New Races in Europe
The Solutrean Industry--A Racial and Cultural
Intrusion--Decline of Aurignacian Art--A God-cult--The
Solutrean Thor--Open-air Life--Magdalenian Culture--Decline of
Flint Working--Horn and Bone Weapons and Implements--Revival
of Crô-Magnon Art--The Lamps and Palettes of Cave Artists--The
Domesticated Horse--Eskimos in Europe--Magdalenian
Culture in England--The Vanishing Ice--Reindeer migrate
Northward--New Industries--Tardenoisian and Azilian
Industries--Pictures and Symbols of Azilians--"Long-heads"
and "Broad-heads"--Maglemosian Culture of Fair
Northerners--Pre-Neolithic Peoples in Britain.
In late Aurignacian times the influence of a new industry was felt
in Western Europe. It first came from the south, and reached as
far north as England where it can be traced in the caverns. Then,
in time, it spread westward and wedge-like through Central Europe
in full strength, with the force and thoroughness of an invasion,
reaching the northern fringe of the Spanish coast. This was the
Solutrean industry which had distinctive and independent features
of its own. It was not derived from Aurignacian but had developed
somewhere in Africa--perhaps in Somaliland, whence it radiated along
the Libyan coast towards the west and eastward into Asia. The main or
"true" Solutrean influence entered Europe from the south-east. It did
not pass into Italy, which remained in the Aurignacian stage until
Azilian times, nor did it cross the Pyrenees or invade Spain south of
the Cantabrian Mountains. The earlier "influence" is referred to as
"proto-Solutrean".
Solutrean is well represented in Hungary where no trace of
Aurignacian culture has yet been found. Apparently that part of
Europe had offered no attractions for the Crô-Magnons.
Who the carriers of this new culture were it is as yet impossible to
say with confidence. They may have been a late "wave" of the same
people who had first introduced Aurignacian culture into Europe,
and they may have been representative of a different race. Some
ethnologists incline to connect the Solutrean culture with a new
people whose presence is indicated by the skulls found at Brünn
and Brüx in Bohemia. These intruders had lower foreheads than the
Crô-Magnons, narrower and longer faces, and low cheek-bones. It
may be that they represented a variety of the Mediterranean race.
Whoever they were, they did not make much use of ivory and bone,
but they worked flint with surpassing skill and originality. Their
technique was quite distinct from the Aurignacian. With the aid
of wooden or bone tools, they finished their flint artifacts by
pressure, gave them excellent edges and points, and shaped them with
artistic skill. Their most characteristic flints are the so-called
laurel-leaf (broad) and willow-leaf (narrow) lances. These were
evidently used in the chase. There is no evidence that they were
used in battle. Withal, their weapons had a religious significance.
Fourteen laurel-leaf spear-heads of Solutrean type which were found
together at Volgu, Saône-et-Loire, are believed to have been a votive
offering to a deity. At any rate, these were too finely worked and
too fragile, like some of the peculiar Shetland and Swedish knives
of later times, to have been used as implements. One has retained
traces of red colouring. It may be that the belief enshrined in the
Gaelic saying, "Every weapon has its demon", had already come into
existence. In Crete the double-axe was in Minoan times a symbol of a
deity;[40] and in northern Egypt and on the Libyan coast the crossed
arrows symbolized the goddess Neith; while in various countries, and
especially in India, there are ancient stories about the spirits of
weapons appearing in visions and promising to aid great hunters and
warriors. The custom of giving weapons personal names, which survived
for long in Europe, may have had origin in Solutrean times.
[40] For other examples see Mr. Legge's article in _Proceedings
of the Society of Biblical Archæology_, 1899. p. 310.
Art languished in Solutrean times. Geometrical figures were incised
on ivory and bone; some engraving of mammoths, reindeer, and lions
have been found in Moravia and France. When the human figure was
depicted, the female was neglected and studies made of males. It
may be that the Solutreans had a god-cult as distinguished from the
goddess-cult of the Aurignacians, and that their "flint-god" was an
early form of Zeus, or of Thor, whose earliest hammer was of flint.
The Romans revered "Jupiter Lapis" (silex). When the solemn oath was
taken at the ceremony of treaty-making, the representative of the
Roman people struck a sacrificial pig with the _silex_ and said, "Do
thou, Diespiter, strike the Roman people as I strike this pig here
to-day, and strike them the more, as thou art greater and stronger".
