Chapter VI: The Cro-Magnon Race

The evidence of the rocks points rather definitely to a clash between the Cro-Magnons and the Neanderthals. There are places, such as the valley of the Somme, where early Aurignacian retouched stones, probably of Cro-Magnon working, appear below a layer of the latest Mousterian implements, typical of the Neanderthals. The same is true of other stations. This indicates that the Cro-Magnons held the station, temporarily abandoned it to the Neanderthals and then repossessed themselves of it.

A brief resume of the history of the stone implements will throw light upon the problem. Of industrial and domestic implements, the Pre-Chellean culture had the planing tool, scraper, borer, knife, and hammer stone. The Chellean added to these the _coup de poing_, or hand-stone, with its varied uses. The Acheulean brought this tool to perfection, and added the chopper; the Mousterian added nothing, but perfected the scraper. In the Upper Old Stone Age, chopper and hand-stone disappear; the anvil stone comes in, and disappears after the Azilian, while the others continue. The Solutrean adds the polisher, the Magdalenean supplements with the lamp and the mortar. This is the story in brief of the industrial implements.

Of weapons of war and the chase, the Pre-Chellean begins only with the knife. The Chellean adds the hand-stone as a hand-axe and dagger; the Acheulean brings on the throwing-stone and the point; these are all appearing in the Lower Old Stone Age. In the Upper division, the hand-stone disappears, while the Aurignacian includes the lance or lance-knife, and the lance-head; the Magdalenean for the first time shows the arrow point. Only the arrow-point and the knife persist in the later stages of the Upper Old Stone Age.

No implements of art, sculpture, or engraving appear in the lower divisions of the Paleolithic. Beginning with the Aurignacian, the drill, the chisel, the etching tool, and the graver appear, and continue until the end of the Old Stone Age.

Bone implements are not found until the Mousterian, when we have the anvil and the awl. The Aurignacian brings in bone blades, javelin points, spear points, needles, smoothers, wedges, chisel, and the ceremonial staff; the Solutrean adds the dagger, fishhook, and harpoon; the Magdalenean has the spear-thrower, shuttle, pin and wand. These taper off at the end of the Paleolithic.

One of the chief sources of the change which swept over western Europe was in the increased brain power of the Cro-Magnons, especially in the development of the almost modern forehead and forebrain. Their brains were capable of ideas, of reasoning, of imagination; they were more highly endowed artistically than any uncivilized race which has ever been discovered. The Neanderthals, except in the slow development of symmetry in their implements, seem to have lacked the artistic instinct entirely; the Cro-Magnon artistic capacity was nearly as great as that of the modern races. They were apparently capable of advanced education; had a developed aesthetic and religious sense; and were organized into highly specialized communities.

One interesting thing about the Europe of the Upper Old Stone Age is that there were at least five differing races in it at the same time. There were, first, the Grimaldi negroids; secondly, the Cro-Magnons, noted for their artistic ability; thirdly, the Brunn race, probably entering Europe directly from Asia through Hungary; fourthly, a long-headed race with a narrow face, perhaps forerunners of the Neolithic or polished stone invasion; fifthly, the Furfooz or Grenelle race, very broad-headed, entering Europe probably from central Asia, bringing the Azilian industry already developed. There may have been other races. All of this happened in the last 25,000 years.

During Aurignacian times, France was still connected with England by a broad land highway; the British Isles were united to each other. The Aurignacian life, which was chiefly Cro-Magnon, centered in grottoes or caverns. Throughout western Europe the climate was still dry and chilly; in the Postglacial period, now commencing, there were three Postglacial advances of the Alps ice-caps, although there was no great glacial period. In addition to the caverns, there were a few notorious open camps, such as the one at Solutre, the famous hunting station for wild horse, which gave its name to the Solutrean culture. The remains of 100,000 skeletons of horses have been located here. These wild horses here and elsewhere were not bred and reared by men, as far as the evidence goes; they were hunted for food. It was the far East, not Europe, which discovered that the horse could be used as a beast of burden.

