those from the cave of Fontéchevade. Movius feels certain that the
lowest materials here date back well into the third interglacial stage,
that which lay between the Riss (next to the last) and the Würm I
(first stage of the last) alpine glaciations. This material consists
of an _industry_ of stone tools, apparently all made in the flake
tradition. This is the first time we have used the word “industry.”
It is useful to call all of the different tools found together in one
layer and made of _one kind of material_ an industry; that is, the
tools must be found together as men left them. Tools taken from the
glacial gravels (or from windswept desert surfaces or river gravels
or any geological deposit) are not “together” in this sense. We might
say the latter have only “geological,” not “archeological” context.
Archeological context means finding things just as men left them. We
can tell what tools go together in an “industrial” sense only if we
have archeological context.
Up to now, the only things we could have called “industries” were the
worked stone industry and perhaps the worked (?) bone industry of the
Peking cave. We could add some of the very clear cases of open air
sites, like Olorgesailie. We couldn’t use the term for the stone tools
from the glacial gravels, because we do not know which tools belonged
together. But when the cave materials begin to appear in Europe, we can
begin to speak of industries. Most of the European caves of this time
contain industries of flint tools alone.
THE EARLIEST EUROPEAN CAVE LAYERS
We’ve just mentioned the industry from what is said to be the oldest
inhabited cave in Europe; that is, the industry from the deepest layer
of the site at Fontéchevade. Apparently it doesn’t amount to much. The
tools are made of stone, in the flake tradition, and are very poorly
worked. This industry is called _Tayacian_. Its type tool seems to be
a smallish flake tool, but there are also larger flakes which seem to
have been fashioned for hacking. In fact, the type tool seems to be
simply a smaller edition of the Clactonian tool (pictured on p. 45).
None of the Fontéchevade tools are really good. There are scrapers,
and more or less pointed tools, and tools that may have been used
for hacking and chopping. Many of the tools from the earlier glacial
gravels are better made than those of this first industry we see in
a European cave. There is so little of this material available that
we do not know which is really typical and which is not. You would
probably find it hard to see much difference between this industry and
a collection of tools of the type called Clactonian, taken from the
glacial gravels, especially if the Clactonian tools were small-sized.
The stone industry of the bottommost layer of the Mount Carmel cave,
in Palestine, where somewhat similar tools were found, has also been
called Tayacian.
I shall have to bring in many unfamiliar words for the names of the
industries. The industries are usually named after the places where
they were first found, and since these were in most cases in France,
most of the names which follow will be of French origin. However,
the names have simply become handles and are in use far beyond the
boundaries of France. It would be better if we had a non-place-name
terminology, but archeologists have not yet been able to agree on such
a terminology.
THE ACHEULEAN INDUSTRY
Both in France and in Palestine, as well as in some African cave
sites, the next layers in the deep caves have an industry in both the
core-biface and the flake traditions. The core-biface tools usually
make up less than half of all the tools in the industry. However,
the name of the biface type of tool is generally given to the whole
industry. It is called the _Acheulean_, actually a late form of it, as
“Acheulean” is also used for earlier core-biface tools taken from the
glacial gravels. In western Europe, the name used is _Upper Acheulean_
or _Micoquian_. The same terms have been borrowed to name layers E and
F in the Tabun cave, on Mount Carmel in Palestine.
The Acheulean core-biface type of tool is worked on two faces so as
to give a cutting edge all around. The outline of its front view may
be oval, or egg-shaped, or a quite pointed pear shape. The large
chip-scars of the Acheulean core-bifaces are shallow and flat. It is
suspected that this resulted from the removal of the chips with a
wooden club; the deep chip-scars of the earlier Abbevillian core-biface
came from beating the tool against a stone anvil. These tools are
really the best and also the final products of the core-biface
tradition. We first noticed the tradition in the early glacial gravels
(p. 43); now we see its end, but also its finest examples, in the
deeper cave levels.
