PALAEOLITHIC In 1836 Christien Thomsen suggested that human history could be divided into three main stages : the first during which metal was unknown and all tools, weapons, etc., were made of wood, stone, bone, antlers or ivory; a second when the smelt ing of copper and the hardening effect produced by alloying it with tin (that is the manufacture of bronze) had been discov ered and was practised; and finally the third when mankind had learned to prepare and work iron for all purposes.
We are here concerned with the earliest of these stages, gener ally known as the stone age, which is divided into a "dawn" or eolithic period, the old stone age (palaeolithic), the transitional (mesolithic), and the new stone age, or neolithic period.
In palaeolithic times men fashioned their stone tools exclusively by a chipping technique. The climatic conditions, too, were very dissimilar from those obtaining to-day, for this period coincided with the great ice age and geologically with Quaternary times. The mesolithic period commences with a complete change in climatic conditions and is intermediate between the end of the old stone age and the beginning of the new stone age, when agri culture, the domestication of animals and pottery making, had be gun to be understood, and when tools were often manufactured by a grinding and polishing technique.
Industry: An assemblage of artefacts at a given locality and of the same age.
Culture: The sum of the activities of the people as shown by their industries and other discoverable char acteristics.
Excavation and typological study have shown that the palaeo lithic period can be subdivided, there resulting a chronological sequence of cultures which show the different phases, through which mankind has passed. This sequence is obtained by studying the stratigraphy (q.v.) found in a large number of cave and rock shelter habitations. Naturally the cultures do not all occur uni versally. The best known sequence is that observed in western Europe, especially in France ; it is called the Archaeological Record and can be tabulated as over :— Each of the cultures can be further divided into a number of stages partly on stratigraphical and partly on typological grounds. These smaller divisions, however, need not concern us further. As to the climatic conditions prevailing during Quaternary times, whose effect on the contemporary cultures was profound, towards the end of the Tertiary period the climate of western Europe gradually became cold and a glacial period set in. There followed a succession of glacial maxima with warm intervals be tween. The number of these maxima is in dispute. Some authori ties claim that there were two (Bayer), others three (Boule), and the more orthodox school four (following Penck and Obermaier) . The latter have named the glaciations after four little rivers in the Alps. Giinz (the earliest), Mindel, Riss and Wurm. The inter vening warm periods are called Gfiinz-Mindel, Mindel-Riss and Riss-Wwrm respectively. After the last glaciation the tempera ture rose but then fell again, though not far enough to constitute a glacial epoch except in the north. This is known as the Buhl oscillation. From Buhl times onwards the climate definitely amel iorated. Even during the glacial maxima Europe was not entirely covered by ice sheets and the mean annual temperature was prob ably only a few degrees lower than at present. But near mountain masses existing glaciers were very large and swept out into the plains in such districts as southern and eastern France, while in northern England veritable ice sheets existed and huge glaciers flowed down the eastern side of the country reaching nearly as far as the Thames. Naturally these great changes in climate af fected the plant and animal life of Europe. For example, during a glacial maxima reindeer abounded and red deer were very rare; during an interglacial period the opposite was the case.
