The parietal art on the walls of the caverns, mostly deep engravings, consists of stiff profiles in single lines and in red or black coloring. The animals represented are the ibex, the horse, the bison, and rarely the mammoth. The caves where these are found are Pair-non-Pair, La Grèze, La Mouthe, Bernifal, Font-de-Gaume, Altamira, and Marsoulas. Crucibles for grinding the color are found in the grotto of Marsoulas, the color being made by grinding up the red and yellow oxides of iron.

The development of art during the whole Aurignacian is continuous and is undoubtedly the work of one race; Breuil considers it the work certainly either of the tall Crô-Magnons or of the small Grimaldis; there is, however, no evidence of the survival of the Grimaldi race, and we may safely attribute this entire art development to the Crô-Magnons.

The creative spirit manifested itself along many different lines. In the fashioning of bone in early Aurignacian times there begins a new industry capable of great possibilities; out of combinations of lines there develop geometric figures; in animal figures there is an attempt at simple symmetric relations, but a full, free composition is not attained. With further experience in working with bone and ivory, we find in the middle Aurignacian the first plastic representations of the human figure in the round.

The Crô-Magnon artist undertook this plastic work, choosing chiefly for his subject the female figure. These small plastic models were probably designed as idols; the figures are often misshapen; in the face the eyes frequently are not indicated at all; in some cases the ear is indicated; they recall the style of the modern cubists. More care is given to the sculpture of the form of the body than of the face. The ivory statue known as the Venus of Brassempouy lies at the base of the middle Aurignacian; of the same epoch are the female statuettes of Sireuil, and the torso from Pair-non-Pair, whereas the soapstone figurine of Mentone and the ivory statuettes of Trou Magrite, Belgium, belong to the late Aurignacian. The spread of these idols, which are altogether characteristic of the earlier period of the Upper Palæolithic, is traced eastward to Willendorf, Austria, and to Brünn, Moravia.

Breuil's great contention is a certain similarity to north African art, which would seem to agree with his theory that the Crô-Magnon people followed the southern shores of the Mediterranean, bringing with them the Aurignacian industry and the glyptic art of the female statuettes similar to those of baked clay which are found along the valley of the Nile. These figurines have in common the great development of all the parts connected with maternity, and in some cases a coiffure or head-dress very much like that found in the most primitive Egyptian work. The extreme corpulence of all the figurines has been compared with the 'steatopygy,' or development of what are politely known as the 'posterior curves,' of the female in many African races. But only one of these Aurignacian figurines is truly 'steatopygous'; the others are simply corpulent, a condition due to eating large quantities of fat and marrow, and probably to a very sedentary life. It is noteworthy that none of the male figures in drawing and sculpture is corpulent. While the art of the statuettes appears to come to a close in late Aurignacian times, it may extend into the Solutrean at Brünn, Moravia, and at Trou Magrite, Belgium. With due regard for analogies, it would rather appear probable that this archaic sculpture was autochthonous.

The art of engraving and drawing was almost certainly autochthonous, because we trace it from its most rudimentary beginnings. This northern art developed from the beginning of Upper Palæolithic times over the whole of southwestern France and in the northwest of Spain, being contemporaneous with the descent of the alpine fauna from the Pyrenees and the Alps and the presence all over western Europe of the tundra fauna. It was, by preference, an animal art, begun by the Aurignacians but largely suspended in Solutrean times.

Painting(38) also had its birth in the Aurignacian, in the simple contours of the hand pressed against a wall surface or outlined with color, accompanied by primitive attempts at linear drawing in color and painted groupings; for example, the crude outlines of the bison in the grotto of Castillo are of Aurignacian age, also the black linear designs of the deer and of the ibex in the cavern of Font-de-Gaume, Dordogne, the striking red linear design of the mammoth in the grotto of Pindal, in northern Spain, representing the animal as with two limbs, and the red outlines of wild cattle in Castillo. Breuil also attributes to Aurignacian times the spirited figure of the woolly rhinoceros in red ochre in the cave of Font-de-Gaume, as well as the outline of the stag in red color.