The flake tools, which really make up the greater bulk of this
industry, are simple scrapers and chips with sharp cutting edges. The
habits used to prepare them must have been pretty much the same as
those used for at least one of the flake industries we shall mention
presently.
There is very little else in these early cave layers. We do not have
a proper “industry” of bone tools. There are traces of fire, and of
animal bones, and a few shells. In Palestine, there are many more
bones of deer than of gazelle in these layers; the deer lives in a
wetter climate than does the gazelle. In the European cave layers, the
animal bones are those of beasts that live in a warm climate. They
belonged in the last interglacial period. We have not yet found the
bones of fossil men definitely in place with this industry.
[Illustration: ACHEULEAN BIFACE]
FLAKE INDUSTRIES FROM THE CAVES
Two more stone industries--the _Levalloisian_ and the
“_Mousterian_”--turn up at approximately the same time in the European
cave layers. Their tools seem to be mainly in the flake tradition,
but according to some of the authorities their preparation also shows
some combination with the habits by which the core-biface tools were
prepared.
Now notice that I don’t tell you the Levalloisian and the “Mousterian”
layers are both above the late Acheulean layers. Look at the cave
section (p. 57) and you’ll find that some “Mousterian of Acheulean
tradition” appears above some “typical Mousterian.” This means that
there may be some kinds of Acheulean industries that are later than
some kinds of “Mousterian.” The same is true of the Levalloisian.
There were now several different kinds of habits that men used in
making stone tools. These habits were based on either one or the other
of the two traditions--core-biface or flake--or on combinations of
the habits used in the preparation techniques of both traditions. All
were popular at about the same time. So we find that people who made
one kind of stone tool industry lived in a cave for a while. Then they
gave up the cave for some reason, and people with another industry
moved in. Then the first people came back--or at least somebody with
the same tool-making habits as the first people. Or maybe a third group
of tool-makers moved in. The people who had these different habits for
making their stone tools seem to have moved around a good deal. They no
doubt borrowed and exchanged tricks of the trade with each other. There
were no patent laws in those days.
The extremely complicated interrelationships of the different habits
used by the tool-makers of this range of time are at last being
systematically studied. M. François Bordes has developed a statistical
method of great importance for understanding these tool preparation
habits.
THE LEVALLOISIAN AND MOUSTERIAN
The easiest Levalloisian tool to spot is a big flake tool. The trick
in making it was to fashion carefully a big chunk of stone (called
the Levalloisian “tortoise core,” because it resembles the shape of
a turtle-shell) and then to whack this in such a way that a large
flake flew off. This large thin flake, with sharp cutting edges, is
the finished Levalloisian tool. There were various other tools in a
Levalloisian industry, but this is the characteristic _Levalloisian_
tool.
There are several “typical Mousterian” stone tools. Different from
the tools of the Levalloisian type, these were made from “disc-like
cores.” There are medium-sized flake “side scrapers.” There are also
some small pointed tools and some small “hand axes.” The last of these
tool types is often a flake worked on both of the flat sides (that
is, bifacially). There are also pieces of flint worked into the form
of crude balls. The pointed tools may have been fixed on shafts to
make short jabbing spears; the round flint balls may have been used as
bolas. Actually, we don’t _know_ what either tool was used for. The
points and side scrapers are illustrated (pp. 64 and 66).
[Illustration: LEVALLOIS FLAKE]
THE MIXING OF TRADITIONS
Nowadays the archeologists are less and less sure of the importance
of any one specific tool type and name. Twenty years ago, they used
to speak simply of Acheulean or Levalloisian or Mousterian tools.
Now, more and more, _all_ of the tools from some one layer in a
cave are called an “industry,” which is given a mixed name. Thus we
have “Levalloiso-Mousterian,” and “Acheuleo-Levalloisian,” and even
“Acheuleo-Mousterian” (or “Mousterian of Acheulean tradition”). Bordes’
systematic work is beginning to clear up some of our confusion.
