This wonderful deposit of human artifacts and animal remains gives us a complete registration of the changes of climate in this region accompanying the changes of culture and the development of the Magdalenian race.

Turning our survey to the course of the Danube, we note that several Magdalenian stations extend into the provinces of Lower Austria, chief among them being both the open 'loess' station of Aggsbach, and that of Gobelsburg; there is also the Hundssteig near Krems, better known as the station of Krems, and the cavern known as the Gudenushöhle; in the latter station the characteristic bâtons, javelins, and bone needles have been found.[BB]

The cavern district of Moravia attracted a relatively large population, and among the numerous stations are the grottos of Kr̆íz̆, Žitný, Kostelík, Bycis̆kala, Schoschuwka, Balcarovaskala, Kůlna, and Lautsch. Near the Russian border bone implements like those of Gudenushöhle on the Danube have been found at the station of Kůlna, and the industrial stratification of Šipka is very clear. Not far from Cracow, across the Russian border, the caverns in the region of Ojcow were entered by men carrying the Magdalenian culture. Another site in Russia is the grotto of Mas̆zycka, and characteristic Magdalenian harpoons, needles, and bâtons de commandement with other implements have also been found to the eastward, in the neighborhood of Kiev, in the Ukraine.

Decline of the Magdalenian Culture

The highest point touched by the Crô-Magnon race in the middle or high Magdalenian appears to correspond broadly with the cold arid period of climate in the interval between the Bühl and Gschnitz advances in the Alpine region, during which the steppe mammals spread widely over southwestern Europe. The saiga antelope, for example, a highly characteristic steppe type, is represented in one of the most skilful bone carvings found in the late Magdalenian layers of Mas d'Azil; also the steppe type of horse is frequently represented in the most advanced engravings of late Magdalenian times. How far this cold, relatively dry climate influenced the artistic and creative energy of the Crô-Magnons is largely a matter of conjecture. The entirely independent records of La Madeleine, of Schweizersbild, and of Kesslerloch concur in associating the highest stage of Magdalenian history of art with the predominance of the steppe fauna and evidences of a cold dry climate. That the mammoth still abounded is seen in the mammoth engravings which are superposed on those of the bison in Font-de-Gaume.

The succeeding life period is that of the retreat of the tundra and steppe mammals and of the increasing rarity of the reindeer and of the mammoth in southwestern Europe; it corresponds broadly with the returning cold and moist climate of the second Postglacial advance known in the Alps as the Gschnitz stage. With the spread of the forests and the retreat to the north of the reindeer, the principal source both of the supply of food and clothing and of all the bone implements of industry and of the chase, a new set of life conditions may have gradually become established. If it is true, as most students of geographical conditions and of the climate maintain, that Europe at the same time became more densely forested, the chase may have become more difficult, and the Crô-Magnons may have begun to depend more and more upon the life of the streams and the art of fishing. It is generally agreed that the harpoons were chiefly used for fishing and that many of the microlithic flints, which now begin to appear more abundantly, may have been attached to a shaft for the same purpose. We know that similar microliths were used as arrow points in predynastic Egypt.

Breuil(35) observes very significant industrial changes in closing Magdalenian times: first, the beginning of small geometric forms of flints suggesting the Tardenoisian types; second, the occasional use of stag horn in place of reindeer horn; third, a modification in the form of bone implements toward the patterns of Azilian times; fourth, the rapid decline—one may almost say sudden disappearance—of the artistic spirit. Schematic and conventional designs begin to take the place of the free realistic art of the middle Magdalenian.

Thus the decline of the Crô-Magnons as a powerful race may have been due partly to environmental causes and the abandonment of their vigorous nomadic mode of life, or it may be that they had reached the end of a long cycle of psychic development, which we have traced from the beginning of Aurignacian times. We know as a parallel that in the history of many civilized races a period of great artistic and industrial development may be followed by a period of stagnation and decline without any apparent environmental causes.