Mr. Cyril Bailey (_The Religion of Ancient Rome_, p. 7) expresses the
view that "in origin the stone is itself the god".
During Solutrean times the climate of Europe, although still cold,
was drier that in Aurignacian times. It may be that the intruders
seized the flint quarries of the Crô-Magnons, and also disputed
with them the possession of hunting-grounds. The cave art declined
or was suspended during what may have been a military regime and
perhaps, too, under the influence of a new religion and new social
customs. Open-air camps beside rock-shelters were greatly favoured.
It may be, as has been suggested, that the Solutreans were as expert
as the modern Eskimos in providing clothing and skin-tents. Bone
needles were numerous. They fed well, and horse-flesh was a specially
favoured food.
In their mountain retreats, the Aurignacians may have concentrated
more attention than they had previously done on the working of
bone and horn; it may be that they were reinforced by new races
from north-eastern Europe, who had been developing a distinctive
industry on the borders of Asia. At any rate, the industry known as
Magdalenian became widespread when the ice-fields crept southward
again, and southern and central Europe became as wet and cold as in
early Aurignacian times. Solutrean culture gradually declined and
vanished and Magdalenian became supreme.
The Magdalenian stage of culture shows affinities with Aurignacian
and betrays no influence of Solutrean technique. The method of
working flint was quite different. The Magdalenians, indeed, appear
to have attached little importance to flint for implements of the
chase. They often chipped it badly in their own way and sometimes
selected flint of poor quality, but they had beautiful "scrapers"
and "gravers" of flint. It does not follow, however, that they
were a people on a lower stage of culture than the Solutreans. New
inventions had rendered it unnecessary for them to adopt Solutrean
technique. Most effective implements of horn and bone had come into
use and, if wars were waged--there is no evidence of warfare--the
Magdalenians were able to give a good account of themselves with
javelins and exceedingly strong spears which were given a greater
range by the introduction of spear-throwers--"cases" from which
spears were thrown. The food supply was increased by a new method of
catching fish. Barbed harpoons of reindeer-horn had been invented,
and no doubt many salmon, &c., were caught at river-side stations.
The Crô-Magnons, as has been found, were again in the ascendant, and
their artistic genius was given full play as in Aurignacian times,
and, no doubt, as a result of the revival of religious beliefs that
fostered art as a cult product. Once again the painters, engravers,
and sculptors adorned the caves with representations of wild animals.
Colours were used with increasing skill and taste. The artists
had palettes on which to mix their colours, and used stone lamps,
specimens of which have been found, to light up their "studios" in
deep cave recesses. During this Magdalenian stage of culture the art
of the Crô-Magnons reached its highest standard of excellence, and
grew so extraordinarily rich and varied that it compares well with
the later religious arts of ancient Egypt and Babylonia.
The horse appears to have been domesticated. There is at Saint
Michel d'Arudy a "Celtic" horse depicted with a bridle, while at
La Madeleine was found a "bâton de commandement" on which a human
figure, with a stave in his right hand, walks past two horses which
betray no signs of alarm.
Our knowledge is scanty regarding the races that occupied Europe
during Magdalenian times. In addition to the Crô-Magnons there
were other distinctive types. One of these is represented by the
Chancelade skeleton found at Raymonden shelter. Some think it betrays
Eskimo affinities and represents a racial "drift" from the Russian
steppes. In his _Ancient Hunters_ Professor Sollas shows that there
are resemblances between Eskimo and Magdalenian artifacts.
The Magdalenian culture reached England, although it never penetrated
into Italy, and was shut out from the greater part of Spain. It
has been traced as far north as Derbyshire, on the north-eastern
border of which the Cresswell caves have yielded Magdalenian
relics, including flint-borers, engravers, &c., and bone implements,
including a needle, an awl, chisels, an engraving of a horse on bone,
&c. Kent's Cavern, near Torquay in Devonshire, has also yielded
Magdalenian flints and implements of bone, including pins, awls,
barbed harpoons, &c.
During early Magdalenian times, however, our native land did not
offer great attractions to Continental people. The final glacial
epoch may have been partial, but it was severe, and there was a
decided lowering of the temperature. Then came a warmer and drier
spell, which was followed by the sixth partial glaciation. Thereafter
the "great thaw" opened up Europe to the invasion of new races from
Asia and Africa.