The correlation of the archaeological and geological records is naturally controversial. The Magdalenian culture, however, is clearly post-Wirrm, as at Schweizerbild, near Schaffhausen; Mag dalenian industries have been found in a deposit resting on a glacial moraine of Wurmian age. The Solutrean and Aurignacian cultures seem to be connected with some later phase of the Wurm glacia tion and the Mousterian in some areas with an early phase of Wurm, in others as early as a late phase of the Riss glaciation. On stratigraphical grounds the Acheulean and Chellean cultures precede the Mousterian. From a study of the animal bones found associated with these cultures it seems that the former occurred while moderate or cool conditions prevailed, while the latter, ap parently covering a long period of time, existed under various climatic conditions, Lower Palaeolithic Cultures.—The distribution of lower palaeolithic industries is nearly world-wide. It is therefore possi ble that in them we are dealing with one of the main features of human development. Naturally the age in time of the cultures is not the same in widely separated regions. We do not know exactly where the cradle of the cultures was. They apparently reached Europe from north Africa and are found all over the western part of the continent and in the British Isles up to somewhere about the latitude of Hull. Coups de poing, the pear-shaped chipped stone tools typical of these cultures, are frequently found in the gravels of many English rivers, especially in East Anglia. They are common in the valley of the Hampshire Avon and in the gravels of the upper terraces of the Thames valley, and have been found in the older gravels of the Severn in Gloucestershire. In France their classic place of origin is the Somme valley, whence they were discovered in the middle of the last century by Boucher de Perthes, and after an investigation in 1859 by Prestwich and Evans were accepted as contemporary with the gravels in which they were found. Prechellean implements, tools similar to but rougher than those of the succeeding cultures, are found in the upper gravels of the Somme valley, but one of the best places for finding industries of this description is in the Cromer forest bed at Cromer. Here they consist mainly of large irregular flakes. Many such flakes have been washed out of the deposit and can be readily picked up at low tide from the pebble sheets which are then ex posed on the beach. True Chellean industries yield many rough coups de poing, as well as rude borers and scrapers.
The animal remains most typically associated with them are those of a warmth-loving fauna, which includes Machairodus neogaeus (the sabre-toothed tiger), Hippopotamus amphibius, Elephas antiques and Rhinoceros merckii. The vegetable re mains include those of the fig tree and canary laurel; the mol luscs those of Corbicula fluminalis. In Acheulean industries the coups de poing are better made and an oval form known as the ovate develops. Also the "S" twist along the sides of the tools is found (FLINTS, q.v.). The fauna is a mixed warmth and cold loving one, indicating that a cool climate prevailed. It includes the Chellean fauna without the sabre-toothed tiger but with the addition of the Elephas primigenius (mammoth). Rhinoceros tichorhinus (woolly rhinoceros), etc. The Acheulean culture is quite evidently an autochthonous development from the Chellean in western Europe. At La Micoque small slender coups de poing occur, sometimes showing a large flake surface on the under side; though reindeer bones are not found in association, cold condi tions had set in and industries of this type are probably due to influences from the approaching Mousterian culture.
So far no skeletons have been discovered that can be ascribed with certainty to the lower palaeolithic cultures.
The famous Piltdown skull cannot unfortunately be dated ex actly, although in all probability it is of early Pleistocene age and would therefore be Prechellean. The equally well known Heidel berg jaw, found in the Mauer sands, is probably of the same age in time, but it must be connected on anatomical grounds with an early appearance of middle palaeolithic man.
The Middle Palaeolithic Culture.—The middle palaeolithic period is occupied only by the Mousterian culture which was brought into western Europe by the Neanderthal race, so named from a small valley near Dusseldorf, where a skull of peculiar type was found in 1856 which resembles several other skulls since discovered in association with Mousterian industries.
The Mousterian industries were first recognized in the French caves and occur there stratigraphically above the Acheulean. They are found associated with an Arctic fauna including Cervus tarandus (reindeer), Elephas primigenius (mammoth), Canis lagopus. L., etc. This epoch must then have coincided with the on-coming of a glacial period, and there is evidence to show that this was the last of the great glacial maxima. In central Europe where lower palaeolithic tools are rare their place is taken by what appear to be early prototypes of typical Mousterian tools, asso ciated with a warmth-loving fauna such as is found with Chellean industries in France. This early Mousterian also occurs in one or two instances in England, in Belgium and in northern France at Montieres, where it replaces the Acheulean. It would seem probable, then, that so far as western Europe is concerned, the Neanderthal folk arrived from central Europe, introducing the Mousterian culture. By the time the Dordogne district of France was reached the last glacial maximum was approaching. Whether the Mousterian culture developed in central Europe or was evolved still earlier elsewhere, merely sojourning for a time in central Europe until driven to migrate by the approach of cold condi tions, is not yet known. Its distribution is very wide, though per haps not quite as extensive as that of the lower palaeolithic cul tures. Typical industries have been found in Britain, France, Spain, north Africa, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Czechoslo vakia, Poland, Jugoslavia, Crimea, Siberia and perhaps China, Asia Minor and Palestine.
