Chapter III: Part 3

The easiest Levalloisian tool to spot is a big flake tool. The trick in making it was to fashion carefully a big chunk of stone (called the Levalloisian “tortoise core,” because it resembles the shape of a turtle-shell) and then to whack this in such a way that a large flake flew off. This large thin flake, with sharp cutting edges, is the finished Levalloisian tool. There were various other tools in a Levalloisian industry, but this is the characteristic _Levalloisian_ tool.

There are several “typical Mousterian” stone tools. Different from the tools of the Levalloisian type, these were made from “disc-like cores.” There are medium-sized flake “side scrapers.” There are also some small pointed tools and some small “hand axes.” The last of these tool types is often a flake worked on both of the flat sides (that is, bifacially). There are also pieces of flint worked into the form of crude balls. The pointed tools may have been fixed on shafts to make short jabbing spears; the round flint balls may have been used as bolas. Actually, we don’t _know_ what either tool was used for. The points and side scrapers are illustrated (pp. 64 and 66).

THE MIXING OF TRADITIONS

Nowadays the archeologists are less and less sure of the importance of any one specific tool type and name. Twenty years ago, they used to speak simply of Acheulean or Levalloisian or Mousterian tools. Now, more and more, _all_ of the tools from some one layer in a cave are called an “industry,” which is given a mixed name. Thus we have “Levalloiso-Mousterian,” and “Acheuleo-Levalloisian,” and even “Acheuleo-Mousterian” (or “Mousterian of Acheulean tradition”). Bordes’ systematic work is beginning to clear up some of our confusion.

The time of these late Acheuleo-Levalloiso-Mousterioid industries is from perhaps as early as 100,000 years ago. It may have lasted until well past 50,000 years ago. This was the time of the first phase of the last great glaciation. It was also the time that the classic group of Neanderthal men was living in Europe. A number of the Neanderthal fossil finds come from these cave layers. Before the different habits of tool preparation were understood it used to be popular to say Neanderthal man was “Mousterian man.” I think this is wrong. What used to be called “Mousterian” is now known to be a variety of industries with tools of both core-biface and flake habits, and so mixed that the word “Mousterian” used alone really doesn’t mean anything. The Neanderthalers doubtless understood the tool preparation habits by means of which Acheulean, Levalloisian and Mousterian type tools were produced. We also have the more modern-like Mount Carmel people, found in a cave layer of Palestine with tools almost entirely in the flake tradition, called “Levalloiso-Mousterian,” and the Fontéchevade-Tayacian (p. 59).

OTHER SUGGESTIONS OF LIFE IN THE EARLY CAVE LAYERS

Except for the stone tools, what do we know of the way men lived in the time range after 100,000 to perhaps 40,000 years ago or even later? We know that in the area from Europe to Palestine, at least some of the people (some of the time) lived in the fronts of caves and warmed themselves over fires. In Europe, in the cave layers of these times, we find the bones of different animals; the bones in the lowest layers belong to animals that lived in a warm climate; above them are the bones of those who could stand the cold, like the reindeer and mammoth. Thus, the meat diet must have been changing, as the glacier crept farther south. Shells and possibly fish bones have lasted in these cave layers, but there is not a trace of the vegetable foods and the nuts and berries and other wild fruits that must have been eaten when they could be found.

Wavy lines indicate transitions in industrial habits. These transitions are not yet understood in detail. The glacial and climatic scheme shown is the alpine one.]

Bone tools have also been found from this period. Some are called scrapers, and there are also long chisel-like leg-bone fragments believed to have been used for skinning animals. Larger hunks of bone, which seem to have served as anvils or chopping blocks, are fairly common.

Bits of mineral, used as coloring matter, have also been found. We don’t know what the color was used for.

There is a small but certain number of cases of intentional burials. These burials have been found on the floors of the caves; in other words, the people dug graves in the places where they lived. The holes made for the graves were small. For this reason (or perhaps for some other?) the bodies were in a curled-up or contracted position. Flint or bone tools or pieces of meat seem to have been put in with some of the bodies. In several cases, flat stones had been laid over the graves.

TOOLS FROM AFRICA AND ASIA ABOUT 100,000 YEARS AGO

Professor Movius characterizes early prehistoric Africa as a continent showing a variety of stone industries. Some of these industries were purely local developments and some were practically identical with industries found in Europe at the same time. From northwest Africa to Capetown--excepting the tropical rain forest region of the west center--tools of developed Acheulean, Levalloisian, and Mousterian types have been recognized. Often they are named after African place names.

In east and south Africa lived people whose industries show a development of the Levalloisian technique. Such industries are called Stillbay. Another industry, developed on the basis of the Acheulean technique, is called Fauresmith. From the northwest comes an industry with tanged points and flake-blades; this is called the Aterian. The tropical rain forest region contained people whose stone tools apparently show adjustment to this peculiar environment; the so-called Sangoan industry includes stone picks, adzes, core-bifaces of specialized Acheulean type, and bifacial points which were probably spearheads.

In western Asia, even as far as the east coast of India, the tools of the Eurafrican core-biface and flake tool traditions continued to be used. But in the Far East, as we noted in the last chapter, men had developed characteristic stone chopper and chopping tools. This tool preparation tradition--basically a pebble tool tradition--lasted to the very end of the Ice Age.

