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
It appears that the Crô-Magnon race continued to prevail, yet
anthropologists have long been divided in opinion as to the racial
affinity of the men found in the Magdalenian industrial stage. The most
famous burials are those of Laugerie Basse and Chancelade in Dordogne,
each consisting of skeletons of inferior stature, not improbably belonging
to women. They certainly represent a race somewhat different from the
typical Crô-Magnons of Aurignacian times, as found at Crô-Magnon and in
Grimaldi. The archæologist de Mortillet referred both these skeletons to a
new race, the _race de Laugerie_. Schliz, who has most recently reviewed
this subject, has, however, rightly treated all these people as
Crô-Magnons of a modified type.
The Magdalenian skeleton of Laugerie Basse, found by Massénat in 1872, was
resting on the back, with the limbs flexed, and with it was a necklace of
pierced shells from the Mediterranean: the body apparently had been
covered with a layer of Magdalenian implements. According to the length of
the femur, the individual was 1.65 m., or 5 feet 1 inch in height; the
bones were strong and compact; the skull was well arched, with a straight
forehead and a cephalic index of 73.2 per cent.
[Illustration: FIG. 188. The _abri_ of Laugerie Basse, Dordogne, a famous
Magdalenian station and burial site of the skeleton of Laugerie Basse.
This ancient rock shelter, like that of Crô-Magnon and many others, shows
at the present day a cluster of peasants' dwellings around its base.
Photograph by Belvès.]
The so-called Chancelade skeleton was found in the shelter of Raymonden in
1888, at a depth of 5 feet, and was also in a folded position, resting
directly on the rock and covered with several layers of artifacts of the
later Magdalenian culture; the limbs were so tightly flexed as to prove
that they had been enveloped in bandages. This skeleton shows a
well-arched skull, a high, wide forehead, and a dolichocephalic head form,
but the limbs are comparatively small, the height not exceeding 1.50 m.,
or about 4 feet 7 inches; the upper arm and thigh are short, compact, and
clumsy, and the femur is crooked with comparatively thick ends; this
skeleton is generally classed with the Crô-Magnon race, but Klaatsch
considers that it may belong to a distinct type. We cannot disregard, says
Breuil,(9) the anatomical characters attributed by Testut to the man of
Chancelade and its resemblances to the actual Eskimo type; this indication
is in favor of a new element, arriving perhaps from Asiatic Siberia, but
acquiring in western Europe the artistic culture realized and conserved
in certain districts by the Aurignacian tribes and their derivatives. All
of the Aurignacian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian races, however, recall very
forcibly the race of Crô-Magnon, which tends to prove that these
transformations in culture were not made without a notable element of
human continuity.
DISCOVERIES OF MAGDALENIAN AGE CHIEFLY ATTRIBUTED TO THE CRÔ-MAGNON
RACE[AV]
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