Crô-magnon Descendants in Modern Europe

We might attribute this great change, which affected all of western Europe, to the extinction of the Crô-Magnon race were it not for the existing evidence that the race survived throughout the Azilian-Tardenoisian or close of the Upper Palæolithic. On the close of the Palæolithic the race broke up throughout western Europe into many colonies, which can perhaps be traced into Neolithic and even into recent times. The anatomical evidence for this survival theory chiefly consists of the highly characteristic form of the head.

In Europe a very broad face and a long, narrow cranium is such an infrequent combination that anthropologists maintain that it affords a means of identifying the descendants of the prehistoric Crô-Magnon race wherever they persist to-day. Since Dordogne was the geographic centre of the race in Upper Palæolithic times, is it merely a coincidence that Dordogne is still the centre of a similar type? Ripley(36) has given us a valuable résumé of our present knowledge of this subject. The most significant trait of the long-headed people of Dordogne is that in many cases the face is almost as broad as in the normal Alpine round-headed type; in other words, it is strongly disharmonic; in profile the back part of the head rises and in front view the head is narrowed at the top; the skull is very low-vaulted; the brow ridges are prominent; the nose is well formed; the cheek-bones are prominent, and the powerful cheek muscles give a peculiarly rugged cast to the countenance. The appearance, however, is not repellent, but more often open and kindly. The men are of medium height, but very susceptible to environment as regards stature; they are tall in fertile places, and stunted in less prosperous districts. They are not degenerate at all, but keen and alert of mind. The present people of Dordogne agree with but one other type of men known to anthropologists, namely, the ancient Crô-Magnon race. The geographical evidence that here in Dordogne we have to do with the survivors of the real Crô-Magnon race seems to be sustained by a comparison of the characteristics of the prehistoric skulls found at Crô-Magnon, Laugerie Basse, and elsewhere in Dordogne, with the heads of the types of to-day. The cranial indices of the prehistoric skulls, varying from 70 per cent to 73 per cent, correspond with indices of the living head of 72 per cent to 75 per cent. None of the people of Dordogne are quite so long-headed as this, the average index of the living head in an extreme district being 76 per cent; but within the whole population there are much lower indices.

The probability of direct descent becomes stronger when we consider the disharmonic low-skulled shape of the Crô-Magnon head and the remarkable elongation of the skull at the back. In the prehistoric Crô-Magnons the brows were strongly developed, the eye orbits low, the chin prominent. The facial type has been characterized by de Quatrefages(37) as follows: "The eye depressed beneath the orbital vault; the nose straight rather than arched; the lips somewhat thick, the jaw and the cheek-bones strongly developed, the complexion very brown, the hair very dark and growing low on the forehead—a whole which, without being attractive, was in no way repulsive."

In southern France we observe a continuity not only of the head form but of the prevalence of black hair and eyes. Why should this Crô-Magnon type have survived at this point and have disappeared elsewhere? In order to consider the particular cause of this persistence of a Palæolithic race, we must, with Ripley, broaden our horizon, and consider the whole southwest from the Mediterranean to Brittany as a unit.

The survival is partly attributed to favorable geographical environment and partly to geological and racial barriers. On the north the intrusion of the Teutonic race was shut off and competition was narrowed down to the Crô-Magnon and Alpine types.

If the people of Dordogne are veritable survivors of the Crô-Magnons of the Upper Palæolithic, they certainly represent the oldest living race in western Europe, and is it not extremely significant that the most primitive language in Europe, that of the Basques of the northern Pyrenees, is spoken near by, only 200 miles to the southwest? Is there possibly a connection between the original language of the Crô-Magnons, a race which once crowded the region of the Cantabrian Mountains and the Pyrenees, and the existing agglutinative language of the Basques, which is totally different from all the European tongues? This hypothesis, suggested by Ripley,(38) is very well worth considering, for it is not inconceivable that the ancestors of the Basques conquered the Crô-Magnons and subsequently acquired their language.

The prehistoric Crô-Magnon men would seem, therefore, to have remained in or near their early settlements through all the changes of time and the vicissitudes of history. "It is, perhaps," observes Ripley, "the most striking instance known of a persistency of population unchanged through thousands of years."