We are impressed throughout with three qualities in this Aurignacian design: first, the very close observation of the animal form; second, the attempt at realistic effect produced with very few lines; third, the element of motion or movement in these animals. For example, the two heads of the woolly rhinoceros in the slab engravings of the Trilobite grotto (Fig. 161) are remarkably correct in proportion; there is an attempt with fine lines to indicate the wool hanging along the lower surface of the head; behind these two figures is the rump of an elephant with the tail upturned, an adaptation of the artist to the form of the slate fragment; the outlines of the feet both of the rhinoceros and the mammoth are remarkably accurate representations of these pachyderms.

In the more advanced development of draftsmanship in late Aurignacian times the engravings of these animals not merely approach the truth, but characteristic features are strikingly represented; and with a few sure lines the proportions of the body as a whole are better preserved, while the complicated curves of the hoofs and of the head show very close observation.

In the grotto of La Grèze overhanging the Beune, a small tributary of the Vézère, was found an archaic Aurignacian outline of the bison deeply incised on the limestone walls. The grotto of Gargas,[AR] Hautes-Pyrénées,(39) is one of the most famous stations; it was entered in closing Mousterian times and was occupied at intervals during the Aurignacian stage. Beneath the Mousterian layer is a deep deposit of entire skeletons of the cave-bear without any traces of human industry. These layers lie beyond the grotto in the vast foyer which opens above into a great chimney, so that this is one of the true cavern habitations. The drawings along the walls of the cave include a large number of figures in a very unequal style, which belong chiefly to middle and upper Aurignacian times. Among these are two figures of birds, several mammals, a few primitive drawings of wild cattle, the bison, the ibex, and numerous representations of the horse. A long serpentine band of color meanders among some of these drawings. Most interesting are the silhouettes of the hand in black and red produced by pressing the hand against the limestone wall and covering the surrounding surface with color. It would appear that the fingers were mutilated or cut off at the middle joint, because one, two, three, and four of the fingers are wanting, but the thumb is never mutilated. This mutilation of the hand may be compared with similar practices prevailing among some Australian tribes.

In the cavern of Marsoulas, on the headwaters of the Garonne, the conditions are altogether different; the parietal art here represents two cultural stages, the late Aurignacian and the late Magdalenian. There is a small entrance grotto with two hearths, corresponding to these two industries. The entrance to the cave is well up on the side of the hill, and the drawings which belong with the upper Aurignacian culture are somewhat damaged. Again, we find designs extending along the wall below the drawings. There are numerous outlines of the bison in black, the entire side of the body being covered with splashes of red.

The great abri of Laussel, on the Beune, was first visited by the Neanderthals, for there are two Mousterian layers and above them two Aurignacian layers, the lower belonging to the middle Aurignacian industry and the upper to the closing Aurignacian period. This long, overhanging cliff of Laussel is a typical shelter, first sought in Acheulean times, revisited in Mousterian times, then again in middle or late Aurignacian, in Solutrean, and finally in Magdalenian times. As these successive layers rise they approach the shelter of the cliff, so that the Magdalenian flint workers were directly beneath the overhanging rock shelter, which opened outward toward the sun.

In the upper Aurignacian layer Lalanne discovered two bas-reliefs representing the figures of a man and of a woman. The bas-relief of the woman represents a nude figure holding the horn of a bison in the right hand; this is cut from a block of limestone with a relief of about two centimetres, and it measures forty-six centimetres in height; with the exception of the head, the entire body is polished, and at certain points there remain traces of red coloring. A little farther on the artist had modelled the figure of a man in three-quarter view in the attitude of casting a spear or of an archer drawing the bow; the top of the head and the extremities of the limbs have been broken away; the figure measures forty centimetres in height. These bas-reliefs of Laussel are regarded as sincere representations, for the artist has presented as accurately as possible the contemporary human figure; both the man and the woman are represented in motion. On the technique employed in this primordial sculpture, Doctor Lalanne observes that we find at Laussel a series of tools perfectly adapted to attain this result, many of which would have been inexplicable unless found to occur in connection with the sculpture itself. It is curious to note how many analogies there are between the flint utensils of the primitive sculptor and those of the sculptors of our own day. First, we find tools designed to remove the rock, there are points, pickaxes, chopping tools for shaping the rock, saws, and coarse stone planers; all of these are perfectly adapted to the hand, from which we may conclude that our artist was right-handed. There is a great number of graving-tools, or burins, all forms being represented—plain, double, fine, coarse, and combinations of the burin and grattoir. Some of the burins show the sharp-angled point centred at the extremity of a blade; these are the ordinary types; but in many the blade ends with a terminal retouch, which may be transverse, oblique, concave, or convex with the point to one side. The grattoirs, or planers, are equally numerous, with examples of all the known forms. Many of these are formed at the end of a blade; a few are circular, and others are at the opposite end of a pointed blade; the latter are particularly fine and are retouched around the entire edge. But the artist did not merely carve his subjects; he also coated them with a paint made of ochre and manganese; he crushed his coloring matter on a palette of schist, and we have found one of these unbroken and still bearing the red and ochre colors. This palette is 10½ inches long and 6 inches wide; it is oblong in form.

