PALEOLITHIC RACES 67s 



bring the limbs out against the body. Advantage was frequently- 

 taken of the irregularities of the walls to give an effect of relief 

 to the whole figure. The colours employed were red, brown, 

 black, and several shades of yellow, graduated into numberless 

 half-tones and tints. The pigments from which they were 

 obtained are iron ochre and oxide of manganese. 



M. Cartailhac and the Abbe Breuil speak in enthusiastic 

 terms of the group of polychrome figures shown in outline in 

 fig. 3 ; they characterise it as " l'ceuvre la plus parfaite que nous 

 puissions actuellement citer de ces epoques reculees, et qui 

 place les vieux peintres des ages glyptiques bien au-dessus des 

 animaliers de toutes les civilisations de l'orient classique et de 

 la Grece : rien n'egale la rigueur du trace, l'exactitude et la 

 hardiesse des attitudes, l'habilite et le fondu des nuances rouges, 

 brunes, noires, et jaunes qui se melangent et se graduent en 

 mille demi-teintes." 



It will be noticed that the animals are irregularly scattered; 

 they are full of character and life, but they tell no story. The 

 greater number are bisons ; standing, walking, rampant, they 

 crowd the middle of the picture : on the extreme left is a deer, 

 shown on a larger scale in fig. 4 ; above it to the right is a wild 

 boar, probably one of the animals most dreaded by Solutrian 

 man ; next to this is a horse with its colt ; on the extreme right is 

 another wild boar, apparently in the act of charging. In other 

 caves additional animals are represented: the mammoth, some- 

 times full grown, sometimes very young, looking like a ball of 

 fur ; and the woolly rhinoceros, with its two great horns one 

 behind the other. 



Besides animal forms, numerous other not very intelligible 

 drawings occur on the walls, some spoken of as " scutiform " 

 and " tectiform," which in the character of their detail recall 

 the markings on some of the Australian " churinga," and others 

 which appear to be conventional symbols, but as they are not 

 arranged in order and seldom repeat the same forms it is 

 difficult to extract any meaning from them. Impressions of 

 the human hand are met with, painted in red in Altamira, but 

 in other caves also in black, and sometimes uncoloured on a 

 coloured ground. These seem to be older than any of the 

 other markings. 



We cannot survey the series of pictures with which Solutrian 

 man has illustrated the animal life of his time without a feeling 



