Chapter VI

CLOSE OF THE OLD STONE AGE--INVASION OF NEW RACES--HISTORY OF THE MAS
D'AZIL, OF FÈRE-EN-TARDENOIS--FOREST ENVIRONMENT AND LIFE--ORIGIN OF
THE AZILIAN-TARDENOISIAN CULTURE--CHARACTERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE NEW
RACES--TRANSITION TO THE NEOLITHIC AND RELATIONS OF THE OLD AND NEW
RACES--APPARENT CHIEF LINES OF HUMAN DESCENT AND OF HUMAN MIGRATION
INTO WESTERN EUROPE.

We have now reached the very close of the Old Stone Age, a period which is believed to extend between 10,000 and 7,000 years before the present era. The entrance to the final cultures of the Upper Palæolithic, known as the Azilian-Tardenoisian, marks a transition even more abrupt than that witnessed in any preceding stage. It is not a development; it is a revolution. The artistic spirit entirely disappears; there is no trace of animal engraving or sculpture; painting is found only on flattened pebbles or in schematic or geometric designs on wall surfaces. Of bone implements only harpoons and polishers remain, and even these are of inferior workmanship and without any trace of art. The flint industry continues the degeneration begun in the Magdalenian and exhibits a new life and impulse only in the fashioning of the extremely small or microlithic tools and weapons known as 'Tardenoisian.' Both bone and flint weapons of the chase disappear, yet the stag is hunted and its horns are used in the manufacture of harpoons. This is the 'Age of the Stag,' the final stage of the '_Cave Period_' in western Europe, and is subsequent to the 'Age of the Reindeer' in the south.

It would appear as if the very same regions formerly occupied by the great hunting Crô-Magnon race from Aurignacian to Magdalenian times were now inhabited by a race or races largely employed in fishing. The country is thickly forested. The climate is still cold and extremely moist, and human life everywhere is in the grottos or entrances to the caverns.

INVASION OF FOUR NEW RACES IN CLOSING UPPER PALÆOLITHIC TIMES

How far this revolution is due to the decline of the Crô-Magnon race and how far to the invasion of one or more new races is very difficult to determine in the absence of the anatomical evidence derived from skeletal remains. Two new races had certainly found their way along the Danube as shown in the burials of Ofnet, in eastern Bavaria; one is extremely broad-headed and perhaps of central Asiatic origin, while the other is extremely long-headed and perhaps of southerly or Mediterranean origin. It is possible that these two races correspond respectively with the easterly and southerly industrial influences which are observed in the Azilian-Tardenoisian stage. The former is the first brachycephalic race to enter western Europe, for it will be recalled that all the previous races, the Crô-Magnons, the Brünns, and the Neanderthals, are dolichocephalic. The long-headed race found at Ofnet is very clearly distinguished from the disharmonic long-headed Crô-Magnon race by the narrowness of the face; in other words, it is an _harmonic_ type of head and face, which may have been Mediterranean in origin, like the so-called 'Mediterranean race' of Sergi.

This fresh invasion of western Europe by two races arriving by one or more of the great migration routes from the vast Eurasiatic mainland to the east, races with a relatively high brain development, is certainly one of the most surprising features of the close of the Palæolithic Period, for we have long been accustomed to think that these fresh easterly and southerly invasions began only in Neolithic times.

As the Upper Palæolithic draws to an end, there is, according to Breuil, still another industrial influence making itself felt: it comes from the northeast along the shores of the Baltic.

Putting together all the fragmentary evidence which we possess, we may regard western Europe at the close of the Old Stone Age as peopled by four and possibly by five distinct races, as follows:

5. Arriving late in Palæolithic times, a race along the shores of the
Baltic, known only by its Maglemose industry; possibly a Teutonic
race.

4. A south Mediterranean race, known only by its Tardenoisian
industry, migrating along the northern shores of Africa and spreading
over Spain; with a conventional and schematic art; probably an advance
wave of the true 'Mediterranean' race of Sergi; possibly identical
with race 3 below. (The same as Race 4, p. 278.)

3. A long-headed race found at Ofnet, in eastern Bavaria; possibly a
branch of the true 'Mediterranean' race 4 above, but not related to
the Brünn. (Possibly the same as Race 4.)

2. The newly arriving Furfooz-Grenelle race, broad-headed; known along
the Danube at Ofnet, in eastern Bavaria, and northward in Belgium;
possibly a branch of the 'Alpine' race. (The same as Race 5, p. 278.)

1. The surviving Crô-Magnons, in a stage of industrial decline,
pursuing the Azilian industry, probably inhabiting France and northern
Spain.

The broad-headed Ofnet race mentioned above is apparently the same as the Furfooz-Grenelle race, and may also correspond with the existing Alpine-Celtic race of western Europe. The long-headed race of Ofnet may correspond with the existing 'Mediterranean' race of Sergi.

The presence of the Crô-Magnon race in western Europe during Azilian-Tardenoisian times is not sustained, so far as we know, by any anatomical evidence, but is suggested by the mode of burial of two skeletons found by Piette in the Azilian deposits of the station of Mas d'Azil. This burial, like that of Ofnet, is typical of Upper Palæolithic and not of Neolithic times. These skeletons lay in the 'Azilian' layer (VI) described below. As the smaller bones were missing, Piette concluded that the remains had been for some time exposed to the weather before burial, and that the larger bones had been scraped and cleaned with flint knives, and then colored red with oxide of iron before interment. According to other authorities, the traces of scraping and cleaning are doubtful; there can be no question, however, that the separation of the bones of the skeleton and the use of coloring matter constitute strong evidence that this Azilian burial was the work of members of the Crô-Magnon race.

