Prehistoric manDuckworth, W. L. H. (Wynfrid Laurence Henry)
History
Prehistoric man
Duckworth, W. L. H. (Wynfrid Laurence Henry)
Prehistoric peoples
To these Palaeolithic implements, others of the Neolithic types
succeeded in Europe. [It is necessary to insist upon this succession as
European, since palaeoliths are still in use among savage tribes, such as
the aboriginal (Bush) natives of South Africa.] Confining attention to
palaeoliths and their varieties, the discovery of a form alleged to fill
the gap separating the most ancient Neolithic from the least ancient
Palaeolithic types may be mentioned. The implements were obtained from
the cave known as Le Mas d'Azil in the south of France.
In Germany, the researches of Professor Schmidt[28] in the caverns of
Württemburg have revealed a series of strata distinguished not only in
position and sequence but also by the successive types of stone
implements related to the several horizons. The sequence may be shewn
most concisely if the deposits are compared in a tabular form as follows
(Table I).
These caves give the information necessary for a correct appreciation of
the position of all the cave-implements in Table A. Reverting to the
latter, and having regard to the cave-men, both subdivisions of Division
II (cf. Table A) appear, but no example or representative of the
earliest form (designated by Division I). The fauna is entirely
Pleistocene, if we except such a trifling claim to Pliocene antiquity as
may be based upon the presence of _Rhinoceros merckii_ at Krapina.
The results of this enquiry shew therefore that genuine Mousterian
implements are of Pleistocene age, that they were fabricated by human
beings of a comparatively low type, who lived in caves and were by
occupation hunters of deer and other large ungulate animals. So much has
long been known, but the extraordinary distinctness of the evidence of
superposition shewn in Professor Schmidt's work at Sirgenstein, furnishes
the final proof of results arrived at in earlier days by the slow
comparison of several sites representing single epochs. That work also
helps to re-establish the Aurignacian horizon and period as distinctive.
TABLE I.
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