When more intact open air sites such as that of an earlier time at Olorgesailie, and more stratified cave sites are found and excavated in Asia and Africa, we shall be able to get a more complete picture. So far, our picture of the general cultural level of the Old World at about 100,000 years ago--and soon afterwards--is best from Europe, but it is still far from complete there, too.

CULTURE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE LAST GREAT GLACIAL PERIOD

The few things we have found must indicate only a very small part of the total activities of the people who lived at the time. All of the things they made of wood and bark, of skins, of anything soft, are gone. The fact that burials were made, at least in Europe and Palestine, is pretty clear proof that the people had some notion of a life after death. But what this notion really was, or what gods (if any) men believed in, we cannot know. Dr. Movius has also reminded me of the so-called bear cults--cases in which caves have been found which contain the skulls of bears in apparently purposeful arrangement. This might suggest some notion of hoarding up the spirits or the strength of bears killed in the hunt. Probably the people lived in small groups, as hunting and food-gathering seldom provide enough food for large groups of people. These groups probably had some kind of leader or “chief.” Very likely the rude beginnings of rules for community life and politics, and even law, were being made. But what these were, we do not know. We can only guess about such things, as we can only guess about many others; for example, how the idea of a family must have been growing, and how there may have been witch doctors who made beginnings in medicine or in art, in the materials they gathered for their trade.

The stone tools help us most. They have lasted, and we can find them. As they come to us, from this cave or that, and from this layer or that, the tool industries show a variety of combinations of the different basic habits or traditions of tool preparation. This seems only natural, as the groups of people must have been very small. The mixtures and blendings of the habits used in making stone tools must mean that there were also mixtures and blends in many of the other ideas and beliefs of these small groups. And what this probably means is that there was no one _culture_ of the time. It is certainly unlikely that there were simply three cultures, “Acheulean,” “Levalloisian,” and “Mousterian,” as has been thought in the past. Rather there must have been a great variety of loosely related cultures at about the same stage of advancement. We could say, too, that here we really begin to see, for the first time, that remarkable ability of men to adapt themselves to a variety of conditions. We shall see this adaptive ability even more clearly as time goes on and the record becomes more complete.

Over how great an area did these loosely related cultures reach in the time 75,000 to 45,000 or even as late as 35,000 years ago? We have described stone tools made in one or another of the flake and core-biface habits, for an enormous area. It covers all of Europe, all of Africa, the Near East, and parts of India. It is perfectly possible that the flake and core-biface habits lasted on after 35,000 years ago, in some places outside of Europe. In northern Africa, for example, we are certain that they did (see chart, p. 72).

On the other hand, in the Far East (China, Burma, Java) and in northern India, the tools of the old chopper-tool tradition were still being made. Out there, we must assume, there was a different set of loosely related cultures. At least, there was a different set of loosely related habits for the making of tools. But the men who made them must have looked much like the men of the West. Their tools were different, but just as useful.

As to what the men of the West looked like, I’ve already hinted at all we know so far (pp. 29 ff.). The Neanderthalers were present at the time. Some more modern-like men must have been about, too, since fossils of them have turned up at Mount Carmel in Palestine, and at Teshik Tash, in Trans-caspian Russia. It is still too soon to know whether certain combinations of tools within industries were made only by certain physical types of men. But since tools of both the core-biface and the flake traditions, and their blends, turn up from South Africa to England to India, it is most unlikely that only one type of man used only one particular habit in the preparation of tools. What seems perfectly clear is that men in Africa and men in India were making just as good tools as the men who lived in western Europe.

EARLY MODERNS

From some time during the first inter-stadial of the last great glaciation (say some time after about 40,000 years ago), we have more accurate dates for the European-Mediterranean area and less accurate ones for the rest of the Old World. This is probably because the effects of the last glaciation have been studied in the European-Mediterranean area more than they have been elsewhere.

A NEW TRADITION APPEARS

Something new was probably beginning to happen in the European-Mediterranean area about 40,000 years ago, though all the rest of the Old World seems to have been going on as it had been. I can’t be sure of this because the information we are using as a basis for dates is very inaccurate for the areas outside of Europe and the Mediterranean.

We can at least make a guess. In Egypt and north Africa, men were still using the old methods of making stone tools. This was especially true of flake tools of the Levalloisian type, save that they were growing smaller and smaller as time went on. But at the same time, a new tradition was becoming popular in westernmost Asia and in Europe. This was the blade-tool tradition.

BLADE TOOLS

A stone blade is really just a long parallel-sided flake, as the drawing shows. It has sharp cutting edges, and makes a very useful knife. The real trick is to be able to make one. It is almost impossible to make a blade out of any stone but flint or a natural volcanic glass called obsidian. And even if you have flint or obsidian, you first have to work up a special cone-shaped “blade-core,” from which to whack off blades.

You whack with a hammer stone against a bone or antler punch which is directed at the proper place on the blade-core. The blade-core has to be well supported or gripped while this is going on. To get a good flint blade tool takes a great deal of know-how.