In addition to what we have said as to the survival of the Crô-Magnon race in the preceding chapter, the opinion of Cartailhac(1) may be cited: "The race of Crô-Magnon is well determined. There is no doubt about their high stature, and Topinard is not the only one who believes that they were blonds. We have traced them through the 'Reindeer Period' into the Neolithic Epoch, where they were widely distributed and positively related either to the ancient or actual populations of modern France, being especially characteristic of our region [France] and of the western Mediterranean. While the race of Crô-Magnon predominated in the south and in the west, that of Furfooz predominated in the northeast of France and in Belgium. These brachycephals were probably brown-haired or of dark coloring."

But before observing further the characters of these four or five races, let us examine their industries.

DISCOVERY OF THE AZILIAN TYPE STATION

As remarked above, it is believed that these industries prevailed between 7,000 and 10,000 years before our era, that is, between the close of Magdalenian times and the beginning of the Neolithic or New Stone Age. This transition period corresponds with the interval in which the Azilian-Tardenoisian culture swept all over western Europe and completely replaced the Magdalenian. From Castillo in the Cantabrian Mountains of northern Spain to Ofnet on the upper Danube there is a complete replacement by this new culture. The Magdalenian culture does not linger anywhere; it is totally eliminated; the suddenness of the change both in the animal life and in the industry is nowhere more clearly indicated than at the type station of Mas d'Azil in southern France, which may now be described.

In 1887 Edouard Piette commenced his exploration of the deposits in the great cavern of Mas d'Azil. This station takes its name from the little hamlet of Mas d'Azil in the foot-hills of the Pyrenees about forty miles southwest from Toulouse. Here the River Arize winds for a quarter of a mile through a lofty natural tunnel traversed by the highway from St. Girons to Carcassonne. A rich layer of Magdalenian deposits first attracted Piette's attention, and he found here some of the finest examples of late Magdalenian art, but above these deposits he discovered a hitherto unrecognized industrial stage, to which he gave the name Azilian. The Azilian layers yielded over one thousand specimens of flattened and double-barbed harpoons made of the horns of the stag, thus widely differing from the late Magdalenian harpoons which are rounded and made of the horns of the reindeer. The entire succession of deposits, as explored by Piette, is an epitome of the prehistory of Europe from early Magdalenian times to the Age of Bronze, and should be compared with the successive deposits of Castillo (p. 164), Sirgenstein (p. 202), Ofnet (p. 476), and Schweizersbild (p. 447).

The Mas d'Azil section is as follows:

PREHISTORIC AND NEOLITHIC

IX. Iron implements, pottery of the Gauls. At the top Gallo-Roman
remains, glass and glazed pottery.

VIII. Middle Neolithic and Age of Bronze; layer of pottery, polished
stone implements, traces of copper and of bronze.

VII. Dawn of the Neolithic. Fauna includes the horse, urus, stag, and
wild boar. Chipped and polished flints, awls and polishers in bone;
harpoons rare. Beginnings of pottery.

UPPER PALÆOLITHIC

VI. AZILIAN, red archæological layer, masses of peroxide of iron.
Extremely moist climate. Broad flat harpoons of stag horn perforated
at the base, numerous flattened and painted pebbles (_galets_), flints
of degenerate Magdalenian form, especially small rounded planers and
knife flakes, awls and polishers in bone. No trace of reindeer in the
fire-hearths; stag abundant, also roe-deer and brown bear; wild boar,
wild cattle, beaver, a variety of birds. No trace of polished stone
implements. Interred in this layer, beneath the deposits of streaked
cinders and quite undisturbed, two human skeletons were found, which
Piette believed had been macerated with flints and then colored red
with peroxide of iron.

V. Sterile finely stratified loam layer, a flood deposit of the River
Arize.

IV. LATE MAGDALENIAN culture layer; twelve double-rowed harpoons made
of reindeer horn, a few fashioned from stag horn; numerous engravings
and sculptures in bone. Remains of the reindeer rare in the hearths;
those of the royal stag (_Cervus elaphus_) abundant.

III. A sterile flood deposit of the River Arize.

II. MIDDLE AND EARLY MAGDALENIAN culture layers, with barbed harpoons
of reindeer horn; flint implements of early Magdalenian type, bone
needles. Bones of the reindeer abundant.