In 1823 the first Cro-Magnon skeleton was discovered, in the Paviland cave, in western Wales. The bones were stained red. This was long called the “Red Lady”; it is identified now as a Cro-Magnon male. In 1852, seventeen skeletons were discovered at Aurignac, in France; these gave the name to the culture. In 1868, in Cro-Magnon, in the Dordogne, France, portions of five skeletons were unearthed; these gave the name to the race. A number of subsequent discoveries have been made, including the fourteen skeletons in the Grimaldi grottoes. The race was exceptionally tall; the face was broad, the eye-orbits long and narrow; the skull was long and large, with marked brain capacity, indicating that here was a high racial type belonging to _Homo sapiens_. The head is disharmonic, that is, long and at the same time broad across the face. The upper part of the face is almost vertical, as in modern races. The men of this race varied from 5 feet 11 inches to 6 feet 4; the women were noticeably shorter. With an average male height well over six feet, it may well be said that “there were giants in those days.” The shin-bones were long, indicating fleetness of foot. The flattened form of this bone indicates that the men were used to squatting, while engaged in industrial occupations. The long leg and strong thigh bone are both typical of a hunting race. The shoulders were broad, the arms relatively short. The race, with a cranial capacity averaging 1,800 c. cm., was one of the finest that the world has ever seen. The appearance of the face most resembles tribes living today north and south of the Himalayas. The characteristics were definitely Asiatic rather than African.

In 1909 O. Hauser discovered, in the shelter of Combe-Capelle, a skeleton which has been called the Aurignacian man. The height is only 5 feet 3 inches. In many characteristics it resembles the Cro-Magnon; and, until further evidence is adduced, it may be best included as a transition type of the Cro-Magnons.

The burial customs during the Aurignacian times were decidedly quaint. The use of color to paint the skeletons, as in the Paviland skeleton found in Wales, is characteristic. The Grimaldi infant skeletons are not colored, but are accompanied by a vast number of small perforated shells, evidently forming a sort of burial mantle. The female skeleton here was wrapped in a bed of unperforated shells; the legs were extended, the arms stretched beside the body. One of the large male skeletons had legs extended and arms folded, and was decorated with a crown of perforated shells. Another rested on its left side, with the limbs slightly flexed, the forearm folded, and the head decorated with a circle of perforated stones colored red. Other skeletons have been found in a layer of red earth containing iron; two of these skeletons rest on the left side, the limbs extended or slightly flexed, and with shells in abundance surrounding the forehead, chest, and one limb. The ornaments, weapons, and, in some cases, food placed beside these bodies, indicated some sort of belief in survival of existence. The use of color points to its probable use as a decoration for the bodies while alive.

The Aurignacian marks the beginning of definite art. The art products of this and succeeding ages range from the primitive mammoth, painted in red ochre in the cavern of Pindal, showing only two limbs, to the exquisite tinted bisons on the ceiling of Altamira, Spain, representing a high stage of art, in which four colors were used. There were drawings in all stages of completion, and carved figurines in talc, limestone, and, soapstone. Elaborate carvings were made on reindeer horn. Human skulls were shaped into drinking cups. There is a marked similarity between the human figures and primitive African art, which lends color to the theory that the Cro-Magnon people traveled along the north shore of Africa, bringing with them the Aurignacian industry, which may have been modified along the route by contact with African sources. Small carved figures similar to the Aurignacian, especially representations of the female form, are found in baked clay along the valley of the Nile. These figurines have in common the great development of the parts connected with maternity, and in some cases a headdress similar to early Egyptian art. There are many silhouettes of hands on the walls of these grottoes, of which a large number are mutilated in one or more fingers.

Above the Aurignacian culture came the Solutrean. In the west of Europe, during this period, were the Cro-Magnons; in the east, were the men of Brunn. In 1871 a skullcap was discovered at Brux, in Bohemia; in 1891 a skeleton, evidently belonging to the same race, was discovered at Brunn, in Moravia, deeply embedded. These are of a much lower type than the Cro-Magnons; but, differing sharply from the Neanderthals, are entitled to be regarded as members of _Homo sapiens_. The Predmost “mammoth hunters,” remains of twenty of whom were excavated in 1880 in Moravia, also belong to this race. The Solutrean industry, carried on by both Brunn and Cro-Magnon men, brought to its highest development the art of chipping flints. The famous laurel-leaf points, thin and exquisitely shaped, are characteristic of this culture. This culture apparently came from the east, from Asia, just as the Aurignacian apparently entered Europe from the south, along the northern coast of Africa and the northern coast of the Mediterranean. In purely artistic work this period does not rank as high as the Aurignacian; the chief energy apparently went to the fashioning of flint weapons. At the same time, artistic advance can be discovered.

