times; fourth, the rapid decline--one may almost say sudden disappearance--of the artistic spirit. Schematic and conventional designs begin to take the place of the free realistic art of the middle Magdalenian.

Thus the decline of the Crô-Magnons as a powerful race may have been due partly to environmental causes and the abandonment of their vigorous nomadic mode of life, or it may be that they had reached the end of a long cycle of psychic development, which we have traced from the beginning of Aurignacian times. We know as a parallel that in the history of many civilized races a period of great artistic and industrial development may be followed by a period of stagnation and decline without any apparent environmental causes.

CRÔ-MAGNON DESCENDANTS IN MODERN EUROPE

We might attribute this great change, which affected all of western Europe, to the extinction of the Crô-Magnon race were it not for the existing evidence that the race survived throughout the Azilian-Tardenoisian or close of the Upper Palæolithic. On the close of the Palæolithic the race broke up throughout western Europe into many colonies, which can perhaps be traced into Neolithic and even into recent times. The anatomical evidence for this survival theory chiefly consists of the highly characteristic form of the head.

In Europe a very broad face and a long, narrow cranium is such an infrequent combination that anthropologists maintain that it affords a means of identifying the descendants of the prehistoric Crô-Magnon race wherever they persist to-day. Since Dordogne was the geographic centre of the race in Upper Palæolithic times, is it merely a coincidence that Dordogne is still the centre of a similar type? Ripley(36) has given us a valuable résumé of our present knowledge of this subject. The most significant trait of the long-headed people of Dordogne is that in many cases the face is almost as broad as in the normal Alpine round-headed type; in other words, it is strongly disharmonic; in profile the back part of the head rises and in front view the head is narrowed at the top; the skull is very low-vaulted; the brow ridges are prominent; the nose is well formed; the cheek-bones are prominent, and the powerful cheek muscles give a peculiarly rugged cast to the countenance. The appearance, however, is not repellent, but more often open and kindly. The men are of medium height, but very susceptible to environment as regards stature; they are tall in fertile places, and stunted in less prosperous districts. They are not degenerate at all, but keen and alert of mind. The present people of Dordogne agree with but one other type of men known to anthropologists, namely, the ancient Crô-Magnon race. The geographical evidence that here in Dordogne we have to do with the survivors of the real Crô-Magnon race seems to be sustained by a comparison of the characteristics of the prehistoric skulls found at Crô-Magnon, Laugerie Basse, and elsewhere in Dordogne, with the heads of the types of to-day. The cranial indices of the prehistoric skulls, varying from 70 per cent to 73 per cent, correspond with indices of the living head of 72 per cent to 75 per cent. None of the people of Dordogne are quite so long-headed as this, the average index of the living head in an extreme district being 76 per cent; but within the whole population there are much lower indices.

The probability of direct descent becomes stronger when we consider the disharmonic low-skulled shape of the Crô-Magnon head and the remarkable elongation of the skull at the back. In the prehistoric Crô-Magnons the brows were strongly developed, the eye orbits low, the chin prominent. The facial type has been characterized by de Quatrefages(37) as follows: "The eye depressed beneath the orbital vault; the nose straight rather than arched; the lips somewhat thick, the jaw and the cheek-bones strongly developed, the complexion very brown, the hair very dark and growing low on the forehead--a whole which, without being attractive, was in no way repulsive."

In southern France we observe a continuity not only of the head form but of the prevalence of black hair and eyes. Why should this Crô-Magnon type have survived at this point and have disappeared elsewhere? In order to consider the particular cause of this persistence of a Palæolithic race, we must, with Ripley, broaden our horizon, and consider the whole southwest from the Mediterranean to Brittany as a unit.

The survival is partly attributed to favorable geographical environment and partly to geological and racial barriers. On the north the intrusion of the Teutonic race was shut off and competition was narrowed down to the Crô-Magnon and Alpine types.

If the people of Dordogne are veritable survivors of the Crô-Magnons of the Upper Palæolithic, they certainly represent the oldest living race in western Europe, and is it not extremely significant that the most primitive language in Europe, that of the Basques of the northern Pyrenees, is spoken near by, only 200 miles to the southwest? Is there possibly a connection between the original language of the Crô-Magnons, a race which once crowded the region of the Cantabrian Mountains and the Pyrenees, and the existing agglutinative language of the Basques, which is totally different from all the European tongues? This hypothesis, suggested by Ripley,(38) is very well worth considering, for it is not inconceivable that the ancestors of the Basques conquered the Crô-Magnons and subsequently acquired their language.

The prehistoric Crô-Magnon men would seem, therefore, to have remained in or near their early settlements through all the changes of time and the vicissitudes of history. "It is, perhaps," observes Ripley, "the most striking instance known of a persistency of population unchanged through thousands of years."

