Man and the Glacial PeriodWright, G. Frederick (George Frederick)
History
Man and the Glacial Period
Wright, G. Frederick (George Frederick)
Glacial epoch; Prehistoric peoples
M. Dupont has brought to light much additional testimony to glacial man
from other caves in different parts of Belgium. In all he has explored as
many as sixty. Three of these, in the valley of the Montaigle, situated
about one hundred feet above the river, contained both remains of man
and many bones of the mammoth and other associated animals, which had
evidently been brought in for food.
In the hilly parts of Germany, also, and in Hungary, and even in the
Ural Mountains in Russia, and in one of the provinces of Siberia, the
remains of the rhinoceros, and most of the other animals associated with
man in glacial times, have been found in the cave deposits which have
been examined. Though it can not be directly proved that these animals
were associated with man in any of these places, still it is interesting
to see how wide-spread the animals were in northern Europe and Asia
during the Glacial period.
Some northern animals, also, spread at this time into southern
Europe--remains of the reindeer having been discovered on the south slope
of the Pyrenees, but the remains of the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros,
and the musk ox, have not been found so far south.
African species of the elephant, however, seem at one time to have had
free range throughout Spain, and the hippopotamus roamed in vast herds
over the valleys of Sicily, while several species of pygmy elephants seem
to be peculiar to the island of Malta.
In the case of all the cave deposits referred to (with possibly the
exception of those of Victoria, England, and Cae Gwyn, Wales), the
evidence of man's existence during the Glacial period is inferential,
and consists largely in the fact that he was associated with various
extinct animals which did not long survive that period, or with animals
that have since retired from Europe to their natural habitat in
mountain-heights or high latitudes. The men whose remains are found in
the high-level river-drift, and in the caverns described, were evidently
not in possession of domestic animals, as their bones are conspicuous for
their absence in all these places. The horse, which would seem to be an
exception, was doubtless used for food, and not for service.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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