The time of these late Acheuleo-Levalloiso-Mousterioid industries
is from perhaps as early as 100,000 years ago. It may have lasted
until well past 50,000 years ago. This was the time of the first
phase of the last great glaciation. It was also the time that the
classic group of Neanderthal men was living in Europe. A number of
the Neanderthal fossil finds come from these cave layers. Before the
different habits of tool preparation were understood it used to be
popular to say Neanderthal man was “Mousterian man.” I think this is
wrong. What used to be called “Mousterian” is now known to be a variety
of industries with tools of both core-biface and flake habits, and
so mixed that the word “Mousterian” used alone really doesn’t mean
anything. The Neanderthalers doubtless understood the tool preparation
habits by means of which Acheulean, Levalloisian and Mousterian type
tools were produced. We also have the more modern-like Mount Carmel
people, found in a cave layer of Palestine with tools almost entirely
in the flake tradition, called “Levalloiso-Mousterian,” and the
Fontéchevade-Tayacian (p. 59).
[Illustration: MOUSTERIAN POINT]
OTHER SUGGESTIONS OF LIFE IN THE EARLY CAVE LAYERS
Except for the stone tools, what do we know of the way men lived in the
time range after 100,000 to perhaps 40,000 years ago or even later?
We know that in the area from Europe to Palestine, at least some of
the people (some of the time) lived in the fronts of caves and warmed
themselves over fires. In Europe, in the cave layers of these times,
we find the bones of different animals; the bones in the lowest layers
belong to animals that lived in a warm climate; above them are the
bones of those who could stand the cold, like the reindeer and mammoth.
Thus, the meat diet must have been changing, as the glacier crept
farther south. Shells and possibly fish bones have lasted in these
cave layers, but there is not a trace of the vegetable foods and the
nuts and berries and other wild fruits that must have been eaten when
they could be found.
[Illustration: CHART SHOWING PRESENT UNDERSTANDING OF RELATIONSHIPS AND
SUCCESSION OF TOOL-PREPARATION TRADITIONS, INDUSTRIES, AND ASSEMBLAGES
OF WEST-CENTRAL EUROPE
Wavy lines indicate transitions in industrial habits. These transitions
are not yet understood in detail. The glacial and climatic scheme shown
is the alpine one.]
Bone tools have also been found from this period. Some are called
scrapers, and there are also long chisel-like leg-bone fragments
believed to have been used for skinning animals. Larger hunks of bone,
which seem to have served as anvils or chopping blocks, are fairly
common.
Bits of mineral, used as coloring matter, have also been found. We
don’t know what the color was used for.
[Illustration: MOUSTERIAN SIDE SCRAPER]
There is a small but certain number of cases of intentional burials.
These burials have been found on the floors of the caves; in other
words, the people dug graves in the places where they lived. The holes
made for the graves were small. For this reason (or perhaps for some
other?) the bodies were in a curled-up or contracted position. Flint or
bone tools or pieces of meat seem to have been put in with some of the
bodies. In several cases, flat stones had been laid over the graves.
TOOLS FROM AFRICA AND ASIA ABOUT 100,000 YEARS AGO
Professor Movius characterizes early prehistoric Africa as a continent
showing a variety of stone industries. Some of these industries were
purely local developments and some were practically identical with
industries found in Europe at the same time. From northwest Africa
to Capetown--excepting the tropical rain forest region of the west
center--tools of developed Acheulean, Levalloisian, and Mousterian
types have been recognized. Often they are named after African place
names.
In east and south Africa lived people whose industries show a
development of the Levalloisian technique. Such industries are
called Stillbay. Another industry, developed on the basis of the
Acheulean technique, is called Fauresmith. From the northwest comes
an industry with tanged points and flake-blades; this is called the
Aterian. The tropical rain forest region contained people whose stone
tools apparently show adjustment to this peculiar environment; the
so-called Sangoan industry includes stone picks, adzes, core-bifaces
of specialized Acheulean type, and bifacial points which were probably
spearheads.