Three distinct movements of peoples in Europe can be traced in
post-Magdalenian times, and during what has been called the
"Transition Period", between the Upper Palæolithic and Lower
Neolithic Ages or stages. The ice-cap retreated finally from
the mountains of Scotland and Sweden, and the reindeer migrated
northward. Magdalenian civilization was gradually broken up, and the
cave art suffered sharp decline until at length it perished utterly.
Trees flourished in areas where formerly the reindeer scraped the
snow to crop moss and lichen, and rich pastures attracted the
northward migrating red deer, the roe-deer, the ibex, the wild boar,
wild cattle, &c.
The new industries are known as the Tardenoisian, the Azilian, and
the Maglemosian.
[Illustration: Geometric or "Pygmy" Flints. (After Breuil.)
1, From Tunis and Southern Spain. 2, From Portugal. 3, 4, Azilian
types. 5, 6, 7, Tardenoisian types.]
Tardenoisian flints are exceedingly small and beautifully worked,
and have geometric forms; they are known as "microliths" and "pygmy
flints". They were evidently used in catching fish, some being hooks
and others spear-heads; and they represent a culture that spread
round the Mediterranean basin: these flints are found in northern
Egypt, Tunis, Algeria, and Italy; from Italy they passed through
Europe into England and Scotland. A people who decorated with scenes
of daily life rock shelters and caves in Spain, and hunted red deer
and other animals with bows and arrows, were pressing northward
across the new grass-lands towards the old Magdalenian stations. Men
wore pants and feather head-dresses; women had short gowns, blouses,
and caps, as had the late Magdalenians, and both sexes wore armlets,
anklets, and other ornaments of magical potency. Females were nude
when engaged in the chase. The goddess Diana had evidently her human
prototypes. There were ceremonial dances, as the rock pictures show;
women lamented over graves, and affectionate couples--at least they
seem to have been affectionate--walked hand in hand as they gradually
migrated towards northern Spain, and northern France and Britain. The
horse was domesticated, and is seen being led by the halter. Wild
animal "drives" were organized, and many victims fell to archer and
spearman. Arrows were feathered; bows were large and strong. Symbolic
signs indicate that a script similar to those of the Ægean area,
the northern African coast, and pre-dynastic Egypt was freely used.
Drawings became conventional, and ultimately animals and human beings
were represented by signs. This culture lasted after the introduction
of the Neolithic industry in some areas, and in others after the
bronze industry had been adopted by sections of the people.
When the Magdalenian harpoon of reindeer horn was imitated by the
flat harpoon of red-deer horn, this new culture became what is known
as Azilian. It met and mingled with Tardenoisian, which appears to
have arrived later, and the combined industries are referred to as
Azilian-Tardenoisian.
While the race-drifts, represented by the carriers of the Azilian and
Tardenoisian industries, were moving into France and Britain, another
invasion from the East was in progress. It is represented in the
famous Ofnet cave where long-heads and broad-heads were interred. The
Asiatic Armenoids (Alpine type) had begun to arrive in Europe, the
glaciers having vanished in Asia Minor. Skulls of broad-heads found
in the Belgian cave of Furfooz, in which sixteen human skeletons were
unearthed in 1867, belong to this period. The early Armenoids met and
mingled with representatives of the blond northern race, and were the
basis of the broad-headed blonds of Holland, Denmark, and Belgium.
[Illustration: EXAMPLES OF PALÆOLITHIC ART
The objects include: handles of knives and daggers carved in
ivory and bone, line drawings of wild animals, faces of masked
men, of animal-headed deity or masked man with arms uplifted
(compare Egyptian "Ka" attitude of adoration), of wild horses on
perforated _bâton de commandement_, of man stalking a bison, of
seal, cow, reindeer, cave-bear, &c., and perforated amulets.]
Maglemosian culture is believed to have been introduced by the
ancestors of the fair peoples of Northern Europe. It has been
so named after the finds at Maglemose in the "Great Moor", near
Mullerup, on the western coast of Zeeland. A lake existed at this
place at a time when the Baltic was an inland water completely
shut off from the North Sea. In a peat bog, formerly the bed of the
lake, were found a large number of flint and bone artifacts. These
included Tardenoisian microliths, barbed harpoons of bone, needles
of bone, spears of bone, &c. Bone was more freely used than horn
for implements and weapons. The animals hunted included the stag,
roe-deer, moose, wild ox, and wild boar. Dogs were domesticated.