The geographic extension of this race was once very much wider than it is to-day. The classical skull of Engis, Belgium, belongs to this type. It has been traced from Alsace in the east to the Atlantic in the west. Ranke asserts that it is to be found to-day in the hills of Thuringia, and that it was a prevalent type there in the past. Verneau considers that it was the type prevailing among the extinct Guanches of the Canary Islands. Collignon(39) has identified it in northern Africa, and regards the Crô-Magnons as a subvariety of the Mediterranean race, an opinion consistent at least with the archæological evidence that this race came into Europe with the Aurignacian culture, which was circum-Mediterranean in distribution. Traces of Crô-Magnon head formation are found among the living Berbers.

At present, however, this race is believed to survive only in a few isolated localities, namely, in Dordogne, at a small spot in Landes, near the Garonne in southern France, and at Lannion in Brittany, where nearly one-third of the population is of the Crô-Magnon type. It is said to survive on the island of Oléron off the west coast of France, and there is evidence of similar descent to be found among the people of the islands of northern Holland. The people of Trysil, on the Scandinavian peninsula, are characterized as having disharmonic features, possibly representing an outcrop of the Crô-Magnon type.

Our interest in the fate of the Crô-Magnons is so great that the Guanche theory may also be considered; it is known to be favored by many anthropologists: von Behr, von Luschan, Mehlis, and especially by Verneau. The Guanches were a race of people who formerly spread all over the Canary Islands and who preserved their primitive characteristics even after their conquest by Spain in the fifteenth century. The differences from the supposed modern Crô-Magnon type may be mentioned first. The skin of the Guanches is described by the poet Viana as light-colored, and Verneau considers that the hair was blond or light chestnut and the eyes blue; the coloring, however, is somewhat conjectural. The features of resemblance to the ancient Crô-Magnons are numerous. The minimum stature of the men was 5 feet 7 inches, and the maximum 6 feet 7 inches; in one locality the average male stature was over 6 feet. The women were comparatively small. The most striking characters of the head were the fine forehead, the extremely long skull, and the pentagonal form of the cranium, when seen from above, caused by the prominence of the parietals—a Crô-Magnon characteristic. Among the insignia of the chiefs was the arm-bone of an ancestor; the skull also was carefully preserved. The offensive weapons in warfare consisted of three stones, a club, and several knives of obsidian; the defensive weapon was a simple lance. The Guanches used wooden swords with great skill. The habitation of all the people was in large, well-sheltered caverns, which honeycombed the sides of the mountains; all the walls of these caverns were decorated; the ceilings were covered with a uniform coat of red ochre, while the walls were decorated with various geometric designs in red, black, gray, and white. Hollowed-out stones served as lamps. We may conclude with Verneau that there is evidence, although not of a very convincing kind, that the Guanches were related to the Crô-Magnons.(40) His observations on these supposed Crô-Magnons of the Canary Islands are cited in the Appendix, Note V. We regret that Verneau in his memoir(41) does not present his more recent views in regard to the prehistoric distribution of this great race.

CHAPTER VI

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

Invasion of Four New Races in Closing Upper Palæolithic Times

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Discovery of the Azilian Type Station

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

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

The Mas d'Azil section is as follows:

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

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

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

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

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

The Tardenoisian Type Station

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

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

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

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

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

Environment and Mammalian Life

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In wide contrast to this assemblage of late Magdalenian life on the upper Danube, there appear in Azilian times along the shores of the middle Danube in the stations of Ofnet and of Istein the following characteristic forest forms: Sus scrofa ferus (wild boar), Cervus elaphus (stag), Capreolus capreolus (roe-deer), Bos (?) primigenius (urus), Lepus (rabbit or hare), Ursus arctos (brown bear), Felis leo (lion), Gulo luscus (common wolverene), Lynchus lynx (lynx), Vulpes (fox), Mustela martes (marten), Castor fiber (European beaver), Mus (field-mouse), Turdus (thrush). It thus appears that the alpine, the steppe, and the tundra faunæ had entirely disappeared from this region.

Origin and Distrubution of the Azilian-Tardenoisian Industry

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

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

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