Distribution of the Solutrean Industry

The period of the Solutrean industry is one of the most difficult to interpret in the whole prehistory of western Europe. The remains of this industry in several localities lie directly between those of the Aurignacian and the Magdalenian; in others, as at Solutré, they directly follow the Aurignacian. There is no doubt that this represents a very long and a very important epoch in Upper Palæolithic development. From the cultural standpoint it represents a climax in the flint industry, but a period of suspension or of arrested development in art.

A glance at the maps of the Mousterian (Fig. 125), the Aurignacian (Fig. 153), and the Solutrean (Fig. 167) culture stations shows that the geographic distribution of the Solutrean is entirely unique; whereas the Aurignacian culture may be said to girdle the Mediterranean, both on its southern and northern coasts, the Solutrean culture is absent in this entire region. The interpretation of this strange phenomenon offered by Breuil, that the Solutrean culture entered Europe directly from the east and not from the south, may be connected with the theory that toward the end of Aurignacian times a new race from the central east was working westward through Hungary and along the Danube—a race of inferior mental type, but extremely expert in fashioning the flint spears and lances with what is known as the Solutrean 'retouch.' This may be the race of Brünn, Brüx, and Předmost, the remains of which are found in two localities associated with these highly perfected flint spear heads. Either by the invasion of this race or, more probably, by the invasion of the highly perfected spear-head industry itself, the type station of Solutré, on the Saône, was established and the region of Dordogne reached, where this industry progressed at twelve different stations.

There is no doubt whatever that the new and entirely distinct Brünn race penetrated the Danubian region at this time, but there is no evidence from skeletal remains that it reached France. It is quite possible that some of the flint workers adept in the Solutrean 'retouch' migrated into the far western stations of Dordogne, bringing with them their beautiful technique, but without leaving traces of their skeletal remains through ceremonial burial. This unsettled problem affords one of the many reasons why the anatomy of all the Upper Palæolithic men of western Europe should be most carefully studied and compared.

Another mystery of Solutrean times is the arrest of the artistic impulse which had animated the Crô-Magnons throughout the entire Aurignacian. Evidences of artistic work in Solutrean times are very rare, and some drawings which have been attributed to the Solutrean, as at Altamira, have now been referred to the Magdalenian. Is it possible that the Crô-Magnon race for a time suspended its artistic endeavor only to renew it under the different conditions of environment of Magdalenian times? Unfortunately, the Solutrean burials afford very little evidence on this point. One interpretation which may be offered is that the Solutrean was evidently a period of open-air life, and that the new implements of the chase of Solutrean type absorbed the industrial energies of these people, for the weapons were fashioned in enormous numbers. Consistent with this theory of climatic influence is the fact that the return of the severe climate of Magdalenian times, which crowded the men again into the shelters and grottos, was accompanied by a renewal of the artistic development continuing from the point where it had been interrupted in closing Aurignacian times. That Aurignacian and Magdalenian art is the work of one race there can be no question whatever; that this race was the Crô-Magnon is now absolutely demonstrated.

