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 smaller _Grotte des Enfants_ (Fig. 132), which lies to the west of the
Prince's Grotto, was apparently occupied at a somewhat more recent period,
because the lowest fire-hearths contain, together with the Mousterian
implements, remains of Merck's rhinoceros only--apparently the last
survivor here, as well as in other parts of western Europe, of the warm
African-Asiatic fauna. The hippopotamus and the straight-tusked elephant
had either become extinct or had been driven farther south by the time the
hunters first occupied this grotto. In the overlying layers of this and
several other grottos the fire-hearths contain remains of a rich forest
fauna which includes the wild boar, stag, roe-deer, wild horse, wolf, and
bear. The first signs of increasing cold in the mountains to the north is
the appearance of remains of the chamois and ibex driven from the Alpine
heights. Then in still higher layers appears the reindeer, harbinger of
the tundra climate.
THE GRIMALDI RACE
Verneau is inclined to regard the Grimaldi as a very ancient race,
antedating the Crô-Magnon.(2) He believes that they belong to a new ethnic
type which played an important rôle in Europe and enjoyed a wide
geographic distribution. There does not, however, seem to be much support
for this opinion, because, unlike some other races, no traces of the
Grimaldis have been found elsewhere, and it would appear more probable
that they were, as their skeletal characters indicate, true negroids which
perhaps found their way from Africa but never became established as a race
in western Europe.
The type consists of two skeletons found in the _Grotte des Enfants_ by
Verneau in 1906. One skeleton is that of a middle-aged woman; the other is
that of a youth of sixteen or seventeen. Both are referred to the existing
species of man, _Homo sapiens_. The layer which contained them is on a
level two feet lower than any which contained Crô-Magnons, and
immediately above the culture layer of Mousterian times.
[Illustration: FIG. 132. Section of the _Grotte des Enfants_, after
Tschirret. In deposits which accumulated to a thickness of over 30 feet
this grotto contains in its ascending strata a complete epitome of the
vicissitudes of climate, together with four burials of members of the
Crô-Magnon Race, and, near the base, the burial of the two Grimaldi
skeletons. The layers in descending order are as follows:
_A._ Burial of two infant skeletons. Remains of forest and alpine
(_Ibex_) mammals.
_B._ Burial of the skeleton of a Crô-Magnon woman. Remains of forest
and alpine mammals.
_C._ Fire-hearths containing forest mammals--the wild boar, also the
reindeer.
_D._ Fire-hearths with flints of Aurignacian type. Remains of forest
fauna--the marten.
_E._ Layer containing a cairn or artificial pile of stone. Remains of
ibex, horse, wolf, cave-lion, and fox.
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