Remember that a tradition in stone tools means no more than that some particular way of making the tools got started and lasted a long time. Men who made some tools in one tradition or set of habits would also make other tools for different purposes by means of another tradition or set of habits. It was even possible for the two sets of habits to become combined.

THE EARLIEST BLADE TOOLS

The oldest blade tools we have found were deep down in the layers of the Mount Carmel caves, in Tabun Eb and Ea. Similar tools have been found in equally early cave levels in Syria; their popularity there seems to fluctuate a bit. Some more or less parallel-sided flakes are known in the Levalloisian industry in France, but they are probably no earlier than Tabun E. The Tabun blades are part of a local late “Acheulean” industry, which is characterized by core-biface “hand axes,” but which has many flake tools as well. Professor F. E. Zeuner believes that this industry may be more than 120,000 years old; actually its date has not yet been fixed, but it is very old--older than the fossil finds of modern-like men in the same caves.

For some reason, the habit of making blades in Palestine and Syria was interrupted. Blades only reappeared there at about the same time they were first made in Europe, some time after 45,000 years ago; that is, after the first phase of the last glaciation was ended.

We are not sure just where the earliest _persisting_ habits for the production of blade tools developed. Impressed by the very early momentary appearance of blades at Tabun on Mount Carmel, Professor Dorothy A. Garrod first favored the Near East as a center of origin. She spoke of “some as yet unidentified Asiatic centre,” which she thought might be in the highlands of Iran or just beyond. But more recent work has been done in this area, especially by Professor Coon, and the blade tools do not seem to have an early appearance there. When the blade tools reappear in the Syro-Palestinian area, they do so in industries which also include Levalloiso-Mousterian flake tools. From the point of view of form and workmanship, the blade tools themselves are not so fine as those which seem to be making their appearance in western Europe about the same time. There is a characteristic Syro-Palestinian flake point, possibly a projectile tip, called the Emiran, which is not known from Europe. The appearance of blade tools, together with Levalloiso-Mousterian flakes, continues even after the Emiran point has gone out of use.

It seems clear that the production of blade tools did not immediately swamp the set of older habits in Europe, too; the use of flake tools also continued there. This was not so apparent to the older archeologists, whose attention was focused on individual tool types. It is not, in fact, impossible--although it is certainly not proved--that the technique developed in the preparation of the Levalloisian tortoise core (and the striking of the Levalloisian flake from it) might have followed through to the conical core and punch technique for the production of blades. Professor Garrod is much impressed with the speed of change during the later phases of the last glaciation, and its probable consequences. She speaks of “the greater number of industries having enough individual character to be classified as distinct ... since evolution now starts to outstrip diffusion.” Her “evolution” here is of course an industrial evolution rather than a biological one. Certainly the people of Europe had begun to make blade tools during the warm spell after the first phase of the last glaciation. By about 40,000 years ago blades were well established. The bones of the blade tool makers we’ve found so far indicate that anatomically modern men had now certainly appeared. Unfortunately, only a few fossil men have so far been found from the very beginning of the blade tool range in Europe (or elsewhere). What I certainly shall _not_ tell you is that conquering bands of fine, strong, anatomically modern men, armed with superior blade tools, came sweeping out of the East to exterminate the lowly Neanderthalers. Even if we don’t know exactly what happened, I’d lay a good bet it wasn’t that simple.

We do know a good deal about different blade industries in Europe. Almost all of them come from cave layers. There is a great deal of complication in what we find. The chart (p. 72) tries to simplify this complication; in fact, it doubtless simplifies it too much. But it may suggest all the complication of industries which is going on at this time. You will note that the upper portion of my much simpler chart (p. 65) covers the same material (in the section marked “Various Blade-Tool Industries”). That chart is certainly too simplified.

You will realize that all this complication comes not only from the fact that we are finding more material. It is due also to the increasing ability of men to adapt themselves to a great variety of situations. Their tools indicate this adaptiveness. We know there was a good deal of climatic change at this time. The plants and animals that men used for food were changing, too. The great variety of tools and industries we now find reflect these changes and the ability of men to keep up with the times. Now, for example, is the first time we are sure that there are tools to _make_ other tools. They also show men’s increasing ability to adapt themselves.

SPECIAL TYPES OF BLADE TOOLS

The most useful tools that appear at this time were made from blades.

1. The “backed” blade. This is a knife made of a flint blade, with
one edge purposely blunted, probably to save the user’s fingers
from being cut. There are several shapes of backed blades (p.
73).

2. The _burin_ or “graver.” The burin was the original chisel. Its
cutting edge is _transverse_, like a chisel’s. Some burins are
made like a screw-driver, save that burins are sharp. Others have
edges more like the blade of a chisel or a push plane, with
only one bevel. Burins were probably used to make slots in wood
and bone; that is, to make handles or shafts for other tools.
They must also be the tools with which much of the engraving on
bone (see p. 83) was done. There is a bewildering variety of
different kinds of burins.

3. The “tanged” point. These stone points were used to tip arrows or
light spears. They were made from blades, and they had a long tang
at the bottom where they were fixed to the shaft. At the place
where the tang met the main body of the stone point, there was
a marked “shoulder,” the beginnings of a barb. Such points had
either one or two shoulders.