Typical tools found in Mousterian industries are the side scraper, the point, the levallois flake and tortoise core. As regards technique the tools are made from flakes, there being as a rule a faceted platform, and the secondary working edge shows "re solved" flaking (FLINTS, q.v.). In the case of the point, both edges are so trimmed that they intersect and form a sharp tip. The levallois flake is oval and its upper side boldly flaked to form a flat surface, the edges often being made even and sharp by some "resolved" flaking.
The Mousterian culture in France is subdivided into three stages. In the industries belonging to the earliest we find many reminders of the former Acheulean industries, there being a num bers of coups de poing, though generally small in size, neatly made and often triangular or slightly heart-shaped. In mid-Mousterian times the coups de poing become rare and the tools though them selves well made exhibit but few types. In upper Mousterian times the coups de poing cease, and we find for the most part only a monotonous series of small neatly made side-scrapers and points.
A fact of extraordinary interest is the occurrence as early as Mousterian times of ceremonial burial, which shows that the Mousterian must have had some definite ideas about death. At La Chapelle-aux-Saints a skeleton was found by itself in a small cave buried in a carefully prepared trench together with beauti fully made implements. No trace of any habitation was found at the site. This would clearly seem to indicate a careful burial. But at La Ferrassie the remains of a child were found in a trench be low a large rock artificially placed there, the surface of the rock itself being covered with carefully made cup markings, which must not be confused with cup and ring markings.
The skeletons of Mousterian man exhibit distinctive character istics. The skull have great beetling brows; the eyebrow ridges expand beyond the limits of the side of the head; the forehead is receding; the upper lip is long and the jaw is projecting and chin less. The thighs are curved and the arms long. It is questionable how far speech was possible, and casts of the inside of the skull exhibit a very simple form of brain. What has been said then as regards ceremonial burial becomes still more interesting. The more important Mousterian human remains are : a skull cap at Neanderthal, two skeletons at Spy (Belgium), a skeleton at La Chapelle-aux-Saints (Correze, France), a skull at La Quina (Char ente, France), and recently a skull at Galilee, Palestine, and the skull of the child at Gibraltar, the discovery of which helps to substantiate the find of a Neanderthal-like skull made there long ago, the exact details of which were lost.
Aurignacian times appear to be just subsequent to the last gla cial maxima of the great ice age, but cannot be dissociated from the glacial period. The fauna found with the industries remains cold-loving and the Pleistocene species still survive. The climatic conditions indicated by this fauna which includes the Cervus ta randus (reindeer), Elephas primigenius (mammoth), Rhinoceros tichorhinus (woolly rhinoceros), Canis lagopus (Arctic fox), Bos priscus (bison), Cervus elaphus (stag), Ursus arctos (brown bear), Ursus spelaeus (cave bear), etc., continued with smaller varia tions throughout upper palaeolithic times, the reindeer being es pecially prominent in Magdalenian times, which are therefore often known as the "reindeer age." Aurignacian Culture.—On grounds of stratigraphy (q.v.) and typology (q.v.) the Aurignacian period can be subdivided into five stages or more simply into an earlier middle and later phase. Tools belonging to the earliest phase appear in the latest Mousterian industries in the Dordogne. The older culture, how ever, is soon replaced by that of the new and develops in France into the rich middle Aurignacian, the tools of which often show a wonderful fluting technique difficult to copy even to-day. The last phase in France does not seem to be derived from this mid dle Aurignacian and may be due to a fresh migration perhaps from north Africa. Finally the Aurignacian culture was submerged by the Solutrean incursion, except in areas not reached by the new folk; where therefore the Aurignacians continued to develop undis turbed, such as in western Europe, the Pyrenees, the western foothills of the Alps, and England, though here in the south-west em and eastern regions a Solutrean influence, at any rate, seems to have been felt.
