Ancient Man in Britain. Donald Alexander Mackenzie
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finished their flint artifacts by pressure, gave them excellent edges and points, and shaped them with artistic skill. Their most characteristic flints are the so-called laurel-leaf (broad) and willow-leaf (narrow) lances. These were evidently used in the chase. There is no evidence that they were used in battle. Withal, their weapons had a religious significance. Fourteen laurel-leaf spear-heads of Solutrean type which were found together at Volgu, Saône-et-Loire, are believed to have been a votive offering to a deity. At any rate, these were too finely worked and too fragile, like some of the peculiar Shetland and Swedish knives of later times, to have been used as implements. One has retained traces of red colouring. It may be that the belief enshrined in the Gaelic saying, "Every weapon has its demon", had already come into existence. In Crete the double-axe was in Minoan times a symbol of a deity;40 and in northern Egypt and on the Libyan coast the crossed arrows symbolized the goddess Neith; while in various countries, and especially in India, there are ancient stories about the spirits of weapons appearing in visions and promising to aid great hunters and warriors. The custom of giving weapons personal names, which survived for long in Europe, may have had origin in Solutrean times.
Art languished in Solutrean times. Geometrical figures were incised on ivory and bone; some engraving of mammoths, reindeer, and lions have been found in Moravia and France. When the human figure was depicted, the female was neglected and studies made of males. It may be that the Solutreans had a god-cult as distinguished from the goddess-cult of the Aurignacians, and that their "flint-god" was an early form of Zeus, or of Thor, whose earliest hammer was of flint. The Romans revered "Jupiter Lapis" (silex). When the solemn oath was taken at the ceremony of treaty-making, the representative of the Roman people struck a sacrificial pig with the silex and said, "Do thou, Diespiter, strike the Roman people as I strike this pig here to-day, and strike them the more, as thou art greater and stronger". Mr. Cyril Bailey (The Religion of Ancient Rome, p. 7) expresses the view that "in origin the stone is itself the god".
During Solutrean times the climate of Europe, although still cold, was drier that in Aurignacian times. It may be that the intruders seized the flint quarries of the Crô-Magnons, and also disputed with them the possession of hunting-grounds. The cave art declined or was suspended during what may have been a military regime and perhaps, too, under the influence of a new religion and new social customs. Open-air camps beside rock-shelters were greatly favoured. It may be, as has been suggested, that the Solutreans were as expert as the modern Eskimos in providing clothing and skin-tents. Bone needles were numerous. They fed well, and horse-flesh was a specially favoured food.
In their mountain retreats, the Aurignacians may have concentrated more attention than they had previously done on the working of bone and horn; it may be that they were reinforced by new races from north-eastern Europe, who had been developing a distinctive industry on the borders of Asia. At any rate, the industry known as Magdalenian became widespread when the ice-fields crept southward again, and southern and central Europe became as wet and cold as in early Aurignacian times. Solutrean culture gradually declined and vanished and Magdalenian became supreme.
The Magdalenian stage of culture shows affinities with Aurignacian and betrays no influence of Solutrean technique. The method of working flint was quite different. The Magdalenians, indeed, appear to have attached little importance to flint for implements of the chase. They often chipped it badly in their own way and sometimes selected flint of poor quality, but they had beautiful "scrapers" and "gravers" of flint. It does not follow, however, that they were a people on a lower stage of culture than the Solutreans. New inventions had rendered it unnecessary for them to adopt Solutrean technique. Most effective implements of horn and bone had come into use and, if wars were waged—there is no evidence of warfare—the Magdalenians were able to give a good account of themselves with javelins and exceedingly strong spears which were given a greater range by the introduction of spear-throwers—"cases" from which spears were thrown. The food supply was increased by a new method of catching fish. Barbed harpoons of reindeer-horn had been invented, and no doubt many salmon, &c., were caught at river-side stations.