The climate of Solutrean times is generally believed to have been cold and dry. In the region of Dordogne throughout this period the reindeer was still far more numerous than any other animal; so we may safely conclude that this was the principal object of the chase and of food; in fact, it would appear that the reindeer were resident forms in the valley of the Vézère, hunted and consumed throughout the year.(40) Here we also occasionally find the northern steppe or Obi lemming, an animal which at the same time extends along the borders of the Volga River toward southern Russia. It would appear that in Solutrean times in southwestern France there prevailed a dry, cold continental subarctic climate like that of the Caspian, Volga, and Ural steppes of the present day. With the mammoth and the reindeer occur a great variety of northern European forest forms—the true fox, the hare, the stag, the brown bear, the wolf, the bison, and the urus. Most interesting is the identification of the jackal belonging to the ancient species C. neschersensis. In the type industrial locality of Solutré the reindeer is very abundant in the fire-hearths associated with the lower Solutrean industry, but less abundant in the upper levels; an antelope, perhaps the saiga antelope, is said to be found among the crude engravings on bone.

Solutrean Races

There were certainly two distinct races of men in Europe during Solutrean times, to the east the race of Brünn and to the west the race of Crô-Magnon. Remains attributed to the Crô-Magnons have been found in the Departments of Charente, Gironde, Lot, Haute-Garonne, Tarn, and Dordogne. But most of these remains are very fragmentary and cannot readily be determined racially. The fragments of ten skulls and a few other bones found in the Grotte du Placard, Charente, are attributed to late Solutrean and to early Magdalenian times and constitute one of the most exceptional discoveries which have thus far been made in France; the interments probably date from the early Magdalenian (p. 380), but are probably of a race surviving from the Solutrean. The section of the cave deposit is from 23 to 26 feet in thickness and is highly instructive; it shows eight cultural layers, separated by layers of débris and succeeding each other in the following order:

Race of Brünn, Brüx, Předmost, and (?) Galley Hill

In 1871 a skullcap, now in the Royal Museum of Vienna, was discovered in the course of coal mining at Brüx, Bohemia. In 1891(41) a skeleton, apparently of the same race, was discovered at Brünn, Moravia, deeply embedded in loess along with bones of the woolly mammoth and other great Pleistocene mammals. In 1892 it was described by Makowsky,(42) who a few years before had excavated from the loess sand in the neighborhood of Brünn the fragmentary skull now known as Brünn II. Both these skulls are of a somewhat low racial type, and for a long time they were regarded as transition forms between the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, but in 1906 Schwalbe(43) showed the affinity between the skulls of Brüx and Brünn and at the same time their entire distinctness from the Neanderthal skull and their approach to lower forms of Homo sapiens. The chief distinction of these skulls is their extreme elongation or dolichocephaly, the ratio of width to length being 69 per cent in the Brüx skull, and 68.2 per cent in the Brünn skull. The latter ranks lower in racial type than the Australian negroids. The chief distinction from the Neanderthal skull is in the index of the height of skull (51.22 per cent) and in the absence of the prominent ridges extending across the eyebrow region above the nose;[AS] the forehead, in brief, is more modern, the frontal angle being 74.7-75 per cent. The brain capacity in this race is estimated, according to Makowsky,(44) at 1,350 c.cm. Both the Brüx and Brünn skulls are harmonic; they do not present the very broad, high cheek-bones characteristic of the Crô-Magnon race, the face being of a narrow, modern type, but not very long. There is evidence that the neck and shoulders were powerful and muscular; the prominence of the chin is pronounced; the dentition is macrodont, that is, the last lower molar is of exceptionally large size; there was no prognathism or protrusion of the jaws. The second Brünn skull (Brünn II) may represent a female type of the Brünn race, the cephalic index being estimated at 72 per cent.

DISCOVERIES CHIEFLY OF THE CRÔ-MAGNON AND BRÜNN RACES[AT]

Referred to Solutrean Times

There is a possibility(47) that the Brünn race was ancestral to several later dolichocephalic groups which are found in the region of the Danube and of middle and southern Germany. Schliz characterizes the Brünn skull as distinguished by the retreating forehead, by massive eminences above the orbits separated by a cleft in the median line, by broad, low orbits, and prominent chin. These characters are met with again in one of the dolichocephalic skulls found in the interment at Ofnet, at the very close of Upper Palæolithic times. It would thus appear that the Brünn race is distinct from the Crô-Magnon race, that it represents a long-headed type which became established along the Danube as early as Solutrean times, and that it may possibly be connected with the introduction of some of the peculiar features of the Solutrean culture.