The geographic extension of this race was once very much wider than it is to-day. The classical skull of Engis, Belgium, belongs to this type. It has been traced from Alsace in the east to the Atlantic in the west. Ranke asserts that it is to be found to-day in the hills of Thuringia, and that it was a prevalent type there in the past. Verneau considers that it was the type prevailing among the extinct Guanches of the Canary Islands. Collignon(39) has identified it in northern Africa, and regards the Crô-Magnons as a subvariety of the Mediterranean race, an opinion consistent at least with the archæological evidence that this race came into Europe with the Aurignacian culture, which was circum-Mediterranean in distribution. Traces of Crô-Magnon head formation are found among the living Berbers.

At present, however, this race is believed to survive only in a few isolated localities, namely, in Dordogne, at a small spot in Landes, near the Garonne in southern France, and at Lannion in Brittany, where nearly one-third of the population is of the Crô-Magnon type. It is said to survive on the island of Oléron off the west coast of France, and there is evidence of similar descent to be found among the people of the islands of northern Holland. The people of Trysil, on the Scandinavian peninsula, are characterized as having disharmonic features, possibly representing an outcrop of the Crô-Magnon type.

Our interest in the fate of the Crô-Magnons is so great that the Guanche theory may also be considered; it is known to be favored by many anthropologists: von Behr, von Luschan, Mehlis, and especially by Verneau. The Guanches were a race of people who formerly spread all over the Canary Islands and who preserved their primitive characteristics even after their conquest by Spain in the fifteenth century. The differences from the supposed modern Crô-Magnon type may be mentioned first. The skin of the Guanches is described by the poet Viana as light-colored, and Verneau considers that the hair was blond or light chestnut and the eyes blue; the coloring, however, is somewhat conjectural. The features of resemblance to the ancient Crô-Magnons are numerous. The minimum stature of the men was 5 feet 7 inches, and the maximum 6 feet 7 inches; in one locality the average male stature was over 6 feet. The women were comparatively small. The most striking characters of the head were the fine forehead, the extremely long skull, and the pentagonal form of the cranium, when seen from above, caused by the prominence of the parietals--a Crô-Magnon characteristic. Among the insignia of the chiefs was the arm-bone of an ancestor; the skull also was carefully preserved. The offensive weapons in warfare consisted of three stones, a club, and several knives of obsidian; the defensive weapon was a simple lance. The Guanches used wooden swords with great skill. The habitation of all the people was in large, well-sheltered caverns, which honeycombed the sides of the mountains; all the walls of these caverns were decorated; the ceilings were covered with a uniform coat of red ochre, while the walls were decorated with various geometric designs in red, black, gray, and white. Hollowed-out stones served as lamps. We may conclude with Verneau that there is evidence, although not of a very convincing kind, that the Guanches were related to the Crô-Magnons.(40) His observations on these supposed Crô-Magnons of the Canary Islands are cited in the Appendix, Note V. We regret that Verneau in his memoir(41) does not present his more recent views in regard to the prehistoric distribution of this great race.

(=1=) Breuil, 1912.7, p. 203.

(=2=) _Op. cit._, p. 205.

(=3=) James, 1902.1.

(=4=) Heim, 1894.1, p. 184.

(=5=) Schmidt, 1912.1, p. 262.

(=6=) Fraunholz, 1911.1.

(=7=) Geikie, 1914.1, pp. 25, 26.

(=8=) Boule, 1899.1.

(=9=) Breuil, 1912.7, pp. 203-205.

(=10=) Obermaier, 1912.1, pp. 341, 342.

(=11=) Martin, R., 1914.1, pp. 15, 16.

(=12=) Verworn, 1914.1.

(=13=) _Op. cit._, p. 646.

(=14=) Breuil, 1912.7, p. 201.

(=15=) Lartet, 1875.1.

(=16=) Breuil, 1912.7, p. 213.

(=17=) Schmidt, 1912.1, p. 136.

(=18=) Breuil, _op. cit._, pp. 216, 217.

(=19=) Breuil, 1909.3.

(=20=) _Op. cit._, p. 410.

(=21=) Cartailhac, 1906.1, pp. 227, 228.

(=22=) Rivière, 1897.1; 1897.2.

(=23=) Reinach, 1913.1.

(=24=) Breuil, 1912.1, p. 202.

(=25=) Cartailhac, 1908.1.

(=26=) Capitan, 1908.1, pp. 501-514.

(=27=) _Ibid._, 1910.1, pp. 59-132.

(=28=) Breuil, 1912.1, pp. 196, 197.

(=29=) Schmidt, 1912.1, p. 116.

(=30=) Fraunholz, 1911.1.

(=31=) Schmidt, 1912.1, p. 154.

(=32=) Déchelette, 1908.1, vol. I, pp. 191-194.

(=33=) Nehring, 1880.1; 1896.1.

(=34=) Bayer, 1912.1, pp. 13-21.

(=35=) Breuil, 1912.7, pp. 212, 216.

(=36=) Ripley, 1899.1, pp. 39, 165, 173, 174-179, 211, 406.

(=37=) _Op. cit._, p. 176.

(=38=) _Op. cit._, p. 181.

(=39=) Collignon, 1890.1.

(=40=) Verneau, 1891.1.

(=41=) _Ibid._, 1906.1.