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
As to the chief source of Solutrean influence, the same author remarks
that, since this culture is entirely wanting in central and southern
Spain, in Italy, in Sicily, in Algeria, and in Phœnicia, we should
certainly not look to the Mediterranean for its origin but rather to
eastern Europe; for in the grottos of Hungary we find a great development
of the true Solutrean, while so far the Aurignacian has not been found
here, although we do find traces of the earlier transitional stages below
the levels of the true laurel-leaf points. We must admit, therefore, that
in all probability the Solutrean culture reached Europe from the east and
that its source is as mysterious as that of the Aurignacian, which, as we
have seen, was of southern and probably of Mediterranean origin. It is not
impossible that the evolution of the laurel-leaf point took place in
Hungary, for it was certainly not evolved in central or western Europe.
At Předmost, in Moravia, we observe an advanced Aurignacian industry which
had adopted a Solutrean fashion in its spear heads. Here the laurel-leaf
implements are few, while the implements of bone are abundant; but in the
Solutrean stations of Hungary there are no bone implements. As the
Solutrean technique comes to perfection the laurel-leaf spear head, so
characteristic of the full Solutrean industry, is created and is met with
in Poland, in Hungary, in Bavaria, and then in France, where the industry
extends southward to the west and east of the central plateau. In France
it appears quite suddenly in the Grotte du Trilobite (Yonne), and also in
Dordogne and Ardèche, where the Proto-Solutrean types show marked
impoverishment, both in the variety and in the execution of most of the
flint implements, the only exception being the flattened spear heads,
_pointes à face plane_, which show a regular Solutrean retouch, beautiful
but monotonous. Laurel-leaf points discovered at Crouzade, Gourdan, and
Montfort denote the presence of the true Solutrean culture, but this
culture does not approach the stations in the neighborhood of Brassempouy.
Toward the north the grotto of Spy, in Belgium, affords examples of
Proto-Solutrean types, which have also been traced in several British
caverns, but it is not certain that true Solutrean implements are found in
Britain.
In Picard a Proto-Solutrean layer has been found, but no laurel-leaf
points. In the type station of Solutré in southeastern France Breuil
discovered two Solutrean layers, quite different from each other: one rich
in bone implements and graving-tools, with small flint laurel leaves
retouched on only one face; the other poor in bone implements but with
large laurel-leaf spear heads.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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