One of the skeletons of Brünn, found at a depth of 12 feet below the surface of the 'loess,' was lavishly adorned with tooth-shells, perforated stone discs, and bone ornaments made from the ribs of the rhinoceros or mammoth and from the teeth of the mammoth; associated with these was an ivory idol, apparently of a male figure, of which only the head, the torso, and the left arm remain. The skeleton and many of the objects found with the sepulture were partly tinted in red. An ivory figurine belongs to the Eburnéen stage of Piette and appears to indicate that the burial was of Aurignacian rather than of Solutrean age.

The Předmost 'mammoth hunters' also probably belonged to this race. They are represented by the remains of six individuals excavated since 1880 at Předmost, Moravia, by Wankel, Kr̆íz̆, and Mas̆ka. The bones were found in a very much shattered condition. Mas̆ka has since discovered a collective burial of fourteen human skeletons, with remains of six others; the bodies were covered with stones, but no flints or objects of art were buried with them. The dimensions of the limbs indicate a race of large stature. The skeletons were deeply buried in 'loess,' and above and below the rich archæological layer were abundant débris of the mammoth, representing between eight and nine hundred specimens. Along with the numerous flints, including laurel-leaf spear heads of middle Solutrean type, were found other objects and even primitive works of art in bone and ivory. There is no question that the human remains belong to the middle Solutrean stage.(48)

With this race is also associated by many authors (Schwalbe, Schliz, Klaatsch, Keith) the Galley Hill skull, which was found in 1888, buried at a depth of 8 feet in the 'high terrace' gravels 90 feet above the Thames.(49) Sollas thinks it highly probable that the remains were in a natural position and of the same age as the high-level gravels and the Palæolithic flints and remains of extinct animals which they contained, but Evans and Dawkins regard the Galley Hill man as belonging to a long-headed Neolithic race interred in a Palæolithic stratum. The gravels of the 'high terrace' in which the Galley Hill skull was buried are by no means of the geologic antiquity of 200,000 years assigned to them by Keith;(50) they are probably of Fourth Glacial or of Postglacial age, and lie within the estimates of Postglacial time, namely, from 20,000 to 40,000 years.

The antiquity of the Galley Hill cranial type has been maintained with ability by Keith. The skull is extremely long or hyperdolichocephalic, the cephalic index being estimated by Keith at 69 per cent;(51) the brain capacity is estimated at between 1,350 c.cm. and 1,400 c.cm.; the cheek-bones are not preserved, so that no judgment can be formed as to this most distinctive character of the Crô-Magnon race. With this Galley Hill race Keith also compares the Combe-Capelle, or Aurignacian man of Klaatsch,(52) although he mistakenly considers the Combe-Capelle man of much less geologic antiquity. He continues: "Thus, while the writer is inclined to agree in provisionally assigning the Combe-Capelle man to the Galley Hill race, he believes that further discoveries will show that the Combe-Capelle man belongs to a branch marked with certain negroid features."

Solutrean Flint Industry

The 'Solutrean retouch' marks one of the most notable advances in the technique of flint working; it is altogether distinct from the 'Aurignacian retouch,' which is an heritage from the Mousterian.(53) The flint is chipped off by pressure in fine, thin flakes from the entire surface of the implement, to which in its perfected form the craftsman can give a thin, sharp edge and perfect symmetry. This is a great advance on the abrupt Aurignacian retouch, in which the flint is chipped back at a rather blunt angle to make a sharp edge. According to de Mortillet, the Solutrean method of pressure made possible the execution of much more delicate work.