The tools of this period are quite unlike the Mousterian ones. Gone are the endless side-scrapers with "resolved" chipping. In stead we have beautifully made end-scrapers, keeled or otherwise, in which percussion flakes rise fanwise to a central point. Burins (q.v.) are numerous, and points having a sharp working edge and blunted back appear and develop. Sometimes there are double tools, a graver at one end and an end-scraper at the other, and also some bone tools among which the bone point with a split base is common in middle Aurignacian industries.
Ceremonial burial is known, the bodies being often buried in red ochre with beautifully made implements as well as ornaments and necklaces, sometimes made from sea shells, which must have been imported from a considerable distance. The skeletons are of more than one type, denoting either an intermixture of races or the development in situ in Europe or elsewhere of variations of the original stock. These variations, all covered by the generalized term "neoanthropic race" include Cro-Magnon man, Combe Capelle man and perhaps, too, the Grimaldi "infants," an old woman and young man, who are said to possess some negroid characteristics. They resemble modern man in many ways, and the characteristics especially associated with Neanderthal have disappeared.
Very few burials of undoubtedly Solutrean man have been made known. As has been suggested the Aurignacians probably continued to exist throughout the period and it is difficult in any one case to be sure that we are really dealing with a specimen be longing to the invading and dominating people. An interesting burial, however, has been discovered at Klause in Bavaria where a Solutrean skeleton was buried in red ochre which probably indi cates a ceremonial burial.
It was formerly stated on psychological grounds that sculpture must precede line engraving. But though sculpture is at first com moner than engraving, the latter is found from the earliest times.
It is doubtful whether Solutrean man practised any form of art, unless he was in contact with and influenced by the folk among whom he had penetrated, for little trace of it is found in Solutrean times. The "home" art is therefore divided into an Aurignacian and Magdalenian cycle. In the former the art is still crude though vigorous. Especially to be noted are the famous sculp tures representing human beings, generally known as "Venuses," found at Brassempouy (Landes), at Mentone, at Willendorf (lower Austria), at Unter Wisternitz (Moravia) and elsewhere. Other human figures in high relief come from Laussel. (Les Eyzies, Dordogne), one example depicts a steatopygous woman with a bison's horn raised aloft in her right hand. An engraving of a horse on a fragment of bone has been found in an Aurignacian in dustry at the cave of Hornos de la Pena (Cantabria). Painting, as might be expected, is rarely preserved in the "home" art, but at Sergeac (St. Leon, Dordogne) human hands were found painted in red on a piece of rock with a late Aurignacian industry.
In Magdalenian times the "home" art flourished exceedingly, and hundreds of sculptures, reliefs, bone silhouettes and engrav ings, representing animals, as well as geometric patterns have been discovered. Frequently tools, such as spear-throwers, spatulae, etc., were decorated. Painting, too, has been noted but is naturally but rarely preserved.
The Magdalenian culture was in a stage of rapid evolution, and great developments, therefore, took place in the styles and tech nique of the art. Not only can an improvement and an increased skill in the use of the burin be noted, but also certain types of geo metric patterns, etc., are made only at certain times.
The "home" art can therefore be utilized by the prehistorian in subdividing the Magdalenian period, with results which agree in a remarkable way with those obtained from analysis of the in dustries. In the course of the evolution of the art the increase in the conventionalization of animal figures depicted is interesting, and a study of the conventionalizations themselves forms an im portant investigation. Series can be found starting with natural istic representations of the animals and finishing with what ap pear to be mere patterns derived from them. Besides these "schematic" figures there are sometimes found what might be called "suggestion pictures." For example, in one case a herd of reindeer is depicted on a fragment of bone, but the first three and the last animals alone are reasonably well drawn, while be tween them are merely a number of engraved lines representing a forest of antlers.
The distribution of the "home" art in Magdalenian times is not perhaps quite so wide as it was in earlier Aurignacian days. This is to be expected ; the Magdalenian culture was essentially a western European, not to say a French product. In western Eu rope itself we find the Magdalenian "home" art commonly in the Dordogne, in the Pyrenees, and in Cantabria. Eastwards it occurs in the Jura and its influence can perhaps be traced in Moravia, but the culture to which the art there belongs appears to be an autochthonous development of the Aurignacian, contemporary with the Magdalenian of France. "Home" art has been rarely found in England ; the best known specimen is a poorly drawn fig ure of a horse which was found long ago at Cresswell Crags in Derbyshire.