In western Asia, even as far as the east coast of India, the tools of
the Eurafrican core-biface and flake tool traditions continued to be
used. But in the Far East, as we noted in the last chapter, men had
developed characteristic stone chopper and chopping tools. This tool
preparation tradition--basically a pebble tool tradition--lasted to the
very end of the Ice Age.
When more intact open air sites such as that of an earlier time at
Olorgesailie, and more stratified cave sites are found and excavated
in Asia and Africa, we shall be able to get a more complete picture.
So far, our picture of the general cultural level of the Old World at
about 100,000 years ago--and soon afterwards--is best from Europe, but
it is still far from complete there, too.
CULTURE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE LAST GREAT GLACIAL PERIOD
The few things we have found must indicate only a very small part
of the total activities of the people who lived at the time. All of
the things they made of wood and bark, of skins, of anything soft,
are gone. The fact that burials were made, at least in Europe and
Palestine, is pretty clear proof that the people had some notion of a
life after death. But what this notion really was, or what gods (if
any) men believed in, we cannot know. Dr. Movius has also reminded me
of the so-called bear cults--cases in which caves have been found which
contain the skulls of bears in apparently purposeful arrangement. This
might suggest some notion of hoarding up the spirits or the strength of
bears killed in the hunt. Probably the people lived in small groups,
as hunting and food-gathering seldom provide enough food for large
groups of people. These groups probably had some kind of leader or
“chief.” Very likely the rude beginnings of rules for community life
and politics, and even law, were being made. But what these were, we
do not know. We can only guess about such things, as we can only guess
about many others; for example, how the idea of a family must have been
growing, and how there may have been witch doctors who made beginnings
in medicine or in art, in the materials they gathered for their trade.
The stone tools help us most. They have lasted, and we can find
them. As they come to us, from this cave or that, and from this
layer or that, the tool industries show a variety of combinations
of the different basic habits or traditions of tool preparation.
This seems only natural, as the groups of people must have been very
small. The mixtures and blendings of the habits used in making stone
tools must mean that there were also mixtures and blends in many of
the other ideas and beliefs of these small groups. And what this
probably means is that there was no one _culture_ of the time. It is
certainly unlikely that there were simply three cultures, “Acheulean,”
“Levalloisian,” and “Mousterian,” as has been thought in the past.
Rather there must have been a great variety of loosely related cultures
at about the same stage of advancement. We could say, too, that here
we really begin to see, for the first time, that remarkable ability
of men to adapt themselves to a variety of conditions. We shall see
this adaptive ability even more clearly as time goes on and the record
becomes more complete.
Over how great an area did these loosely related cultures reach in
the time 75,000 to 45,000 or even as late as 35,000 years ago? We
have described stone tools made in one or another of the flake and
core-biface habits, for an enormous area. It covers all of Europe, all
of Africa, the Near East, and parts of India. It is perfectly possible
that the flake and core-biface habits lasted on after 35,000 years ago,
in some places outside of Europe. In northern Africa, for example, we
are certain that they did (see chart, p. 72).
On the other hand, in the Far East (China, Burma, Java) and in northern
India, the tools of the old chopper-tool tradition were still being
made. Out there, we must assume, there was a different set of loosely
related cultures. At least, there was a different set of loosely
related habits for the making of tools. But the men who made them must
have looked much like the men of the West. Their tools were different,
but just as useful.
As to what the men of the West looked like, I’ve already hinted at all
we know so far (pp. 29 ff.). The Neanderthalers were present at
the time. Some more modern-like men must have been about, too, since
fossils of them have turned up at Mount Carmel in Palestine, and at
Teshik Tash, in Trans-caspian Russia. It is still too soon to know
whether certain combinations of tools within industries were made
only by certain physical types of men. But since tools of both the
core-biface and the flake traditions, and their blends, turn up from
South Africa to England to India, it is most unlikely that only one
type of man used only one particular habit in the preparation of tools.
What seems perfectly clear is that men in Africa and men in India were
making just as good tools as the men who lived in western Europe.