The Crô-Magnons, as has been found, were again in the ascendant, and their artistic genius was given full play as in Aurignacian times, and, no doubt, as a result of the revival of religious beliefs that fostered art as a cult product. Once again the painters, engravers, and sculptors adorned the caves with representations of wild animals. Colours were used with increasing skill and taste. The artists had palettes on which to mix their colours, and used stone lamps, specimens of which have been found, to light up their "studios" in deep cave recesses. During this Magdalenian stage of culture the art of the Crô-Magnons reached its highest standard of excellence, and grew so extraordinarily rich and varied that it compares well with the later religious arts of ancient Egypt and Babylonia.
The horse appears to have been domesticated. There is at Saint Michel d'Arudy a "Celtic" horse depicted with a bridle, while at La Madeleine was found a "bâton de commandement" on which a human figure, with a stave in his right hand, walks past two horses which betray no signs of alarm.
Our knowledge is scanty regarding the races that occupied Europe during Magdalenian times. In addition to the Crô-Magnons there were other distinctive types. One of these is represented by the Chancelade skeleton found at Raymonden shelter. Some think it betrays Eskimo affinities and represents a racial "drift" from the Russian steppes. In his Ancient Hunters Professor Sollas shows that there are resemblances between Eskimo and Magdalenian artifacts.
The Magdalenian culture reached England, although it never penetrated into Italy, and was shut out from the greater part of Spain. It has been traced as far north as Derbyshire, on the north-eastern border of which the Cresswell caves have yielded Magdalenian relics, including flint-borers, engravers, &c., and bone implements, including a needle, an awl, chisels, an engraving of a horse on bone, &c. Kent's Cavern, near Torquay in Devonshire, has also yielded Magdalenian flints and implements of bone, including pins, awls, barbed harpoons, &c.
During early Magdalenian times, however, our native land did not offer great attractions to Continental people. The final glacial epoch may have been partial, but it was severe, and there was a decided lowering of the temperature. Then came a warmer and drier spell, which was followed by the sixth partial glaciation. Thereafter the "great thaw" opened up Europe to the invasion of new races from Asia and Africa.
Three distinct movements of peoples in Europe can be traced in post-Magdalenian times, and during what has been called the "Transition Period", between the Upper Palæolithic and Lower Neolithic Ages or stages. The ice-cap retreated finally from the mountains of Scotland and Sweden, and the reindeer migrated northward. Magdalenian civilization was gradually broken up, and the cave art suffered sharp decline until at length it perished utterly. Trees flourished in areas where formerly the reindeer scraped the snow to crop moss and lichen, and rich pastures attracted the northward migrating red deer, the roe-deer, the ibex, the wild boar, wild cattle, &c.
The new industries are known as the Tardenoisian, the Azilian, and the Maglemosian.
Geometric or "Pygmy" Flints. (After Breuil.)
1, From Tunis and Southern Spain. 2, From Portugal. 3, 4, Azilian types. 5, 6, 7, Tardenoisian types.
Tardenoisian flints are exceedingly small and beautifully worked, and have geometric forms; they are known as "microliths" and "pygmy flints". They were evidently used in catching fish, some being hooks and others spear-heads; and they represent a culture that spread round the Mediterranean basin: these flints are found in northern Egypt, Tunis, Algeria, and Italy; from Italy they passed through Europe into England and Scotland. A people who decorated with scenes of daily life rock shelters and caves in Spain, and hunted red deer and other animals with bows and arrows, were pressing northward across the new grass-lands towards the old Magdalenian stations. Men wore pants and feather head-dresses; women had short gowns, blouses, and caps, as had the late Magdalenians, and both sexes wore armlets, anklets, and other ornaments of magical potency. Females were nude when engaged in the chase. The goddess Diana had evidently her human prototypes. There were ceremonial dances, as the rock pictures show; women lamented over graves, and affectionate couples—at least they seem to have been affectionate—walked hand in hand as they gradually migrated towards
For other examples see Mr. Legge's article in