The motives for this "home" art were probably many and va ried. In some instances no doubt pure decoration was the reason; in other cases it may have been due to a desire for self-expression among what undoubtedly must have been an artistic people. Again the artist may have wanted to make sketches from nature, to be elaborated later into cave masterpieces. Undoubtedly, too, the drawings were often made as amulets or to ensure efficacy to weapons thus decorated. This is in accord with what is often found among modern primitive peoples. A certain amount of evi dence exists to show that something in the nature of art schools must have been in existence. At a "home" like La Madeleine, for instance, only well made drawings and sculptures occur, but at Les Eyzies thousands of fragments of bone have been found, covered with attempts at drawing such as beginners would make.
The engravings were made with sharp flint tools called burins (q.v.), examples of which are very common in upper palaeolithic industries, though from their number it would seem that they can not have been exclusively used for this purpose. In one instance (Trois Freres) a burin was actually found lying on a projection from the cave wall just under an engraving of a lion. Doubtless when the artist had finished he laid down his tool and while sur veying his work, forgot it ; and there it remained for io,000 years or more.
The painting material, as a rule, consisted of mineral oxides; those of iron gave various shades of red, that of manganese a blue-black. Besides these oxides, carbonates of iron were utilized, giving colours ranging from yellow to dark orange, and finally burnt bones provided the artists with black, a more fugitive pig ment than that from the mineral oxides but sufficiently perma nent when not exposed to weathering action. The raw colours were pounded and mixed with fat ; bone paint tubes and palettes have actually been found in the industries. How the colours were ap plied is not actually known. Lamps which would be necessary in the darkness of the caves have been found hollowed out from a lump of stone, though a fragment of skull was often doubtless utilized for this purpose. The fuel was fat and the wick probably moss, as is the case with Eskimo lamps to-day. It must be remem bered that some of the caves are of great length and the paint ings often occur a long way underground; the necessity for a good light is obvious, as without illumination it would at times not be at all easy ever to find the exit.
The cave paintings are not all alike, nor of one age. They range in date from early Aurignacian to late Magdalenian times, though once again it is doubtful whether Solutrean man ever practised a pictorial art. A combination of the evidence obtained from strati graphical and typological considerations applied to the art has given us a chronological sequence comprising a number of differ ent styles and techniques. This has been mfde possible by the finding of a large number of painted palimpsests showing a se quence of different styles superimposed one upon another and by noting that whenever observed the sequence of the various styles is always the same. In this way four distinct phases, as they are called, of different age and assignable to definite cultures have been determined. Each of these phases shows a number of differ ent styles of drawing which do not differ much from one another in age and belong to the same culture. They of ten have a limited geographical distribution. The artistic progress was not always constant, and there is evidence for a considerable degeneration at one period.
Phase 1.—The engravings consist of meandering parallel lines and poorly drawn outlined figures of animals. Except towards the end of the phase only two legs are represented, the animals' bodies are depicted in profile, while the head is shown full face. The same is true of the paintings with the addition that representa tions of the human hand occur. Where it is a direct impress it is known as a positive hand ; where the hand has been placed on the cave wall and colour applied round it so that the surface of the wall is coloured, except where the hand actually was, it is known as a negative hand. Examples of both methods are known.
Phase 2.—The engravings show great progress ; no longer do we find merely a simple outline ; the figures of animals are vigor ous and very true to life. All the little details like the cloven hoof in the ox family and so on have been carefully remembered. An other style especially common in Cantabria has been recognized where the engraving is much finer and the whole body of the ani mal is filled in with fine lines. The result is perhaps a little less naturalistic, but none the less vigorous. The paintings, too, show very great improvement and two styles have been isolated, "stump drawing," the shading producing an effect of relief and a tech nique where the outlines of the animal figures are made by deli cate punctuations. Sculpture and reliefs are also known, and man's desire to obtain a figure in three dimensions is further ex emplified by his habit of making use of natural bosses of stalactite in the caves, more or less resembling the figures of animals, and painting on them such necessary details as horns, nostrils, hoofs, etc., so as to turn them into good representations of the animals desired.