I. Gravel deposits. Interspersed fire-hearths.

The total thickness of these culture deposits is 8.03 m., or 26 feet 4 inches. The AZILIAN type layer (VI) containing flat harpoons of stag horn and painted pebbles, intercalated between the deposits of the Reindeer Age and the Neolithic layers, is, on account of its stratigraphic position, the most interesting and instructive of all the sites representing this phase of transition; and Piette was fully justified in giving to the corresponding culture period the name of _Azilian_.(2)

The transformation of art and industry, indicated in the Azilian culture layer, is as decided as that in the animal life. We observe in this layer no trace of the animal engravings or sculptures which occur so abundantly in the late Magdalenian layer below; the use of pigments is confined to the paintings of schematic or geometric figures on the flattened pebbles. There is no suggestion of art in any of the bone implements, and the harpoons of stag horn are rudely fashioned; this type of harpoon appears to be the chief survivor of the rich variety of implements noted in the Magdalenian layer below. The stag horn harpoon, moreover, is fashioned with far less skill than the beautiful Magdalenian harpoons; like them it has two rows of barbs, but they are not cut with the same delicacy and exactness. As to the form of the new model, it is explained by the nature of the new material; the interior of the stag horn being composed of a spongy tissue, could not be utilized as could the harder and more compact interior of the reindeer horn; the craftsman, therefore, was obliged to fashion his harpoon out of the exterior of one side of the stag horn, and in consequence to make it flat.

There are no bone needles, no javelins or _sagaies_; nor are there any of the beautifully carved weapons of bone. There is also a reduction in the uses to which the split bones are put, such as the large _lissoirs_ or polishers. The bone implements appear to be derived from an impoverished late Aurignacian stage; the same is true of the flint implements, for we observe a return of the keeled scraper (_grattoir caréné_). There is also a return of certain types of graving tools and of the knife-like form of the flake; even some of the small geometric types of flints resemble those of the Aurignacian levels.

The many shells of the moisture-loving snail _Helix nemoralis_, found in the fire-hearths of Mas d'Azil are proofs of the humidity of the climate, a fact confirmed by the contemporary flood deposits of the Arize. The frequent and heavy rains drove the last few representatives of the steppe fauna away to the north. These climatic conditions favored the formation of peat-bogs, so frequent to-day in the north of France, and also the growth of vast forests, inhabited by the stag, which extended over the whole country.

The pebbles of Mas d'Azil are painted on one side with peroxide of iron, a deposit of which is found in the neighborhood of the cave. The color, mixed in shells of _Pecten_, or in hollowed pebbles or on flat stones, was applied either with the finger or with a brush. The many enigmatic designs consist chiefly of parallel bands, rows of discs or points, bands with scalloped edges, cruciform designs, ladder-like patterns (scalariform) such as are found in the 'Azilian' engravings and paintings of the caverns, and undulating lines. These graphic combinations resemble certain syllabic and alphabetic characters of the Ægean, Cypriote, Phœnician, and Greco-Latin inscriptions. However curious these resemblances may be, they are not sufficient to warrant any theory connecting the signs on the painted pebbles of the Azilians with the alphabetic characters of the oldest known systems of writing.(3) Piette attempted to explain some of the exceedingly crude designs on these pebbles as a system of notation, others as pictographs and religious symbols, and some few as genuine alphabetical signs, and suggested that the cavern of Mas d'Azil was an Upper Palæolithic school where reading, reckoning, writing, and the symbols of the sun were learned and taught. The very wide distribution of these symbolic pebbles and the painting of similar designs on the walls of the caverns certainly prove that they had some religious or economic significance, which may be revealed by subsequent research.

THE TARDENOISIAN TYPE STATION

Turning from the region of the Pyrenees in Azilian times, we observe the region lying between the Seine and the Meuse in northern France as the scene of a contemporary industry. At the station of Fère-en-Tardenois, in the Department of the Aisne, is found an especially large number of the pygmy flints;(4) these present various geometric forms, including the primitive triangular, as well as the rhomboidal, trapezoidal, and semicircular; together, they were designated by de Mortillet as _Tardenoisian_ flints, and in 1896, in monographing this microlithic flint industry, he traced them throughout France, Belgium, England, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Russia, also along the southern Mediterranean through Algiers, Tunis, Egypt, and eastward into Syria and even India.

These geometric flints were at first attributed to a primitive invasion which was supposed to have occurred at the beginning of Neolithic times; thus the Tardenoisian industry was considered as contemporaneous with that of the Campignian, which is early Neolithic. It was further observed that the topographical location of the stations closely followed the borders of ocean inlets, or of river courses, and when the food materials found in the hearths were compared, it appeared that these flints were used principally by fishermen or tribes subsisting upon fish. From an examination of the flints, it would appear that a very large number of them were adapted for insertion in small harpoons, or that those of grooved form might even have been used as fish-hooks. Thus the picture was drawn of a population of fishermen. The Tardenoisian, therefore, was for a long time regarded as contemporaneous with the early Neolithic rather than with the close of Palæolithic times, but as exploration proceeded it was found that neither the remains of domestic animals nor any traces of pottery occur in any of these Tardenoisian deposits, which consequently have nothing in common with the true Neolithic culture.

The problem was finally solved in 1909, when the grotto of Valle near Gibaja, Santander, in northern Spain, was discovered by Breuil and Obermaier.(5) Here was a classic Azilian deposit containing all the well-known Azilian types of bone implements, such as fine harpoons, carvings in deer horn, bone javelins, polishers of deer bone, flint flakes resembling those of the late Magdalenian, also microlithic flints of typical geometric Tardenoisian form. This discovery established the fact that the lower levels of the Tardenoisian industry were not really to be distinguished from the Azilian, for here beneath layers with painted pebbles and harpoons of Azilian style were harpoons with single and double rows of barbs of Magdalenian pattern, but cut in stag horn instead of reindeer horn.