4. The “notched” or “strangulated” blade. Along with the points for
arrows or light spears must go a tool to prepare the arrow or
spear shaft. Today, such a tool would be called a “draw-knife” or
a “spoke-shave,” and this is what the notched blades probably are.
Our spoke-shaves have sharp straight cutting blades and really
“shave.” Notched blades of flint probably scraped rather than cut.

5. The “awl,” “drill,” or “borer.” These blade tools are worked out
to a spike-like point. They must have been used for making holes
in wood, bone, shell, skin, or other things.

6. The “end-scraper on a blade” is a tool with one or both ends
worked so as to give a good scraping edge. It could have been used
to hollow out wood or bone, scrape hides, remove bark from trees,
and a number of other things (p. 78).

There is one very special type of flint tool, which is best known from western Europe in an industry called the Solutrean. These tools were usually made of blades, but the best examples are so carefully worked on both sides (bifacially) that it is impossible to see the original blade. This tool is

7. The “laurel leaf” point. Some of these tools were long and
dagger-like, and must have been used as knives or daggers. Others
were small, called “willow leaf,” and must have been mounted on
spear or arrow shafts. Another typical Solutrean tool is the
“shouldered” point. Both the “laurel leaf” and “shouldered” point
types are illustrated (see above and p. 79).

The industries characterized by tools in the blade tradition also yield some flake and core tools. We will end this list with two types of tools that appear at this time. The first is made of a flake; the second is a core tool.

8. The “keel-shaped round scraper” is usually small and quite round,
and has had chips removed up to a peak in the center. It is called
“keel-shaped” because it is supposed to look (when upside down)
like a section through a boat. Actually, it looks more like a tent
or an umbrella. Its outer edges are sharp all the way around, and
it was probably a general purpose scraping tool (see illustration,
p. 81).

9. The “keel-shaped nosed scraper” is a much larger and heavier tool
than the round scraper. It was made on a core with a flat bottom,
and has one nicely worked end or “nose.” Such tools are usually
large enough to be easily grasped, and probably were used like
push planes (see illustration, p. 81).

The stone tools (usually made of flint) we have just listed are among the most easily recognized blade tools, although they show differences in detail at different times. There are also many other kinds. Not all of these tools appear in any one industry at one time. Thus the different industries shown in the chart (p. 72) each have only some of the blade tools we’ve just listed, and also a few flake tools. Some industries even have a few core tools. The particular types of blade tools appearing in one cave layer or another, and the frequency of appearance of the different types, tell which industry we have in each layer.

OTHER KINDS OF TOOLS

By this time in Europe--say from about 40,000 to about 10,000 years ago--we begin to find other kinds of material too. Bone tools begin to appear. There are knives, pins, needles with eyes, and little double-pointed straight bars of bone that were probably fish-hooks. The fish-line would have been fastened in the center of the bar; when the fish swallowed the bait, the bar would have caught cross-wise in the fish’s mouth.

One quite special kind of bone tool is a long flat point for a light spear. It has a deep notch cut up into the breadth of its base, and is called a “split-based bone point” (p. 82). We know examples of bone beads from these times, and of bone handles for flint tools. Pierced teeth of some animals were worn as beads or pendants, but I am not sure that elks’ teeth were worn this early. There are even spool-shaped “buttons” or toggles.

Antler came into use for tools, especially in central and western Europe. We do not know the use of one particular antler tool that has a large hole bored in one end. One suggestion is that it was a thong-stropper used to strop or work up hide thongs (see illustration, below); another suggestion is that it was an arrow-shaft straightener.

Another interesting tool, usually of antler, is the spear-thrower, which is little more than a stick with a notch or hook on one end. The hook fits into the butt end of the spear, and the length of the spear-thrower allows you to put much more power into the throw (p. 82). It works on pretty much the same principle as the sling.

Very fancy harpoons of antler were also made in the latter half of the period in western Europe. These harpoons had barbs on one or both sides and a base which would slip out of the shaft (p. 82). Some have engraved decoration.

THE BEGINNING OF ART

In western Europe, at least, the period saw the beginning of several kinds of art work. It is handy to break the art down into two great groups: the movable art, and the cave paintings and sculpture. The movable art group includes the scratchings, engravings, and modeling which decorate tools and weapons. Knives, stroppers, spear-throwers, harpoons, and sometimes just plain fragments of bone or antler are often carved. There is also a group of large flat pebbles which seem almost to have served as sketch blocks. The surfaces of these various objects may show animals, or rather abstract floral designs, or geometric designs.

Some of the movable art is not done on tools. The most remarkable examples of this class are little figures of women. These women seem to be pregnant, and their most female characteristics are much emphasized. It is thought that these “Venus” or “Mother-goddess” figurines may be meant to show the great forces of nature--fertility and the birth of life.

CAVE PAINTINGS

In the paintings on walls and ceilings of caves we have some examples that compare with the best art of any time. The subjects were usually animals, the great cold-weather beasts of the end of the Ice Age: the mammoth, the wooly rhinoceros, the bison, the reindeer, the wild horse, the bear, the wild boar, and wild cattle. As in the movable art, there are different styles in the cave art. The really great cave art is pretty well restricted to southern France and Cantabrian (northwestern) Spain.

