August. 1929 



E\-OLUTION 



Page Three 



The Super-Men of Cro-Magnon 



By EDWARD GRIEG CLEMMER 



Cro-Magnon Man, as restored by 

 J. H. McGregor 



T^HE rock shelter of Cro-Magnon is in the French 

 village of Les Ej-zies, in the Dordogne Valley. 



Here, in 1868, were discovered the first skeletons of 



Cro - Magnon Man. 

 Many other finds 

 since then make our 

 knowledge of this an- 

 cient race of Cro- 

 Magnon very com- 

 plete. 



The Cro-Magnons 

 lived in the Upper 

 Paleolithic age, ahout 

 25,000 to 10^000 B.C. 

 This age is divided 

 into three periods, 

 named, in ascending 

 order, the Aurigna- 

 cian, Solutrean and 

 Magdalenian, after the 

 towns of Aurignac, 

 Solutre and La Ma- 

 deleine where the 

 first type tools were found. For each period is dis- 

 tinguished by a different kind of tools, the type tools 

 of one period not carrying over into the next, although 

 the same basic design, may be preserved. 



The Cro-Magnons were fine physical specimens, 

 some skeletons indicating a height of six feet, four 

 inches. The race as a whole was taller than the aver- 

 age modern European and far taller than the Neander- 

 thal race. Also, the Cro-Magnon walked fully erect 

 and held his head high. His brain equalled or excelled 

 ours in cubical contents. Some have suggested that he 

 might have been a mutation from the Neanderthal, but 

 it is probable that he evolved in Asia and immigrated 

 to the land of the Neanderthal. 



In almost every case, the skeletons show care m 

 burial, and at some stations the body was placed in a 

 particular position, surrounded by shells or tools. 

 Sometimes the grave had been filled with a special 

 earlh. and one skeleton had been painted red. All this 

 indicates that this people considered burial an impor- 

 tant ceremony, and they probably had a belief in an 

 after-life. Certainly they valued the remains of their 

 dead more than had any preceding race. 



During the first or Aurignacian period, the cleaver, 

 point and scraper were replaced by improved tools 

 shaped from blade-like flint flakes from which small 

 chips were removed by pressing instead of striking. 

 In tb's manner, Aurignacian man made knives with an 

 evident handle and sharply pointed gravers for carving 

 on bones and on cave walls. He also made bone and 

 ivory points, cleft at the liase for the end of his javelin. 

 In the Solutrean period the art of flint working by 

 pressure flaking reached its highest development. The 



most characteristic and beautiful tools were the laurel 

 leaf and willow leaf points, the former two inches to 

 a foot long, symmetrical, evenly flaked, straight, shar]) 

 and thin, the latter even more delicate and slender. 



But all this marvelous dexterity eventually came to 

 naught, for the Magdalenians who followed paid little 

 attention to flint implements. They did use flint drills, 

 saws, gravers and scratchers, but they made real prog- 

 ress in transforming reindeer horn and bones into 

 javelin points, needles, awls, fishhooks, harpoons and 

 dart throwers. 



Where the Magdalenians did excel was in their art, 

 figures carved from ivory and stone, probably of magi- 

 cal significance, perhaps worshipped as idols, and on 

 the walls of their caves, drawings and paintings. In 

 1878, Marquis Santyola, accompanied by his little 

 daughter, was searching the cavern of Altamira, Spain, 

 for relics of ancient man. Suddenly she cried out, 



Painting of Bison in colors. Cavern of Altamira, Spain 



"Toros! Toros! (Bulls! Bulls!)", and pointed ex- 

 citedly to the ceiling of the cavern, all covered with the 

 frescoes drawn by Magdalenian man. Subsequently 

 other caves were discovered in France and Spain, their 

 ceilings and walls similarly covered with drawings, 

 some just outlines, others filled in with bright colors 

 that have not faded to this day. 



What happened to Cro-Magnon man we do not 

 know. We do know that he lived in the cold 

 of the Ice Age, and that when the ice melted away to 

 the North, the animals he hunted for food left for 

 colder regions. Some think he followed them and that 

 the Eskimos are his descendants. Their culture is much 

 like his, but their physical characteristics are very dif- 

 ferent. Probably this prehistoric race of artists just 

 died out. Or the warm weather made life too easy so 

 they degenerated and became the easy victims of more 

 vigorous invaders from Asia or the Mediterranean 

 region. Others, however, think that Cro-Magnon blood 

 still courses through the veins of some Europeans, but 

 of that we can only guess. 