The mammalian life in this true Azilian-Tardenoisian layer includes the chamois, roe-deer, wild boar, and urus, or wild cattle. In a layer just below, which represents the close of the Magdalenian industrial period, there are found, although rarely, remains of the reindeer, an animal hitherto unknown in this part of Spain, also the wild boar, the bison, the ibex, and the lynx. After this discovery it could no longer be questioned that the Azilian and Tardenoisian were contemporary.

As to the relation of these two industries, Breuil remarks(6) that the prolongation of the Tardenoisian types of flints is observed in Italy and in Belgium, but neither the term 'Tardenoisian' nor the term 'Azilian' is sufficiently comprehensive to embrace the totality of these little industries, which will finally be distinguished clearly from each other. Of the two the Azilian represents the prolongation of an ancient period of industry, the progress of which was apparently from south to north, as we can trace the distribution of the characteristic flat harpoons of deer horn from the Cantabrian Mountains and the Pyrenees, through southern and central France, to Belgium, England, and the western coast of Scotland. The later industrial phase, the Tardenoisian, with its geometric trapeziform flints, originally appears along the southern Mediterranean in Tunis and to the eastward in the Crimea, while in France it represents a final phase of the Palæolithic, closely approaching the period of the earliest Neolithic or pre-Campignian hearths common along the Danube and observed in the vicinity of Liége. Thus the most comprehensive term by which to designate the _ensemble_ of these implements, in Europe at least, would be Azilian-Tardenoisian.

ENVIRONMENT AND MAMMALIAN LIFE

It appears that the chief geographic change during this period was a subsidence of the northern coasts of Europe and an advance of the sea causing the circulation of warm oceanic currents and a more humid climate favorable to reforestation.

To the north, in Belgium, the tundra fauna lingered during the extension of the early Tardenoisian industry, for here we still find remains of the reindeer, the arctic fox, and the arctic hare mingled in the fire-hearths with flints of Tardenoisian type. This, observes Obermaier, constitutes proof that the Tardenoisian, with the Azilian, must be placed at the very close of Postglacial time and with the final stage of Upper Palæolithic industry.

To the south, in the region of Dordogne and the Pyrenees, the tundra fauna had entirely disappeared, as well as that of the steppes and of the alpine heights; the prevailing animal in the forests is the royal stag, adapted to forests of temperate type and associated with the Eurasiatic forest and meadow fauna which now dominated western Europe.

The only survivor of the great African-Asiatic fauna is the lion, which appears in the late Palæolithic stations in the region of the Pyrenees; the arctic wolverene also gives the fauna a Postglacial aspect, for, like the lion, it is never found in central or western Europe after the close of Upper Palæolithic times. Other enemies of the herbivorous fauna were the wolf and the brown bear.

Besides the red deer, or stag, the forests at this time were filled with roe-deer. To the south in the Pyrenees the moose still survived, and to the north there were still found herds of reindeer which survived in central Europe as late as the twelfth century. Wild boars were numerous, and in the streams were found the beaver and the otter. In the forest borders and in the meadows hares and rabbits were abundant. Through the forests and meadows of southern France and along the borders of the Danube ranged the wild cattle (_Bos primigenius_). It would appear from our limited knowledge of the life of Azilian-Tardenoisian times that bison were found chiefly in the northern parts of Europe. There is little direct evidence in regard to the wild horse, the remains of which do not occur in the hearths of Azilian times.

Our knowledge of the life of the Spanish peninsula at a period closely succeeding this is indirectly derived from the animal frescos in certain caverns of northern Spain, which were formerly attributed to the Upper Palæolithic but are now referred rather to the early Neolithic. Here are found representations of the ibex, the stag, the fallow deer, the wild cattle, and also of the wild horses. This would indicate that wild horses were still roaming all over western Europe at the close of Upper Palæolithic times. The presence of the moose in late Palæolithic times at Alpera, on the high plateaus of Spain, has been determined; this animal has also been found in the Pyrenees during the Azilian stage.(7)

The great contrast between the mammalian life of Magdalenian and that of Azilian-Tardenoisian times is witnessed in the stations along the upper Danube, as described by Koken.(8) In Höhlefels, Schmiechenfels, and Propstfels, associated with implements of the _late_ Magdalenian industry, are found ten types of animals belonging to the forests and four characteristic of the forests and meadows, or fourteen species altogether. With these are mingled two alpine forms, the ibex and the alpine shrew; also two types of mammals belonging to the steppes, and no less than six mammals and birds from the tundras, namely, the reindeer, the arctic fox, the ermine, the arctic hare, the banded lemming, and the arctic ptarmigan.

In wide contrast to this assemblage of late Magdalenian life on the upper Danube, there appear in Azilian times along the shores of the middle Danube in the stations of Ofnet and of Istein the following characteristic forest forms: _Sus scrofa ferus_ (wild boar), _Cervus elaphus_ (stag), _Capreolus capreolus_ (roe-deer), _Bos_ (?) _primigenius_ (urus), _Lepus_ (rabbit or hare), _Ursus arctos_ (brown bear), _Felis leo_ (lion), _Gulo luscus_ (common wolverene), _Lynchus lynx_ (lynx), _Vulpes_ (fox), _Mustela martes_ (marten), _Castor fiber_ (European beaver), _Mus_ (field-mouse), _Turdus_ (thrush). It thus appears that the alpine, the steppe, and the tundra faunæ had entirely disappeared from this region.

ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE AZILIAN-TARDENOISIAN INDUSTRY

This industry represents the last stage of the Old Stone Age. The decline in the art of fashioning flints, begun in Magdalenian times, appears to continue in the Azilian-Tardenoisian. As to the tiny symmetrical flints which are characteristic of this period, among the microliths of almost all the late Magdalenian stations pre-Tardenoisian forms are found which may be regarded as prototypes of the geometric Tardenoisian flints;(9) this represents a new fashion established in flint-making under influences coming from the south.

There was also a natural or local Azilian evolution from the Magdalenian types and technique. In general the flint implements which had so long prevailed in western Europe become smaller in diameter and more carelessly retouched, showing marked deterioration even from the late Magdalenian stages. For the preparation of hides and the fashioning of bone we discover unsymmetrical planing tools (_grattoirs_), also small, well-formed oval scrapers (_racloirs_), and microlithic scrapers. Borers (_perçoirs_) with oblique ends and gravers (_burins_) made of small flakes are the types of implements which most frequently occur, but the great variety of borers, so characteristic of the Aurignacian and the Magdalenian industries, had entirely disappeared in Azilian times.

The marks of industrial degeneration are also conspicuous in the bone implements, which show a very great deterioration in number and quality as compared with the Magdalenian, and which are principally confined to three types--the harpoons, the awls (_poinçons_), and the smoothers (_lissoirs_), together with very small bone borers (_perçoirs_). The distinctive feature of the Azilian bone industry is the flat harpoon of stag horn; it is known that the use of stags' antlers for fashioning harpoons began in the late Magdalenian, when most of them were still being fashioned from reindeer horn. These flat Azilian harpoons succeed the type of the double-rowed, cylindrical harpoons of the late Magdalenian, and are found mainly where the rivers, lakes, or pools offered favorable conditions for fishing. Thus the Azilian bone-harpoon industry, like the Tardenoisian microlithic flint industry, was largely pursued by fisherfolk.

We may imagine that the gradual disappearance of the reindeer, an animal much more easily pursued and killed than the stag, was one of the causes of the substitution of the various arts of fishing for those of hunting.

It is to the excessively small or microlithic flints that the name Tardenoisian especially applies, and it is the vast multiplication of these microliths and their wide distribution over the whole area of the Mediterranean and of western Europe which constitutes the most distinctive feature of this industrial stage.(10) The triangular flint (Fig. 249) is certainly the most ancient Tardenoisian type. It occurs in the Azilian stations of the Cantabrian Mountains and of the Pyrenees, accompanied by the painted pebbles and with other flints of Azilian type, but without the graving-tools; to the east it is found in the stations of Savoy; and along the Danube it occurs at Ofnet, associated with remains of the lion and the moose, also with ornamental necklaces composed of the perforated teeth of the deer, identical with those found in the type station of Mas d'Azil in the Pyrenees. To the north this typical early Azilian culture extends to Istein, in Baden, where it includes the microlithic flint flakes, the gravers, and the little round scrapers associated here also with the stag and the prehistoric forest and meadow fauna of western Europe. Exactly the same stage of industrial development occurs in the grotto of Höhlefels, near Nuremberg, and in the shelter station of Sous Sac, Ain. We invariably find proofs of the variety of these pygmy flints as well as of their continuity from one station to another. All these facts compel us to assign a very long period of time to the spread of these industrial types.

The question which arises as to the sources of this special Tardenoisian industry again finds archæologists divided. Schmidt inclines to the autochthonous theory and regards the microlithic flint industry as an outgrowth of tendencies already well developed in the Magdalenian. Breuil, on the other hand,(11) dwells strongly on the evidence for circum-Mediterranean sources. In putting the questions, Who were the Azilians? Whence did they come? What were their ancestors? he is disposed to give the answer already quoted, that, whichever industry is examined, we are always obliged to look toward the south, toward some point along the Mediterranean, for the origin of these microlithic flints. In Italy, which he believes to have remained in an Aurignacian industrial stage throughout all the long period of Magdalenian time, he finds at Mentone a layer overlying the Aurignacian and containing small flints recalling the geometric forms of the Azilian, as well as a multitude of the small round scrapers (_racloirs_) characteristic of Azilian times. The upper layers at Mentone on the Riviera are paralleled by those observed near Otranto, in Sicily. It is certain, he continues, that all around the Mediterranean there was a number of distinct centres where microlithic implements of geometric form appeared, and where the accompanying industries, in different stages of development, were related to an Upper Palæolithic culture consisting of a continuous Aurignacian type.

The labors of de Morgan, Capitan, and others have thrown great light on the Palæolithic of Tunis, where a flint culture was developed only slightly different from that of the Azilian of Valle, Santander, of the Mas d'Azil, Ariège, and of Bobache, Drôme. A resemblance is also found in Portugal; and southern Spain, despite its poverty of typical implements, shows a similar evolution. Near Salamanca, northwest of Madrid, Spain, the grottos contain schematic figures and colored pebbles resembling the Azilian. In Portugal the hearths of Mugem and Cabeço da Arruda are distinguished by their triangular microliths and are undoubtedly Pre-Neolithic, because there is neither pottery nor any trace of domesticated animals, excepting, possibly, the dog.