There are several interesting things about the “Franco-Cantabrian” cave art. It was done deep down in the darkest and most dangerous parts of the caves, although the men lived only in the openings of caves. If you think what they must have had for lights--crude lamps of hollowed stone have been found, which must have burned some kind of oil or grease, with a matted hair or fiber wick--and of the animals that may have lurked in the caves, you’ll understand the part about danger. Then, too, we’re sure the pictures these people painted were not simply to be looked at and admired, for they painted one picture right over other pictures which had been done earlier. Clearly, it was the _act_ of _painting_ that counted. The painter had to go way down into the most mysterious depths of the earth and create an animal in paint. Possibly he believed that by doing this he gained some sort of magic power over the same kind of animal when he hunted it in the open air. It certainly doesn’t look as if he cared very much about the picture he painted--as a finished product to be admired--for he or somebody else soon went down and painted another animal right over the one he had done.

The cave art of the Franco-Cantabrian style is one of the great artistic achievements of all time. The subjects drawn are almost always the larger animals of the time: the bison, wild cattle and horses, the wooly rhinoceros, the mammoth, the wild boar, and the bear. In some of the best examples, the beasts are drawn in full color and the paintings are remarkably alive and charged with energy. They come from the hands of men who knew the great animals well--knew the feel of their fur, the tremendous drive of their muscles, and the danger one faced when he hunted them.

Another artistic style has been found in eastern Spain. It includes lively drawings, often of people hunting with bow and arrow. The East Spanish art is found on open rock faces and in rock-shelters. It is less spectacular and apparently more recent than the Franco-Cantabrian cave art.

LIFE AT THE END OF THE ICE AGE IN EUROPE

Life in these times was probably as good as a hunter could expect it to be. Game and fish seem to have been plentiful; berries and wild fruits probably were, too. From France to Russia, great pits or piles of animal bones have been found. Some of this killing was done as our Plains Indians killed the buffalo--by stampeding them over steep river banks or cliffs. There were also good tools for hunting, however. In western Europe, people lived in the openings of caves and under overhanging rocks. On the great plains of eastern Europe, very crude huts were being built, half underground. The first part of this time must have been cold, for it was the middle and end phases of the last great glaciation. Northern Europe from Scotland to Scandinavia, northern Germany and Russia, and also the higher mountains to the south, were certainly covered with ice. But people had fire, and the needles and tools that were used for scraping hides must mean that they wore clothing.

It is clear that men were thinking of a great variety of things beside the tools that helped them get food and shelter. Such burials as we find have more grave-gifts than before. Beads and ornaments and often flint, bone, or antler tools are included in the grave, and sometimes the body is sprinkled with red ochre. Red is the color of blood, which means life, and of fire, which means heat. Professor Childe wonders if the red ochre was a pathetic attempt at magic--to give back to the body the heat that had gone from it. But pathetic or not, it is sure proof that these people were already moved by death as men still are moved by it.

Their art is another example of the direction the human mind was taking. And when I say human, I mean it in the fullest sense, for this is the time in which fully modern man has appeared. On page 34, we spoke of the Cro-Magnon group and of the Combe Capelle-Brünn group of Caucasoids and of the Grimaldi “Negroids,” who are no longer believed to be Negroid. I doubt that any one of these groups produced most of the achievements of the times. It’s not yet absolutely sure which particular group produced the great cave art. The artists were almost certainly a blend of several (no doubt already mixed) groups. The pair of Grimaldians were buried in a grave with a sprinkling of red ochre, and were provided with shell beads and ornaments and with some blade tools of flint. Regardless of the different names once given them by the human paleontologists, each of these groups seems to have shared equally in the cultural achievements of the times, for all that the archeologists can say.

MICROLITHS

One peculiar set of tools seems to serve as a marker for the very last phase of the Ice Age in southwestern Europe. This tool-making habit is also found about the shore of the Mediterranean basin, and it moved into northern Europe as the last glaciation pulled northward. People began making blade tools of very small size. They learned how to chip very slender and tiny blades from a prepared core. Then they made these little blades into tiny triangles, half-moons (“lunates”), trapezoids, and several other geometric forms. These little tools are called “microliths.” They are so small that most of them must have been fixed in handles or shafts.

BLADE FRAGMENT
BURIN
LUNATE
TRAPEZOID
SCALENE TRIANGLE
ARROWHEAD]

We have found several examples of microliths mounted in shafts. In northern Europe, where their use soon spread, the microlithic triangles or lunates were set in rows down each side of a bone or wood point. One corner of each little triangle stuck out, and the whole thing made a fine barbed harpoon. In historic times in Egypt, geometric trapezoidal microliths were still in use as arrowheads. They were fastened--broad end out--on the end of an arrow shaft. It seems queer to give an arrow a point shaped like a “T.” Actually, the little points were very sharp, and must have pierced the hides of animals very easily. We also think that the broader cutting edge of the point may have caused more bleeding than a pointed arrowhead would. In hunting fleet-footed animals like the gazelle, which might run for miles after being shot with an arrow, it was an advantage to cause as much bleeding as possible, for the animal would drop sooner.