It appears that the Maglemosians were lake-dwellers. Their houses,
however, had not been erected on stilts, but apparently on a floating
platform of logs, which was no doubt anchored or moored to the shore.
There are traces of Magdalenian influence in Maglemosian culture.
Although many decorative forms on bone implements and engravings on
rocks are formal and symbolic, there are some fine and realistic
representations of animals worthy of the Magdalenian cave artists.
Traces of the Maglemosian racial drift have been obtained on both
sides of the Baltic and in the Danish kitchen middens. Engravings
on rocks at Lake Onega in Northern Russia closely resemble typical
Maglemosian work. Apparently the northern fair peoples entered Europe
from Western Siberia, and in time were influenced by Neolithic
culture. But before the Europeans began to polish their stone
implements and weapons, the blond hunters and fishermen settled not
only in Denmark and Southern Sweden and Norway but also in Britain.
At the time when the Baltic was an inland fresh-water lake, the
southern part of the North Sea was dry land, and trees grew on Dogger
Bank, from which fishermen still occasionally lift in their trawls
lumps of "moor-log" (peat) and the bones of animals, including those
of the reindeer, the red deer, the horse, the wild ox, the bison, the
Irish elk, the bear, the wolf, the beaver, the woolly rhinoceros,
the mammoth, and the walrus. No doubt the Maglemosians found their
way over this "land-bridge", crossing the rivers in rude boats, and
on foot when the rivers were frozen. Evidence has been forthcoming
that they also followed the present coast line towards Boulogne, near
which a typical Maglemosian harpoon has been discovered.
[Illustration: A Notable Example of late Magdalenian Culture:
engraving on bone of browsing reindeer. From Kesserloch,
Switzerland. (After Heim.)]
Traces of Maglemosian influence have been found as far north as
Scotland on the Hebridean islands of Oronsay and Risga. The MacArthur
cave at Oban reveals Azilian artifacts. In the Victoria cave near
Settle in Yorkshire a late Magdalenian or proto-Azilian harpoon
made of reindeer-horn is of special interest, displaying, as it
does, a close connection between late Magdalenian and early Azilian.
Barbed harpoons, found at the shelter of Druimvargie, near Oban, are
Azilian, some displaying Maglemosian features. Barbed harpoons of
bone, and especially those with barbs on one side only, are generally
Maglemosian, while those of horn and double-barbed are typically
Azilian.
[Illustration: Horn and Bone Implements
Harpoons: 1 and 2, from MacArthur Cave, Oban; 3, from Laugerie
Basse rock-shelter, France; 4, from shell-heap, Oronsay,
Hebrides; 5, from bed of River Dee near Kirkcudbright; 6, from
Palude Brabbie, Italy--all of Azilian type. 8, Reindeer-horn
harpoon of late Magdalenian, or proto-Azilian, type from Victoria
Cave, near Settle, Yorks. 9, Maglemosian, or Azilian-Maglemosian,
harpoon from rock-shelter, Druimvargie, Oban. 7, 10, 11, 12, 13,
and 14, bone and deer-horn implements from MacArthur Cave, Oban.]
Apparently the fair Northerners, the carriers of Maglemosian culture,
and the dark Iberians, the carriers of Azilian culture, met and
mingled in Scotland and England long before the Neolithic industry
was introduced. There were also, it would appear, communities in
Britain of Crô-Magnons, and perhaps of other racial types that
existed on the Continent and in late Magdalenian times. The fair
peoples of England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland are not therefore
all necessarily descendants of Celts, Angles, Saxons, and Vikings.
The pioneer settlers in the British Isles, in all probability,
included blue and grey-eyed and fair or reddish-haired peoples who
in Scotland may have formed the basis of the later Caledonian type,
compared by Tacitus to the Germans, but bearing an undoubted Celtic
racial name, the military aristocrats being Celts.[41]
[41] The Abbé Breuil, having examined the artifacts associated
with the Western Scottish harpoons, inclines to refer to
the culture as "Azilian-Tardenoisian". At the same time he
considers the view that Maglemosian influence was operating is
worthy of consideration. He notes that traces of Maglemosian
culture have been reported from England. The Abbé has detected
Magdalenian influence in artifacts from Campbeltown, Argyllshire
(_Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries in Scotland_, 1921-2).