News 



PvJblished Monthly by Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago 



Vol.4 



JULY, 1933 



No. 7 



STONE AGE HALL, SOON TO OPEN, WILL SHOW ANCESTORS OF HUMAN RACE 



By Henry Field 

 Assistant Curator of Physical Anthropotogy 



The Hall of the Stone Age of the Old 

 World (Hall C) will be opened to the public 

 this month. Its object is to present, for the 

 first time in any museum, the most complete 

 and interesting picture that present scientific 

 knowledge permits, of the lives, cultures, 

 and physical characters of prehistoric an- 

 cestors of the human race. The prepara- 

 tions have involved extensive travel and 

 research, and the acquisition of archaeo- 

 logical collections from all parts of the 

 world. 



The general plan 

 was worked out by 

 the writer in coUabo- 

 ration with Dr. 

 Berthold Laufer, 

 Curator of Anthro- 

 pology, with the 

 generous coopera- 

 tion of Abbe Henri 

 Breuil, professor at 

 the College de 

 France and Corre- 

 sponding Member of 

 Field Museum. 



In order to obtain 

 data for accurate ex- 

 hibits, it was neces- 

 sary to visit many 

 prehistoric sites. In 

 June, 1927, Freder- 

 ick Blaschke, the 

 sculptor, accompa- 

 nied the writer to 

 Europe to make 

 studies in situ for 

 diorama groups. 

 Abb6 Breuil accom- 

 panied the expedi- 

 tion as technical ad- 

 viser; a photographer 

 and an artist also 

 were taken. A scale 

 model, motion and 



still pictures, and paintings of each site were 

 prepared. No detail was overlooked, and 

 all reconstructions in the hall are based on 

 data obtained in this careful manner. 



This expedition and three subsequent trips 

 were financed by Trustee Marshall FMeld. 

 Other contributors to the cost of the creation 

 of this hall were Trustees Frederick H. 

 Rawson and Silas H. Strawn. 



Life-size human figures were made by 

 Mr. Blaschke, under the direction of Sir 

 Arthur Keith, Professor G. Elliot Smith, 

 and Abb6 Breuil. These restorations of 

 prehistoric man are the finest ever made. 



In the hall are eight diorama groups con- 

 taining these sculptured figures. They are 

 arranged in chronological order, each pre- 

 senting a realistically depicted scene in the 

 life of a prehistoric period. The painted 

 backgrounds are the work of Staff Artist 

 Charles A. Corwin. 



Opposite the dioramas are cases of archae- 

 ological material, including objects of stone 

 and bone, reproductions of human remains, 

 and fossil specimens of fauna of each period. 



Entering the hall from the west, the first 

 diorama presents a scene of the Chellean 

 period in northern France, approximately 

 250,000 years ago. Because of the meager- 

 ness of data on this period, the scene is 

 shown appropriately in the dimness of 

 silvery moonlight. Two Chellean hunters 

 are huddled close to a fire in the shelter of a 

 large rock. One of them is chipping flakes 

 from a crude flint hand ax. In the back- 

 ground, on the opposite bank of a river, 

 large elephants and other animals are sil- 

 houetted against the sky. 



Copyright Field Museum of Natural History 



The Befilnnlng of Art 



The urge for aesthetic expression seems to have first awakened in Aurignacian man, about 35,000 years ago. In this 

 restoration, a group in the Hall of the Stone Age, a prehistoric artist is picturing his hand on the wall of a cave by blow- 

 ing ochre around the fingers through a tube. Other hands and crude representations of animals are seen on the wall. 



The next diorama shows a Neanderthal 

 family in a rock shelter at Gibraltar about 

 50,000 years ago. The azure blue of the 

 Mediterranean forms the background. It 

 is believed that family life developed during 

 this period. 



The Aurignacian period, approximately 

 35,000 years ago, is represented by a scene in 

 the cave of Gargas in southwestern France 

 (see accompanying illustration). At that 

 period, apparently, man's aesthetic sense 

 first found expression, embodying perhaps 

 the beginnings of art, magic, and religion. 

 In the group a man, kneeling upon the floor, 

 holds his left hand against the wall, and 

 blows powdered red ochre around the fingers 

 by means of a bone tube. On the wall are 

 many negative impressions of hands, the 

 fingers of which frequently appear to ha/e 

 been mutilated. The mutilation probably 

 was done purposely for some ritual reason, 

 similar to the practice of certain modern 

 primitive peoples. The firelight and the 

 sandstone lamp cast eerie shadows among 

 the stalactites. 



In the following scene a Solutrean sculptor 

 of Eskimo type is portrayed carving the 

 outline of a horse on a limestone block. 

 In a semicircle behind him is a frieze of 

 pregnant horses and bison cut in relief. 

 Fertility rites were performed before this 

 sanctuary at Le Roc, Charente. 



The Magdalenian period, about 25,000 

 years ago, is represented by a reproduction 

 of the bison of clay from the cave of Tuc 

 d'Audoubert. This also is the symbol of a 

 fertility rite, and one can picture the Mag- 

 dalenians dancing around these models, 

 praying for increase 

 of the herd of bison. 

 In a small case 

 opposite lies the 

 original Cap-Blanc 

 skeleton — the only 

 Magdalenian skele- 

 ton in the United 

 States. The adjoin- 

 ing diorama is a re- 

 production of the 

 Cap-Blanc rock 

 shelter, where a 

 frieze of horses, the 

 finest sculpture of 

 prehistoric times, 

 was carved in high 

 relief by Magdalen- 

 ian artists. 



The next diorama 

 illustrates the be- 

 ginning of the 

 domestication of 

 animals. This scene 

 shows a wild boar 

 hunt at Mas d'Azil, 

 with hunting dogs 

 holding the savage 

 male boar at bay. 

 Following this is a 

 neolithic scene at 

 Carnac in Brittany, 

 where a priest is 

 welcoming the birth 

 of a new day, as the rising sun casts long 

 shadows behind the rows of standing stones. 

 The last group of the series is a beautiful 

 scene at Lake Neuchatel, Switzerland. In the 

 foreground two fishermen are dragging their 

 net to shore. In the background are seen the 

 snow-capped Alps in the light of early dawn. 

 The exhibits in this hall form a permanent 

 record of the struggles and advances of pre- 

 historic man from the earliest times to the 

 dawn of the historical period. 



Cellulose Lacquer 



The term lacquer, formerly applied to 

 certain forms of varnish made by dissolving 

 shellac and other natural gums, has recently 

 been extended to cover various preparations 

 of so-called artificial resins and to varnishing 

 solutions obtained by chemical treatment 

 of cellulose. Cotton fibers furnish the most 

 convenient kind of pure cellulose, and are 

 generally used in the cheapest obtainable 

 form — linters, useless for spinning. In Hall 

 28 an exhibit shows the various steps in the 

 preparation of this type of varnish. 