To the north of Europe the discoveries in Belgium have especial importance, for typical Azilian implements, including small round scrapers, lateral gravers, elongated triangular microliths, and knife flakes are found associated with the remains of the reindeer in the grotto of Remouchamp and at Zonhoven. It appears in Belgium, as in Italy, that the use of the Tardenoisian microlithic flint types is prolonged into a later time than that of the typical Azilian flint implements--the scrapers, gravers, borers, and knife flakes--which, as we have seen, appear at the end of the true Magdalenian.

On the other side of the English Channel we again find these flints always unmingled with pottery and usually distributed along the sea or river shores. The best-known stations are those of Hastings, directly across the Channel opposite Boulogne, and of Seven Oaks, near London; in Settle, Yorkshire, is the Victoria Cave station. To the north, in Scotland, four Azilian stations have been discovered around Oban, on the western coast near the head of the Firth of Lorne, while Azilian harpoons have also been found on the Isle of Oronsay, at its entrance.

Thus the spread of the very small Tardenoisian flint implements in the final stages of the Palæolithic precedes the southern advent of the Neolithic.

In Germany only six Azilian-Tardenoisian stations have thus far been discovered: two to the east of Düsseldorf, one in the neighborhood of Weimar, two on the headwaters of the Rhine, near Basle, and, by far the most important, the large and small grottos of Ofnet, on a small tributary of the Danube northwest of Munich. This last is exceptionally important because it is the only station where skeletons have been found buried with Azilian-Tardenoisian flints, thereby enabling us positively to determine the contemporary human races.

BURIALS IN AZILIAN-TARDENOISIAN TIMES

The strange interment which gives Ofnet its distinction belongs to the period of Azilian-Tardenoisian industry.(12) This conclusion is not weakened by the absence of Azilian harpoons or painted pebbles, because at this time the cave of Ofnet served its frequenters only as a place of burial; there are no hearths or flint workshops to indicate continued residence, as during earlier Upper Palæolithic times.

This great ceremonial burial seems to afford the only positive evidence to be found in all western Europe of the kind of people who were pursuing the Azilian industry. The larger Ofnet grotto opens toward the southwest and has a length of 39 feet and a width of 36 feet. It was first entered in early Aurignacian times and shows successive layers of Aurignacian, early Solutrean, and late Magdalenian cultures, above which lies a thick deposit of the Azilian-Tardenoisian, in which is found the most remarkable interment of all Palæolithic times.

This is a ceremonial burial of thirty-three skulls of people belonging to two distinct races: respectively, brachycephalic and dolichocephalic, and certainly not related in any way to the Crô-Magnon race. In one group twenty-seven skulls were found embedded in ochre and arranged in a sort of nest, with the faces all looking westward. As the skulls in the centre were more closely pressed together and crushed than those on the outside, it seems probable that these skulls were added one by one from time to time, those on the outside being the most recent additions. About a yard distant a similar nest was found, containing six more skulls embedded and arranged in exactly the same manner. The interment probably took place shortly after death and certainly before the separate bones had been disintegrated by decomposition, for not only the lower jaw but a number of the neck vertebra were found with each skull. The heads had been severed from the necks by a sharp flint, the marks of which are plainly visible on some of the vertebræ.

It is noteworthy that most of these skulls are those of women and young children, there being only four adult male skulls. On this account some advance the theory of cannibalism; others that, being taken captive by a tribe of enemies, these unfortunate people were offered in sacrifice, in which case decapitation was the means of death. But, then, how explain the abundant ornaments of stag teeth and snail shells (_Helix nemoralis_) with which the skulls of the women and little children were decorated, and the treasured implements of flint with which all save one of the men and a few of the women and children were provided?

There are precedents for all these singular features of the Ofnet interment in other Upper Palæolithic burials, namely, the embedding in ochre, the offerings of ornaments of teeth and of shells, the separate interment of the skull--all these were customs more or less characteristic of the Upper Palæolithic, but never observed in Neolithic times.

It will be recalled that the custom of burying the entire body, as well as that of embedding the body in ochre, is first observed among the late Neanderthals and obtained throughout the entire Upper Palæolithic from the Aurignacian burials of Grimaldi to the Azilian, of Mas d'Azil. No other case, however, is known of the westward turning of the face: in most of the Upper Palæolithic burials the face of the departed looks toward the opening of the grotto; but, although the grotto of Ofnet opens toward the southwest, the skulls, without exception, were facing exactly to the west and looking toward the wall rather than toward the entrance of the cavern.

THE NEW BROAD-HEADED AND NARROW-HEADED RACES OF OFNET

The burials at Ofnet are the first observed in western Europe which present a mingling of races. This in itself is a fact of great interest; it is a prelude to what characterizes all the populations of western Europe at the present time, namely, the presence of races widely separated in origin and in anatomical structure, but closely united by similar customs, industries, and beliefs.

A second fact of even greater importance is the proof of the arrival in western Europe toward the close of Palæolithic times of two entirely new human stocks; one broad-headed, resembling the modern Alpine or Celtic type; the other narrow-headed, resembling the modern 'Mediterranean' type of Sergi. Beside these pure types there are several blended forms which are intermediate or mesaticephalic.