The question at once arises, did this industrial advance take place in France or was it an invention brought from the east? On this point Breuil observes(54) that in the highest Aurignacian levels in Belgium, in Dordogne, and at Solutré the Solutrean technique becomes faintly apparent either in the 'stem' points (pointes à soie) of Font Robert, La Ferrassie, and Spy or in the double-edged points tending toward the laurel-leaf type of the Solutrean, but that all the other implements remain purely Aurignacian.

Relations and Subdivisions of Solutrean Culture

As to the chief source of Solutrean influence, the same author remarks that, since this culture is entirely wanting in central and southern Spain, in Italy, in Sicily, in Algeria, and in Phœnicia, we should certainly not look to the Mediterranean for its origin but rather to eastern Europe; for in the grottos of Hungary we find a great development of the true Solutrean, while so far the Aurignacian has not been found here, although we do find traces of the earlier transitional stages below the levels of the true laurel-leaf points. We must admit, therefore, that in all probability the Solutrean culture reached Europe from the east and that its source is as mysterious as that of the Aurignacian, which, as we have seen, was of southern and probably of Mediterranean origin. It is not impossible that the evolution of the laurel-leaf point took place in Hungary, for it was certainly not evolved in central or western Europe.

At Předmost, in Moravia, we observe an advanced Aurignacian industry which had adopted a Solutrean fashion in its spear heads. Here the laurel-leaf implements are few, while the implements of bone are abundant; but in the Solutrean stations of Hungary there are no bone implements. As the Solutrean technique comes to perfection the laurel-leaf spear head, so characteristic of the full Solutrean industry, is created and is met with in Poland, in Hungary, in Bavaria, and then in France, where the industry extends southward to the west and east of the central plateau. In France it appears quite suddenly in the Grotte du Trilobite (Yonne), and also in Dordogne and Ardèche, where the Proto-Solutrean types show marked impoverishment, both in the variety and in the execution of most of the flint implements, the only exception being the flattened spear heads, pointes à face plane, which show a regular Solutrean retouch, beautiful but monotonous. Laurel-leaf points discovered at Crouzade, Gourdan, and Montfort denote the presence of the true Solutrean culture, but this culture does not approach the stations in the neighborhood of Brassempouy. Toward the north the grotto of Spy, in Belgium, affords examples of Proto-Solutrean types, which have also been traced in several British caverns, but it is not certain that true Solutrean implements are found in Britain.

In Picard a Proto-Solutrean layer has been found, but no laurel-leaf points. In the type station of Solutré in southeastern France Breuil discovered two Solutrean layers, quite different from each other: one rich in bone implements and graving-tools, with small flint laurel leaves retouched on only one face; the other poor in bone implements but with large laurel-leaf spear heads.

The Solutrean culture never penetrated to the south of the great barrier of the Pyrenees, but, passing through the Vézère valley, in Dordogne, it spread along the western coast to the northern slopes of the Cantabrian Mountains into the province of Santander, Spain. Here the laurel-leaf points of the middle Solutrean are found at Castillo, while the shouldered points, pointes à cran, typical of the later Solutrean, are found at Altamira, together with bone implements. None the less, it should be noticed that in the southwest of Europe the earlier phases of the Solutrean are characterized by a decrease in the use of bone, which, however, increases again in the upper levels.

The type station of the Solutrean culture is the great open-air camp of Solutré, near the Saône, sheltered on the north by a steep ridge and with a fine, sunny exposure toward the south. The traces of this great camp, which is the largest thus far discovered in western Europe, cover an area 300 feet square and are situated within a short distance of a good spring of water. As explored, in 1866, by Arcelin,(55) Ferry, and Ducrost, this station had already been occupied in Aurignacian times; and two sections, taken at two different points, showed the deposits of the old camp to be from 22 to 26 feet in thickness, representing superposed Aurignacian and Solutrean fire-hearths with thick layers of intermediate débris. In the Aurignacian level is found the vast accumulation of the bones of horses already described. In the middle Solutrean levels great fireplaces are found with flint utensils and the remains of abundant feasts among the charred débris. The fauna includes the wolf, the fox, the hyæna, both the cave and the brown bear, the badger, the rabbit, the stag, wild cattle, and two characteristic northern forms—the woolly mammoth and the reindeer; the remains of the last are the most abundant in the ancient hearths.

