Men of the Old Stone Age: Their Environment, Life and ArtOsborn, Henry Fairfield
History
Men of the Old Stone Age: Their Environment, Life and Art
Osborn, Henry Fairfield
Art, Primitive; Prehistoric peoples; Stone age
MEN OF THE OLD STONE AGE
THEIR ENVIRONMENT, LIFE AND ART
HITCHCOCK LECTURES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA, 1914
[Illustration: PL. I. Neanderthal man at the station of Le Moustier,
overlooking the valley of the Vézère, Dordogne. Drawing by Charles R.
Knight, under the direction of the author.]
MEN OF THE OLD STONE AGE
THEIR ENVIRONMENT, LIFE AND ART
BY HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN
SC.D. PRINCETON, HON. LL.D. TRINITY, PRINCETON,
COLUMBIA, HON. D.SC. CAMBRIDGE HON. PH.D. CHRISTIANIA
RESEARCH PROFESSOR OF ZOOLOGY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
VERTEBRATE PALÆONTOLOGIST U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY,
CURATOR EMERITUS OF VERTEBRATE PALÆONTOLOGY IN THE
AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
UPPER PALÆOLITHIC ARTISTS
AND
CHARLES R. KNIGHT, ERWIN S. CHRISTMAN
AND OTHERS
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1915
COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published November, 1915
DEDICATED TO
MY DISTINGUISHED GUIDES THROUGH THE UPPER
PALÆOLITHIC CAVERNS OF
THE PYRENEES, DORDOGNE, AND THE CANTABRIAN MOUNTAINS OF SPAIN
ÉMILE CARTAILHAC
HENRI BREUIL
HUGO OBERMAIER
PREFACE
This volume is the outcome of an ever-memorable tour through the country
of the men of the Old Stone Age, guided by three of the distinguished
archæologists of France, to whom the work is gratefully dedicated. This
Palæolithic tour[A] of three weeks, accompanied as it was by a constant
flow of conversation and discussion, made a very profound impression,
namely, of the very early evolution of the spirit of man, of the close
relation between early human environment and industry and the development
of mind, of the remote antiquity of the human powers of observation, of
discovery, and of invention. It appears that men with faculties and powers
like our own, but in the infancy of education and tradition, were living
in this region of Europe at least 25,000 years ago. Back of these
intelligent races were others, also of eastern origin but in earlier
stages of mental development, all pointing to the very remote ancestry of
man from earlier mental and physical stages.
Another great impression from this region is that it is the oldest centre
of human habitation of which we have a complete, unbroken record of
continuous residence from a period as remote as 100,000 years
corresponding with the dawn of human culture, to the hamlets of the modern
peasant of France of A. D. 1915. In contrast, Egyptian, Ægean, and
Mesopotamian civilizations appear as of yesterday.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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