We are not really sure where the microliths were first invented. There is some evidence that they appear early in the Near East. Their use was very common in northwest Africa but this came later. The microlith makers who reached south Russia and central Europe possibly moved up out of the Near East. Or it may have been the other way around; we simply don’t yet know.

Remember that the microliths we are talking about here were made from carefully prepared little blades, and are often geometric in outline. Each microlithic industry proper was made up, in good part, of such tiny blade tools. But there were also some normal-sized blade tools and even some flake scrapers, in most microlithic industries. I emphasize this bladelet and the geometric character of the microlithic industries of the western Old World, since there has sometimes been confusion in the matter. Sometimes small flake chips, utilized as minute pointed tools, have been called “microliths.” They may be _microlithic_ in size in terms of the general meaning of the word, but they do not seem to belong to the sub-tradition of the blade tool preparation habits which we have been discussing here.

LATER BLADE-TOOL INDUSTRIES OF THE NEAR EAST AND AFRICA

The blade-tool industries of normal size we talked about earlier spread from Europe to central Siberia. We noted that blade tools were made in western Asia too, and early, although Professor Garrod is no longer sure that the whole tradition originated in the Near East. If you look again at my chart (p. 72) you will note that in western Asia I list some of the names of the western European industries, but with the qualification “-like” (for example, “Gravettian-like”). The western Asiatic blade-tool industries do vaguely recall some aspects of those of western Europe, but we would probably be better off if we used completely local names for them. The “Emiran” of my chart is such an example; its industry includes a long spike-like blade point which has no western European counterpart.

When we last spoke of Africa (p. 66), I told you that stone tools there were continuing in the Levalloisian flake tradition, and were becoming smaller. At some time during this process, two new tool types appeared in northern Africa: one was the Aterian point with a tang (p. 67), and the other was a sort of “laurel leaf” point, called the “Sbaikian.” These two tool types were both produced from flakes. The Sbaikian points, especially, are roughly similar to some of the Solutrean points of Europe. It has been suggested that both the Sbaikian and Aterian points may be seen on their way to France through their appearance in the Spanish cave deposits of Parpallo, but there is also a rival “pre-Solutrean” in central Europe. We still do not know whether there was any contact between the makers of these north African tools and the Solutrean tool-makers. What does seem clear is that the blade-tool tradition itself arrived late in northern Africa.

NETHER AFRICA

Blade tools and “laurel leaf” points and some other probably late stone tool types also appear in central and southern Africa. There are geometric microliths on bladelets and even some coarse pottery in east Africa. There is as yet no good way of telling just where these items belong in time; in broad geological terms they are “late.” Some people have guessed that they are as early as similar European and Near Eastern examples, but I doubt it. The makers of small-sized Levalloisian flake tools occupied much of Africa until very late in time.

THE FAR EAST

India and the Far East still seem to be going their own way. In India, some blade tools have been found. These are not well dated, save that we believe they must be post-Pleistocene. In the Far East it looks as if the old chopper-tool tradition was still continuing. For Burma, Dr. Movius feels this is fairly certain; for China he feels even more certain. Actually, we know very little about the Far East at about the time of the last glaciation. This is a shame, too, as you will soon agree.

THE NEW WORLD BECOMES INHABITED

At some time toward the end of the last great glaciation--almost certainly after 20,000 years ago--people began to move over Bering Strait, from Asia into America. As you know, the American Indians have been assumed to be basically Mongoloids. New studies of blood group types make this somewhat uncertain, but there is no doubt that the ancestors of the American Indians came from Asia.

The stone-tool traditions of Europe, Africa, the Near and Middle East, and central Siberia, did _not_ move into the New World. With only a very few special or late exceptions, there are _no_ core-bifaces, flakes, or blade tools of the Old World. Such things just haven’t been found here.

This is why I say it’s a shame we don’t know more of the end of the chopper-tool tradition in the Far East. According to Weidenreich, the Mongoloids were in the Far East long before the end of the last glaciation. If the genetics of the blood group types do demand a non-Mongoloid ancestry for the American Indians, who else may have been in the Far East 25,000 years ago? We know a little about the habits for making stone tools which these first people brought with them, and these habits don’t conform with those of the western Old World. We’d better keep our eyes open for whatever happened to the end of the chopper-tool tradition in northern China; already there are hints that it lasted late there. Also we should watch future excavations in eastern Siberia. Perhaps we shall find the chopper-tool tradition spreading up that far.

THE NEW ERA

Perhaps it comes in part from the way I read the evidence and perhaps in part it is only intuition, but I feel that the materials of this chapter suggest a new era in the ways of life. Before about 40,000 years ago, people simply “gathered” their food, wandering over large areas to scavenge or to hunt in a simple sort of way. But here we have seen them “settling-in” more, perhaps restricting themselves in their wanderings and adapting themselves to a given locality in more intensive ways. This intensification might be suggested by the word “collecting.” The ways of life we described in the earlier chapters were “food-gathering” ways, but now an era of “food-collecting” has begun. We shall see further intensifications of it in the next chapter.