Of the eight brachycephalic heads, six are those of children; the two adult brachycephalic crania belong to young women and are, therefore, not quite so characteristic as male skulls would be, for in general racial type is more strongly marked in men than in women; the remaining skulls are either of a blended form or purely dolichocephalic.

The relationship of the broad-headed race to other prehistoric and existing broad-headed races of western Europe is also a matter of very great interest. The Ofnet brachycephals are regarded by Schliz(13) as closely similar to the type skull of the so-called Grenelle race, which, in turn, is closely similar to the Furfooz type. Thus the cephalic index of one (Fig. 255) of these broad, flattened skulls of Ofnet is 83.33 per cent; the face is relatively narrow, the zygomatic index being low--76.34 per cent; the brain capacity of the female skulls does not exceed 1,320 c.cm. The skull is further described as small, smooth, and delicately modelled, with a correspondingly feeble dentition, the teeth being small; the processes of muscular attachment are slightly developed, all of which characters indicate that the skull belonged to a woman about twenty-five years of age. The forehead is low, broad, and prominent. It is altogether typically parallel to the 'skull of Grenelle,' as well as to the female 'skull of Auvernier' described by Kollmann. The peculiarity of this broad-headed race, like that of Grenelle and of Furfooz, is that, while the forehead is of only moderate breadth, the posterior part of the skull is extremely broad. The broad-headed people of Ofnet are thus definitely considered by Schliz(14) as members of the Furfooz-Grenelle race.

The narrow-headed race of the Ofnet burials is distinct in every respect and presents resemblances to the branch of the 'Mediterranean' race found in the foreground of the Alpine regions to-day, in which the head is of a pear-shaped type. The best preserved of these dolichocephalic skulls (Fig. 255) presents an index of 70.50 per cent, with a brain capacity in the male of 1,500 c.cm., while the smallest brain capacity is that found in one of the female skulls with 1,100 c.cm. Among the five adult purely dolichocephalic skulls the face is not in the least of the broad or disharmonic Crô-Magnon type, but is in proportion with the cranium, and is thus truly _harmonic_. The resemblance of this narrow-headed Ofnet skull to that of the Brünn race, which we have described as occurring in Moravia in Solutrean times, is only partial, and Schliz concludes that among the narrow-headed people of Ofnet we have a form of dolichocephaly which is not identical with any of the known early dolichocephalic forms of western Europe, but which pursues an independent line of development similar to the narrow-headed races in the borders of the Alpine region of the present day. Thus this head type, of a uniform elliptic contour, seems to have become a stable racial element of the Alpine population, since we meet it again in later prehistoric times in the region of the southern and western foreground of the Alps. Among the children's skulls, two are of the narrow-headed, pear-shaped type similar to the Alpine dolichocephals of to-day, that is, with a narrow forehead and very broad posterior portions of the skull.

CENTRAL ORIGIN OF THE BROAD-HEADED (ALPINE?) RACES

The affinity of the broad-headed Azilian-Tardenoisian tribes of the Danube to those found in the Upper Palæolithic of northwestern Europe seems to be clearly established. The latter are sometimes known as the Grenelle race and sometimes as the Furfooz race. Boule(15) observes in regard to the skeletal remains of Grenelle which were found in the alluvium near Paris, in 1870, that it is quite impossible now, forty years after their discovery, to demonstrate their geologic antiquity. This is not the case with the Furfooz broad-heads, the age of which we regard as well established, but since the head type appears to be the same in both cases, we may speak of this race as the Furfooz-Grenelle.

In a cave near Furfooz, in the valley of the Lesse, Belgium, sixteen skeletons were discovered by Dupont in 1867. With the bones were found implements of reindeer horn and remains of the late Pleistocene fauna of northern Europe.(16) The reindeer and the tundra fauna of Belgium were contemporaneous with the early Tardenoisian culture and with the stag and forest fauna of southern France, so that the skeletons of Furfooz may safely be referred to Azilian-Tardenoisian times.

Only two of the Furfooz skulls were preserved in good shape; they are of brachycephalic or sub-brachycephalic form, and, following the suggestion of de Quatrefages and Hamy, these skulls have been spoken of as belonging to the 'brachycephalic Furfooz race.' The men of this race may certainly be regarded as belonging to Upper Palæolithic times, whereas the brachycephalic race found at Grenelle, near Paris, is probably Neolithic. This by no means prevents the Furfooz and the Grenelle types belonging to the same general brachycephalic race; it is altogether probable that they do, and that with them may be included the Ofnet broad-heads.

There are several opinions regarding the geographic centres from which these broad-heads entered Europe; it is generally believed that they came from the high plateaus of central Asia. By Giuffrida-Ruggeri the Furfooz race is identified with the existing broad-headed Alpine race (_Homo sapiens alpinus_), and is mistakenly adduced as proof that the Alpine race originated in Europe and is not in any way related to the Mongolian races of central Asia. A more conservative view(17) is that the recent European broad-headed types commonly included under the Alpine race cannot yet be traced back to the Furfooz-Grenelle ancestors, because their connection is too problematical. Schliz, on the other hand, considers that the Furfooz-Grenelle race survived in northwestern Europe and corresponds with that which became the builders of the megalithic dolmens of Neolithic times, the latter being but slightly modified descendants of the original Furfooz race; he believes, moreover, that these broad-headed peoples first occupied central Europe and then extended to western Europe, where they correspond to the Alpine race, at least in part; that they also migrated to the north and were the basis of the broad-headed races now found in Holland and Denmark.