Phase 3.—The engravings exhibit a certain falling off in vigour, though not in skill, but the paintings show great degeneration.
The fine shaded paintings of phase 2 are replaced by poor effects in silhouette or "flat wash," the figure being often first engraved and the colour applied afterwards in such a way that the "regis ter" is not exact. While the artist still took careful note of an atomical details, his painting of them was by no means always naturalistic.
By finding in the industries fragments of bone engraved in the same style, it is possible to correlate certain styles and therefore phases of the cave art with definite industries and therefore cul tures. Again certain styles of engravings have been found cov ered by deposits containing datable industries. The engravings must then be older than the deposit by which they are covered. By a combination of these two methods phase r can be assigned to the Aurignacian period, phase 2 to the lower Magdalenian, phase 3 to the middle Magdalenian, and phase 4 to the late Magdalenian cultures.
The drawings were almost certainly made for purposes of "sym pathetic magic." There are only two other possible explanations, namely that they were made for motives of decoration or self "expression." An examination of the circumstances in the caves disproves these two latter. Man never lived deep in the heart of the mountains where the paintings occur, and no trace of his in dustries is there found, so decoration of the "home" can be ruled out. Again not only do styles belonging to different phases, and therefore differing considerably in age, form palimpsests, but sometimes styles belonging to the same phase, and therefore not very different in time, occur one on top of another. The result is hardly decorative ! The occurrence of the art in obscure crannies difficult of access argues against the desire of expression explana tion ! On the other hand "sympathetic magic" offers a reasonable and likely motive, comparable with many of the manifestations of "sympathetic magic" that have been observed among modern primitive peoples. The underlying fundamental desire was food- a dire necessity in the case of a hunting people living under diffi cult conditions, and practising neither agriculture nor domestica tion of animals, and having only inferior weapons, and no means of storing food. Doubtless as with many modern primitive peoples pent-up emotion gave rise to ceremonial dances and the like ; but it would appear that part of the ritual consisted in taking the hunter into the long cave and then showing him pictures of ani mals, very often with an arrow represented in their sides, and then the sending him forth suggesting to him that he would likewise suc cessfully hunt and kill them. The weirdness of the caves must have induced a state of mind on which suggestion would work easily, and the officiating sorcerer would induce self-confidence in the hunter. And since in matters of the chase self-confidence is half the battle, the sorcerer's rites were no doubt quite effective. That at any rate, in Magdalenian times, the artist-sorcerers formed a definite class is probable ; similar changes in the phases take place simultaneously over wide areas, a fact which argues for definite schools of tradition; and further, a very interesting site has been discovered at Trois Freres (Montesquieu-Ariege, France), where there is a small chamber, with engraved walls which is dominated by a sort of pulpit, i2ft. from the ground and reached from behind, where no doubt the actual artist-medicine man-priest, stood. On the blank wall to the left is a representation of the sorcerer himself, showing a man masked with antlers of a stag and the tail of an ox or horse.
Another late palaeolithic art group is found covering the walls of rock shelters in eastern Spain. The best known sites are at Cogul near Lerida and Alpera. The whole appearance of this art is totally different from that with which we have been dealing. Scenes, rare in the former, are here common ; human beings, gen erally conventionalized, are frequent ; the bow and arrow is fig ured. Drawings of Quaternary animals, though known, are rare. Instead of occurring in long deep mysterious caves the paintings are found on the walls of shallow rock shelters, protected from the weather, as is shown by the absence of lichen growths on the walls where paintings have survived.
The motives underlying this eastern Spanish group are quite unknown. The places were not homes. but possibly sacred spots, where ritual practices took place. which had been decorated for much the same reason as many of our churches are ornamented. The numerous hunting scenes depicted seem to show, as might be expected. that the quest for food was a dominant considera tion. The situation in full daylight, however, is dissimilar to that of the cave paintings. and it would seem likely that the explana tions which there held good do not here apply.