In all the Solutrean stations, beside the bone implements,(56) we find two distinct classes of flints. The first belongs to the entire 'Reindeer Epoch' and consists of single and double scrapers, drills, burins, retouched flakes, and plain ones of small dimensions.

The second is composed of the 'leaf' types, which are solely characteristic of the Solutrean and which degenerate and entirely disappear at its close; these latter are the arrow and lance head forms, many of which are fashioned with a rare degree of perfection and exhibit the beautiful broad Solutrean retouch across the entire surface of both sides of the flake, together with perfect symmetry, both lateral and bilateral; they are commonly known as the willow-leaf (narrow) and the laurel-leaf (broad) forms. The explorers of the type station of Solutré have discovered five principal shapes, as follows: (1) irregular lozenge; (2) oval, pointed at both ends; (3) oval, pointed at one end; (4) regular lozenge; (5) arrow-head form with peduncle, doubtless for attachment to a shaft. The perfected Solutrean laurel-leaf spear heads do not reappear in any other Upper Palæolithic period, but their resemblance to Neolithic flints is very marked.

The 'willow-leaf' spear heads (pointes de saule), chipped on only one side, characteristic of the early Solutrean, may possibly be contemporary with the closing Aurignacian culture of Font Robert. At Solutré layers have also been discovered rich in bone implements and in graving-tools, as well as small 'laurel-leaf' points worked on only one face. As regards the general tendencies of the early Solutrean culture in Dordogne, at the Grotte du Trilobite (Yonne), and in Ardèche, there is a marked decline in the work in bone and in the variety and workmanship of all the implements, excepting only that of the primitive flattened spear heads, made of flakes, retouched in Solutrean fashion, but on one side only. Typical deposits of early Solutrean culture are found at Trou Magrite, in Belgium, at Font Robert, Corrèze, and in the third level of the Grotte du Trilobite, Yonne; in the second level we find flints with the nascent Solutrean retouch.

The distinctive implement of the 'high' or middle Solutrean is the large 'laurel-leaf' point, flaked and chipped on both sides and attaining a marvellous perfection in technique and symmetry. The finest examples of these spear heads are the famous pointes de laurier, fourteen in number, discovered at Volgu, Saône-et-Loire, in 1873: they were found together in a sort of cache and, it would seem probable, were intended as a votive offering, for one at least was colored red, and all were too fragile and delicate to be of any use in the chase. They are of unusual size, the smallest measuring 9 inches, and the largest over 13½. In workmanship they are equalled only by the marvellous Neolithic specimens of Egypt and Scandinavia.

At Solutré and other stations implements of bone are also found, although by no means of such frequent occurrence as in the later divisions of the Solutrean. While the most easterly Solutrean stations of Hungary exhibit no bone implements, these are abundant at Předmost, in Moravia, where the culture altogether is of an advanced Aurignacian type, with the Solutrean retouch used in the shaping of its flint spear heads. The bone industry includes a number of awls and smoothers, as well as numerous 'bâtons de commandement.' On this level at Předmost a few works of art are found consisting of the representations of four animals sculptured on nodules of limestone, the subjects apparently being reindeer, and also of one single engraving on bone.

The chief invention of the late Solutrean is the 'shouldered point' (pointe à cran), a single notched and very slender dart. These notches are the first indication of the value of the barb in holding a weapon in the flesh. Here also is a stem for the attachment of the shaft of the dart. In earlier stages of the Solutrean one finds flints where the unsymmetrical base of the 'point' shows a small obtuse tongue or stem. The elongate peduncle at the base of such spear heads (pointes à soie) is developed into the pointe à cran, or shouldered point, made of long, fine flakes, with a short retouch on one or both sides, and found in the late Solutrean at the grotto of Lacave, at Placard, and at many of the stations in Dordogne. No example of the pointe à cran has ever been found at the type station of Solutré, but it is of frequent occurrence at the stations between the Loire and the Cantabrian Pyrenees, being found at Altamira, at Laugerie Haute, at Monthaud (Indre), in Chalosse and Charente, while the great cave of Placard has yielded no less than 5,000 specimens, whole and broken.