EARLY MODERNS
[Illustration]
From some time during the first inter-stadial of the last great
glaciation (say some time after about 40,000 years ago), we have
more accurate dates for the European-Mediterranean area and less
accurate ones for the rest of the Old World. This is probably
because the effects of the last glaciation have been studied in the
European-Mediterranean area more than they have been elsewhere.
A NEW TRADITION APPEARS
Something new was probably beginning to happen in the
European-Mediterranean area about 40,000 years ago, though all the
rest of the Old World seems to have been going on as it had been. I
can’t be sure of this because the information we are using as a basis
for dates is very inaccurate for the areas outside of Europe and the
Mediterranean.
We can at least make a guess. In Egypt and north Africa, men were still
using the old methods of making stone tools. This was especially true
of flake tools of the Levalloisian type, save that they were growing
smaller and smaller as time went on. But at the same time, a new
tradition was becoming popular in westernmost Asia and in Europe. This
was the blade-tool tradition.
BLADE TOOLS
A stone blade is really just a long parallel-sided flake, as the
drawing shows. It has sharp cutting edges, and makes a very useful
knife. The real trick is to be able to make one. It is almost
impossible to make a blade out of any stone but flint or a natural
volcanic glass called obsidian. And even if you have flint or obsidian,
you first have to work up a special cone-shaped “blade-core,” from
which to whack off blades.
[Illustration: PLAIN BLADE]
You whack with a hammer stone against a bone or antler punch which is
directed at the proper place on the blade-core. The blade-core has to
be well supported or gripped while this is going on. To get a good
flint blade tool takes a great deal of know-how.
Remember that a tradition in stone tools means no more than that some
particular way of making the tools got started and lasted a long time.
Men who made some tools in one tradition or set of habits would also
make other tools for different purposes by means of another tradition
or set of habits. It was even possible for the two sets of habits to
become combined.
THE EARLIEST BLADE TOOLS
The oldest blade tools we have found were deep down in the layers of
the Mount Carmel caves, in Tabun Eb and Ea. Similar tools have been
found in equally early cave levels in Syria; their popularity there
seems to fluctuate a bit. Some more or less parallel-sided flakes are
known in the Levalloisian industry in France, but they are probably
no earlier than Tabun E. The Tabun blades are part of a local late
“Acheulean” industry, which is characterized by core-biface “hand
axes,” but which has many flake tools as well. Professor F. E.
Zeuner believes that this industry may be more than 120,000 years old;
actually its date has not yet been fixed, but it is very old--older
than the fossil finds of modern-like men in the same caves.
[Illustration: SUCCESSION OF ICE AGE FLINT TYPES, INDUSTRIES, AND
ASSEMBLAGES, AND OF FOSSIL MEN, IN NORTHWESTERN EURAFRASIA]
For some reason, the habit of making blades in Palestine and Syria was
interrupted. Blades only reappeared there at about the same time they
were first made in Europe, some time after 45,000 years ago; that is,
after the first phase of the last glaciation was ended.
[Illustration: BACKED BLADE]
We are not sure just where the earliest _persisting_ habits for the
production of blade tools developed. Impressed by the very early
momentary appearance of blades at Tabun on Mount Carmel, Professor
Dorothy A. Garrod first favored the Near East as a center of origin.
She spoke of “some as yet unidentified Asiatic centre,” which she
thought might be in the highlands of Iran or just beyond. But more
recent work has been done in this area, especially by Professor Coon,
and the blade tools do not seem to have an early appearance there. When
the blade tools reappear in the Syro-Palestinian area, they do so in
industries which also include Levalloiso-Mousterian flake tools. From
the point of view of form and workmanship, the blade tools themselves
are not so fine as those which seem to be making their appearance
in western Europe about the same time. There is a characteristic
Syro-Palestinian flake point, possibly a projectile tip, called the
Emiran, which is not known from Europe. The appearance of blade tools,
together with Levalloiso-Mousterian flakes, continues even after the
Emiran point has gone out of use.