End and PRELUDE

Up to the end of the last glaciation, we prehistorians have a relatively comfortable time schedule. The farther back we go the less exact we can be about time and details. Elbow-room of five, ten, even fifty or more thousands of years becomes available for us to maneuver in as we work backward in time. But now our story has come forward to the point where more exact methods of dating are at hand. The radioactive carbon method reaches back into the span of the last glaciation. There are other methods, developed by the geologists and paleobotanists, which supplement and extend the usefulness of the radioactive carbon dates. And, happily, as our means of being more exact increases, our story grows more exciting. There are also more details of culture for us to deal with, which add to the interest.

CHANGES AT THE END OF THE ICE AGE

The last great glaciation of the Ice Age was a two-part affair, with a sub-phase at the end of the second part. In Europe the last sub-phase of this glaciation commenced somewhere around 15,000 years ago. Then the glaciers began to melt back, for the last time. Remember that Professor Antevs (p. 19) isn’t sure the Ice Age is over yet! This melting sometimes went by fits and starts, and the weather wasn’t always changing for the better; but there was at least one time when European weather was even better than it is now.

The melting back of the glaciers and the weather fluctuations caused other changes, too. We know a fair amount about these changes in Europe. In an earlier chapter, we said that the whole Ice Age was a matter of continual change over long periods of time. As the last glaciers began to melt back some interesting things happened to mankind.

In Europe, along with the melting of the last glaciers, geography itself was changing. Britain and Ireland had certainly become islands by 5000 B.C. The Baltic was sometimes a salt sea, sometimes a large fresh-water lake. Forests began to grow where the glaciers had been, and in what had once been the cold tundra areas in front of the glaciers. The great cold-weather animals--the mammoth and the wooly rhinoceros--retreated northward and finally died out. It is probable that the efficient hunting of the earlier people of 20,000 or 25,000 to about 12,000 years ago had helped this process along (see p. 86). Europeans, especially those of the post-glacial period, had to keep changing to keep up with the times.

The archeological materials for the time from 10,000 to 6000 B.C. seem simpler than those of the previous five thousand years. The great cave art of France and Spain had gone; so had the fine carving in bone and antler. Smaller, speedier animals were moving into the new forests. New ways of hunting them, or ways of getting other food, had to be found. Hence, new tools and weapons were necessary. Some of the people who moved into northern Germany were successful reindeer hunters. Then the reindeer moved off to the north, and again new sources of food had to be found.

THE READJUSTMENTS COMPLETED IN EUROPE

After a few thousand years, things began to look better. Or at least we can say this: By about 6000 B.C. we again get hotter archeological materials. The best of these come from the north European area: Britain, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, north Germany, southern Norway and Sweden. Much of this north European material comes from bogs and swamps where it had become water-logged and has kept very well. Thus we have much more complete _assemblages_[4] than for any time earlier.

[4] “Assemblage” is a useful word when there are different kinds of
archeological materials belonging together, from one area and of
one time. An assemblage is made up of a number of “industries”
(that is, all the tools in chipped stone, all the tools in
bone, all the tools in wood, the traces of houses, etc.) and
everything else that manages to survive, such as the art, the
burials, the bones of the animals used as food, and the traces
of plant foods; in fact, everything that has been left to us
and can be used to help reconstruct the lives of the people to
whom it once belonged. Our own present-day “assemblage” would be
the sum total of all the objects in our mail-order catalogues,
department stores and supply houses of every sort, our churches,
our art galleries and other buildings, together with our roads,
canals, dams, irrigation ditches, and any other traces we might
leave of ourselves, from graves to garbage dumps. Not everything
would last, so that an archeologist digging us up--say 2,000
years from now--would find only the most durable items in our
assemblage.

The best known of these assemblages is the _Maglemosian_, named after a great Danish peat-swamp where much has been found.

CHIPPED STONE
HEMP
GROUND STONE
BONE AND ANTLER
WOOD]

In the Maglemosian assemblage the flint industry was still very important. Blade tools, tanged arrow points, and burins were still made, but there were also axes for cutting the trees in the new forests. Moreover, the tiny microlithic blades, in a variety of geometric forms, are also found. Thus, a specialized tradition that possibly began east of the Mediterranean had reached northern Europe. There was also a ground stone industry; some axes and club-heads were made by grinding and polishing rather than by chipping. The industries in bone and antler show a great variety of tools: axes, fish-hooks, fish spears, handles and hafts for other tools, harpoons, and clubs. A remarkable industry in wood has been preserved. Paddles, sled runners, handles for tools, and bark floats for fish-nets have been found. There are even fish-nets made of plant fibers. Canoes of some kind were no doubt made. Bone and antler tools were decorated with simple patterns, and amber was collected. Wooden bows and arrows are found.

It seems likely that the Maglemosian bog finds are remains of summer camps, and that in winter the people moved to higher and drier regions. Childe calls them the “Forest folk”; they probably lived much the same sort of life as did our pre-agricultural Indians of the north central states. They hunted small game or deer; they did a great deal of fishing; they collected what plant food they could find. In fact, their assemblage shows us again that remarkable ability of men to adapt themselves to change. They had succeeded in domesticating the dog; he was still a very wolf-like dog, but his long association with mankind had now begun. Professor Coon believes that these people were direct descendants of the men of the glacial age and that they had much the same appearance. He believes that most of the Ice Age survivors still extant are living today in the northwestern European area.