The Solutrean was succeeded by the Magdalenean period, the most fascinating of all the stages of the Old Stone Age. This period marks the height of Paleolithic civilization; it marks the crest of the development of the Cro-Magnons, prior to their sudden decline and disappearance as the dominant type in western Europe. The men of this time are commonly known as the Magdaleneans, taking their name from the typical culture station of La Madeleine, France. The period probably reached from 16,000 B.C. onward. There are elaborately decorated javelin points of bone, fitted for attachment to a wooden shaft. The art of the period is the culmination of the art begun in the Aurignacian and continued through the Solutrean. We find numberless representations both of individual animals and of herds. Most frequently the subjects chosen were the bison, mammoth, wild horse, reindeer, wild cattle, deer, and rhinoceros; less often the ibex, wild boar, and wolf appear; there are hardly ever pictures of fishes or of plant life. We find the lion and the bear, but not the hyena, now disappearing from Europe. The elaborate carved wands, made of reindeer horn, point to a tribal organization. It is possible that the tribesmen were specialized into chieftains, priests, and medicine men, hunters, fishermen, flintworkers, hide-dressers, makers of clothing and footwear, makers of ornaments, engravers, sculptors in wood, bone, ivory, and stone, artists with color and brush, and numerous other pursuits. A strong sense of truth animated their artistic work, as well as a distinct feeling for beauty.

The human remains of the time are predominantly Cro-Magnon, of a modified type. The height of the race has grown much less; this may have been due to the severe climatic conditions of the Postglacial Era. New features creep into the burial ceremony, such as the separation of the head from the body. Elaborate bone harpoons, at first barbed on one side only, later on both sides, have been found widespread. Flint blades with toothed edges, elaborate bone needles, are often located; but toward the end of the period, the workmanship of these degenerates. But no primitive art has touched the Magdalenean at its height. Herds are pictures, with detailed study of the first and last animal, and symbolic horns or heads for the remainder. There are elaborate frescoes, showing great processions of mammoths, bison, reindeer, and horse. The cavern of Altamira, in northern Spain, is in many ways the most remarkable of all the Magdalenean stations.

And then there was a sudden decline. We cannot with any certainty fix upon the cause; the psychic circle of growth, maturity, and decline, may have run its course. There is no distinct environmental alteration, which can be held responsible. The race did not disappear; it apparently broke up into many colonies, which can perhaps be traced through Neolithic and even recent times. The shape of the Cro-Magnon head, long and with a broad face, the type known as disharmonic, is still found in the region around Dordogne, France, today. These people are not degenerate in any particular; they are keen and alert. It is quite possible that these people of Dordogne today represent by far the oldest race living in western Europe; it is a significant fact that the oldest speech spoken in Europe, the Basque among the northern Pyrenees, is spoken near by, within two hundred miles. Authorities suggest a possible connection between the Basque language, different from all the other tongues of Europe, and the vanished language of the Cro-Magnons. Ripley suggests that it is not inconceivable that the ancestors of the Basques conquered the Cro-Magnons dwelling there, and took over in whole or in part their ancient speech.

Among other localities where the skulls resemble the Cro-Magnon are certain portions of Thuringia, and the recently extinct race of Guanches of the Canary Islands. Such skulls have been discovered in northern Africa, among living Berbers. But the chief centers of modern heads resembling the Cro-Magnons are the Dordogne region, at Landes near the Garonne in southern France, at Lannion in Brittany, where a third of the population are of the Cro-Magnon type, and on the island of Oleron off the west coast of France. Perhaps the inhabitants of Trysil, on the Scandinavian peninsula, who show the same disharmonic features, are an offshoot of the Cro-Magnons.

It may be worth while to look for a moment at the vanished Guanches of the Canary Islands, who were conquered by Spain in the 15th Century. The average height was over six feet for the males, and less for the females. The heads had points of resemblance to the Cro-Magnons. The offensive weapons in warfare consisted of three stones, a club, and several stone knives; the defensive weapon was a simple lance. They also used wooden swords with great skill. They lived in large, well-sheltered caverns, whose walls were always decorated. The ceilings were covered with red ochre, the sidewalls with various geometric designs in red, black, gray, and white. Hollowed-out stones served as lamps. Here is surely evidence of kinship to the vanished Cro-Magnons.