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
The Acheulean stations are widely distributed along the Seine, Marne, and
Somme in northern France, where flint is abundant and well adapted for
fine workmanship. In central and southern France, where large flints are
scarce, the Acheulean tribes were forced to use quartz, which fashions
into clumsier forms. In the north the Acheulean workers continued on the
old Chellean sites at Chelles, St. Acheul, Abbeville, and Helin. In late
Acheulean times were established the new stations of Wolvercote on the
Thames, near Oxford, and of Levallois on the Seine, near Paris, both
famous for their 'Levallois' flint knives or blades. Near Levallois is the
late Acheulean station of Villejuif, south of Paris, where the flints are
buried in drifts of loess. In Normandy are the important stations of
Frileuse, Bléville, and La Mare-aux-Clercs, which give the whole Acheulean
development, both early and late. On a small tributary valley of the
Vézère, in Dordogne, in late Acheulean times there was established the
station of La Micoque, which gives its name to a number of miniature
flints of distinctive form which were first found there and are known as
the 'type of La Micoque.' Other stations, such as Combe-Capelle, also show
examples of this 'miniature' Acheulean workmanship.
[Illustration: FIG. 80. Distribution of the principal Acheulean industrial
stations in western Europe.]
Altogether, over thirty Acheulean stations have been found in France,
two--Castillo and San Isidro--in northern and central Spain, the single
station of Furninha in Portugal, over eight in Germany, three in Austria,
and three in Russian Poland. Especially remarkable is the wide
distribution of this culture all over Italy, where explorations by no
means exhaustive have resulted in the discovery of at least nine or ten
very prolific stations extending from Goccianello in the north to Capri in
the south, but not into Sicily as far as is at present known. Thus all of
western Europe, excepting the area covered by the Scandinavian ice-fields
on the north and by the Alpine ice-fields on the south, was penetrated by
the workers of Acheulean flints, probably members, for the most part, of
the Neanderthal race.
[Illustration: FIG. 81. Late Acheulean station of La Micoque, in Dordogne,
where miniature flints of distinctive late Acheulean form are found.
Photograph by N. C. Nelson.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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