SOUTH AND CENTRAL EUROPE PERHAPS AS READJUSTED AS THE NORTH

There is always one trouble with things that come from areas where preservation is exceptionally good: The very quantity of materials in such an assemblage tends to make things from other areas look poor and simple, although they may not have been so originally at all. The assemblages of the people who lived to the south of the Maglemosian area may also have been quite large and varied; but, unfortunately, relatively little of the southern assemblages has lasted. The water-logged sites of the Maglemosian area preserved a great deal more. Hence the Maglemosian itself _looks_ quite advanced to us, when we compare it with the few things that have happened to last in other areas. If we could go back and wander over the Europe of eight thousand years ago, we would probably find that the peoples of France, central Europe, and south central Russia were just as advanced as those of the north European-Baltic belt.

South of the north European belt the hunting-food-collecting peoples were living on as best they could during this time. One interesting group, which seems to have kept to the regions of sandy soil and scrub forest, made great quantities of geometric microliths. These are the materials called _Tardenoisian_. The materials of the “Forest folk” of France and central Europe generally are called _Azilian_; Dr. Movius believes the term might best be restricted to the area south of the Loire River.

HOW MUCH REAL CHANGE WAS THERE?

You can see that no really _basic_ change in the way of life has yet been described. Childe sees the problem that faced the Europeans of 10,000 to 3000 B.C. as a problem in readaptation to the post-glacial forest environment. By 6000 B.C. some quite successful solutions of the problem--like the Maglemosian--had been made. The upsets that came with the melting of the last ice gradually brought about all sorts of changes in the tools and food-getting habits, but the people themselves were still just as much simple hunters, fishers, and food-collectors as they had been in 25,000 B.C. It could be said that they changed just enough so that they would not have to change. But there is a bit more to it than this.

Professor Mathiassen of Copenhagen, who knows the archeological remains of this time very well, poses a question. He speaks of the material as being neither rich nor progressive, in fact “rather stagnant,” but he goes on to add that the people had a certain “receptiveness” and were able to adapt themselves quickly when the next change did come. My own understanding of the situation is that the “Forest folk” made nothing as spectacular as had the producers of the earlier Magdalenian assemblage and the Franco-Cantabrian art. On the other hand, they _seem_ to have been making many more different kinds of tools for many more different kinds of tasks than had their Ice Age forerunners. I emphasize “seem” because the preservation in the Maglemosian bogs is very complete; certainly we cannot list anywhere near as many different things for earlier times as we did for the Maglemosians (p. 94). I believe this experimentation with all kinds of new tools and gadgets, this intensification of adaptiveness (p. 91), this “receptiveness,” even if it is still only pointed toward hunting, fishing, and food-collecting, is an important thing.

Remember that the only marker we have handy for the _beginning_ of this tendency toward “receptiveness” and experimentation is the little microlithic blade tools of various geometric forms. These, we saw, began before the last ice had melted away, and they lasted on in use for a very long time. I wish there were a better marker than the microliths but I do not know of one. Remember, too, that as yet we can only use the microliths as a marker in Europe and about the Mediterranean.

CHANGES IN OTHER AREAS?

All this last section was about Europe. How about the rest of the world when the last glaciers were melting away?

We simply don’t know much about this particular time in other parts of the world except in Europe, the Mediterranean basin and the Middle East. People were certainly continuing to move into the New World by way of Siberia and the Bering Strait about this time. But for the greater part of Africa and Asia, we do not know exactly what was happening. Some day, we shall no doubt find out; today we are without clear information.

REAL CHANGE AND PRELUDE IN THE NEAR EAST

The appearance of the microliths and the developments made by the “Forest folk” of northwestern Europe also mark an end. They show us the terminal phase of the old food-collecting way of life. It grows increasingly clear that at about the same time that the Maglemosian and other “Forest folk” were adapting themselves to hunting, fishing, and collecting in new ways to fit the post-glacial environment, something completely new was being made ready in western Asia.

Unfortunately, we do not have as much understanding of the climate and environment of the late Ice Age in western Asia as we have for most of Europe. Probably the weather was never so violent or life quite so rugged as it was in northern Europe. We know that the microliths made their appearance in western Asia at least by 10,000 B.C. and possibly earlier, marking the beginning of the terminal phase of food-collecting. Then, gradually, we begin to see the build-up towards the first _basic change_ in human life.

This change amounted to a revolution just as important as the Industrial Revolution. In it, men first learned to domesticate plants and animals. They began _producing_ their food instead of simply gathering or collecting it. When their food-production became reasonably effective, people could and did settle down in village-farming communities. With the appearance of the little farming villages, a new way of life was actually under way. Professor Childe has good reason to speak of the “food-producing revolution,” for it was indeed a revolution.

QUESTIONS ABOUT CAUSE

We do not yet know _how_ and _why_ this great revolution took place. We are only just beginning to put the questions properly. I suspect the answers will concern some delicate and subtle interplay between man and nature. Clearly, both the level of culture and the natural condition of the environment must have been ready for the great change, before the change itself could come about.