26 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



cave has furnished several other daggers ; one has the figure 

 of a mammoth for the hilt, another that of some great carnivore. 

 Some of the sculptured figures which have been regarded as 

 the handles of daggers are possibly not of this nature ; the 

 Abbe Brueil believes that they were all intended simply and 

 solely as images of the animals they represent, and he is 

 inclined to think that magic influence was attributed to them: 

 there is no doubt a considerable amount of truth in this view, 

 and it may very well apply to a sculptured mammoth found in 

 the cave of Bruniquel, but scarcely to the reindeer hilted dagger 

 of Laugerie basse. ■ As another instance of an animal form 

 carved without any apparent ulterior purpose may be mentioned 

 the head of a musk ox, found in the Kesserloch, near Thayngen, 

 Switzerland. Most of the sculpture, however, is decorative ; 

 as additional instances we may cite a pendant carved with the 

 figure of a Saiga antelope, the same animal as that which is 

 sculptured in so masterly a manner on the spear-thrower 

 mentioned on p. 20 (fig. 3). The apposed heads of bison at the 

 extremity of an arrow-straightener may also be recalled here. 



The engravings and carved figures illustrate in a remarkable 

 manner the natural history of the Magdalenian age; and their 

 evidence is in complete harmony with that derived from a study 

 of the associated bones. The fauna includes among others the 

 following : Reindeer, stag {Cervus c/ap/iiis), the great Irish deer 

 (Cervus megaccros), bison, horse, ass, musk-ox (now confined to 

 arctic North America), Saiga antelope (now confined to the 

 steppes of Russia), glutton (now distributed over lands 

 bordering the Arctic Ocean), arctic hare (Alpine and Arctic 

 regions) ; piping hare {Lagomys piisillus, an inhabitant of the 

 Asiatic steppes), lemming (restricted to the northern parts of 

 Europe). It is evidently a mixed fauna, containing some forms 

 characteristic of the steppe, others of the tundra. At an early 

 period in the study of palaeolithic remains observers were led 

 by the presence of the cold-loving species of the tundra to 

 look to the Arctic regions for the surviving representatives of 

 reindeer men. Pruner Bey was one of the first to identify the 

 Magdalenians with the Mongolians, though on somewhat in- 

 sufficient grounds. He was followed by Hamy, 1 who asserted 

 that it is solely among Arctic people, Lapps, Eskimos, and 

 Chukchis, that we find the same customs, weapons, and im- 

 1 E. T. Hamy, Precis de Pah'otitologie Humaine, Paris, 1870, p. 366. 



