606 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1928 



rian. It would seem that these figures speak for a rather close relation 

 of these peoples in their habits, and that particularly between the 

 Mousterians and Aurignacians — who should represent two different 

 species of man, one greatly superior to the other. 



An objection may here be raised to the effect that the number of 

 available, and especially of the more suitable, caves was limited and, 

 therefore, the same caves that once served the Neanderthalers had 

 to be used also by the shelter-needing Aurignacians; but this point 

 is invalidated by the showing of the Solutreans and Magdalenians, 

 who were even more cave dwellers than the Aurignacians, yet are 

 found collectively in less than one-fourth of the Mousterian caves. 



Another point is, that it is not always the lower or earliest Aurig- 

 nacian that follows upon the Mousterian. But such a discord is 

 common to all the periods. It may mean a discontinuity, and may 

 also mean a persistence of any given culture in some localities longer 

 than in others. In both cases it would speak against a sudden general 

 displacement of one culture. 



There is evidently much here, once more, to be explained by those 

 who conceive of Aurignacian man as very distinct from, and superior 

 to, the Mousterian, and as having suddenly replaced the latter. 



ART 



The Aurignacian period does not appear to come in full-fledged, 

 as is sometimes taken for granted, but to develop locally, both in 

 industry and art, from humbler beginnings (Breuil, Burkitt, Evans, 

 MacCurdy, et al.). Also there seems to be more difference in these 

 respects between the lower and the middle Aurignacian than there 

 is between the lower Aurignacian and the upper Mousterian with 

 the Audi and the Chatelperron stages. 



It may, moreover, be unjust to assume that Mousterian man was 

 devoid of art sense. He may not have left any designs in caves 

 (though that is not perhaps absolutely certain), but the same is true 

 of the Neolithic and many other early, as well as later, populations. 

 How many such designs, or other permanent forms of art, for in- 

 stance, have been left by the prehistoric man of England, or Belgium, 

 or Germany, Moravia, Poland, or Russia? How many have been 

 left more recently by such highly artistic people as the Slovaks and 

 the peoples of the Carpathians and the Balkans? And how many 

 cave designs comparable to those of France and Spain do we find 

 in the whole continent of America, with all its able and highly 

 artistic population, a large part of which — the Lagoa Santa-Algonkin 

 type — may even be remotely related to the Aurignacians? On the 

 other hand, practically a replica of the European cave art was pro- 

 duced by the lowly Bushmen of South Africa, who certainly were no 

 superior race or species. 



