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
At Předmost, near the site of the human burial described above, there has
been discovered a statuette of the mammoth sculptured in the round, in
ivory, which proves that animal sculpture was well advanced in Solutrean
times. The statuette was found six to nine feet beneath the surface of the
'loess,' in an undoubted Solutrean layer. The accompanying fauna is of a
truly arctic character: the mammoth being extraordinarily abundant; the
tundra forms including the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, musk-ox, reindeer,
arctic fox, arctic hare, glutton, and banded lemming; the Asiatic forms
including the lion and leopard; the forest and meadow fauna embracing the
wolf, fox, beaver, brown bear, bison, and wild cattle, moose, and horse,
also the ibex. Among the remnants of 30,000 flints there are a dozen
points (_feuilles de laurier_) and other pieces with the Solutrean
'retouch.' The industry in ivory, bone, and reindeer horn is also varied,
including numerous poniards, polishers, piercers, dart-throwers, and
bâtons de commandement.
[Illustration: FIG. 173. Mammoth sculptured on a fragment of ivory tusk
from the Solutrean station of Předmost, Moravia. After Maška. This figure
is covered with fine lines representing the long, hairy coating, and
measures about four and one-half inches.]
This ivory sculpture of the mammoth indicates very accurately the
characteristic contours of the top of the head, and of the back; the
striations on the side represent the falling masses of hair. Other
sculptured figures representing the mammoth are believed to be of
Magdalenian age, the best known being the figures found in the grottos of
Bruniquel and Laugerie Basse, a fragment from Raymonden, Dordogne, and a
bas-relief in the grotto of Figuier, Gard. All these sculptures of the
mammoth have in common the indication of a very small ear--similar to that
in the Předmost model--feet shaped like inverted mushrooms, bordered with
short, coarse hairs, the tail terminating in a long tuft of hairs. If the
figure of Předmost is of Solutrean age, it is by far the earliest of all
the sculptured or engraved animal representations in the mobile art, and
is also the most complete of the animal figurines of this group. It is
certainly of more recent date than the engraved designs of Aurignacian age
in the grottos of Gargas and of Chabot or than the red or black tracings
of the mammoth, also of Aurignacian age, at Castillo, Pindal, and
Font-de-Gaume. It is probable that the mammoth figures of Combarelles are
of later date than the Předmost sculpture and belong to the beginning of
Magdalenian times, while those at Font-de-Gaume belong to the end of
Magdalenian times and are the most recent of all the parietal designs.
Despite the differences in age and technique, all the designs of the
mammoth are undoubtedly the work of artists of a single race; they agree
in faithfully portraying the external form of this great proboscidian
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