SOUTHERN ORIGIN OF THE NARROW-HEADED (MEDITERRANEAN?) RACES

While it seems probable that the broad-heads represent a central migration from Eurasia, evidence of an industrial and cultural character indicates that the narrow-heads came from the south; this is seen both in the south Mediterranean origin of the Tardenoisian flint industry and in the new schematic influences on the decadent art of Upper Palæolithic times.

It seems, observes Breuil, as if the schematic influences in art during Upper Palæolithic times always extend from the south toward the north; they predominate entirely in the painted rocks of Andalusia, in the Pyrenees, and in Dordogne. In the grotto of Marsoulas, Haute-Garonne, the Azilian _motifs_ are clearly superposed upon the Magdalenian polychromes. This purely schematic phase, which abruptly follows the figure art of middle Magdalenian times, first made itself felt in the late Magdalenian. There was a sudden loss of realism which does not indicate affiliation but rather the infiltration of strange elements from the south; the precursors of the destructive invasion of the Azilian-Tardenoisian tribes who were driven from their Mediterranean homes by the westward advance of the conquering Neolithic races. We imagine(18) that in southern Spain there dwelt in Upper Palæolithic times a population differing from the Magdalenians of France and of the Cantabrian Mountains in their lower artistic tastes. It would therefore appear that the schematic art had its home toward the south of the peninsula of Spain about the time of the invasion of the Azilian culture in France.

NORTHERN ORIGIN OF THE BALTIC (TEUTONIC?) RACES

For the first time the retreat of the Scandinavian ice-fields and the less severe climate permitted a northern migration route along the shores of the Baltic. This is the first known migration of any tribes along this route, which throughout all glacial times had been blocked by the vicinity of the Scandinavian and Baltic ice-fields, but which was now opened by the approach of the more genial climate which succeeded the long Postglacial Stage. Whether this Baltic invasion was the advance wave of a northern long-headed Teutonic race is wholly a matter of conjecture.

"Other peoples," observes Breuil,(19) "known at present only from their industries, were advancing toward the close of the Upper Palæolithic along the northern and southern shores of the Baltic and persisted for an appreciable time before the arrival of the tribes introducing the early Neolithic Campignian culture which accumulated in the kitchen-middens along the same shores. Like the southern races of Azilian-Tardenoisian times, these northerly tribes were truly Pre-Neolithic, ignorant both of agriculture and of pottery; they brought with them no domesticated animals excepting the dog, which is known at Mugem, at Tourasse, and at Oban, in northwestern Scotland. In the use of bone harpoons of elegant form and in the taste displayed in fine decorations engraved upon bone, these tribes suggest the culture of the Magdalenians, but a close examination shows that it could not have been derived from the Magdalenian type. The community of style with the painted and engraved figures found in western Siberia and in the central Ural region and north of the Altai Mountains denotes rather an Asiatic and Siberian origin.

"The decorative designs of these Baltic peoples were very different from those of the Crô-Magnons in Magdalenian times, and are not schematic; the conception of the animal figures, although naturalistic, is as crude as that of the early Aurignacian figures, and is far inferior to that of the Magdalenian stage." "It is probable," continues Breuil, "that in these northerly regions the closing cultures of the Upper Palæolithic developed along more or less parallel lines with those observed in the south in giving rise to ethnographic elements which travelled along the littoral regions of the northern seas."

This race and culture is described by Obermaier(20) as follows:

When primitive man took possession of Denmark the sea-coast was so remote that he could also reach southern Scandinavia. The station of Maglemose in the 'Great Moor,' discovered and described by F. L. Sarauw, of Copenhagen, in 1900, is near the harbor of Mullerup on the western coast of Zealand and not far from the shore of an ancient freshwater lake formation. These people were lake-dwellers, living perhaps on rafts but not on dwellings supported by piles. From these rafts it is supposed the implements dropped into the lake. The 881 flint implements found here include scrapers, borers, cleavers, and knives, as well as microlithic flints. They show no trace of the Neolithic art of polishing, merely suggesting certain chipped styles observed in the 'kjöddenmöddings.' (See Figs. 263, 264, and 265.) The influence of the Palæolithic is much stronger, especially in the case of the microlithic Tardenoisian types. In the industrial culture of Maglemose, however, far more important than stone are implements of horn and bone. These the Maglemose folk obtained from the wild ox, moose, stag, and roe-deer, fashioning them into tools of various types, some of which are shown in Fig. 261. Many of these tools are ornamented with conventional designs or very crude animal outlines on one or both surfaces.

The forests of this time consisted of the characteristic northern flora including numerous evergreens, the birch, aspen, hazel, and elm, but without any trace of the oak. There is absolutely no trace of pottery in the Maglemose deposits. Of great interest is the fact that skeletal remains of the domestic dog are found here.

The Maglemose culture of the Baltic region is regarded as contemporary with the Azilian and Tardenoisian in the south. It contains types, not of flint but of bone, which are prophetic of the Neolithic. Traces of this culture have been found throughout northern Germany, in Denmark, and in southern Sweden, as well as to the east and in the Baltic provinces. Although no human remains have as yet been discovered, it is highly probable that these people belonged to the northern Teutonic races.