RECENT PKOGRESS IX THE FIELD OF OLD WOULD 



PREHISTORY ' 



By Ge»R4^.e Grant MacCurdy 



[Witli S i.lali's] 



A little moro than a year aj^o, "roolofrii^ts and «^la('ioloj;i.sts were 

 celebratin<:^ the one hundiodth anniversary of the birth of ghiciology 

 as a science. The year 1930 might well be chosen as the one 

 hundredth anniversary of the birth of jirehistory as a science, since 

 it was in 1830 that Thonisen of Copenhagen applied his new system 

 of prehistoric chronology to the Danish National Museum collec- 

 tions. There is something back of the fact that these anniversaries 

 come so nearly coinciding. Progress in glaciology has meant much 

 toward progress in prehistory. Chronologically speaking, the Ice 

 Age falls within the limits of prehistoric time and the precision 

 of our knowledge concerning glacial and intorglacial chronology 

 helps us to date many of the prehistoric relics inseparably linked 

 with Ice Age deposits and fauna. In the past few years, much 

 progress has been made in this field of reseai'ch. In our summary 

 then of recent progress in Old World prehistory let us first see what 

 has been done in the way of correlating Ice Age with prehistoric 

 chronology. 



Correlation of Ice Age and prehistoric chronology. — For years 

 the general consensus of opinion was that the last phase of Mous- 

 terian culture was coincident with the advance of tiie Wiirm or last 

 glaciation and that Upper Paleolithic (Aurignacian, Solutrean, and 

 Magdalonian) was coincident with a part of the maxinuim Wiirm 

 ghuiation and the major part of its retreat. Lentil very reiently 

 conservative prehistorians attempted to compress practically all of 

 the Lower Paleolithic into the last interglacial epoch (Riss-Wiirm). 

 In 1JU2, Conniiont had come to the conclusion that at least an early 

 phase of the Chellean (Pre-Chellean) should be placed in the next 

 to the last (Mindcl-Riss) interglacial. 



The recent progress in this direction is due largely to .). Keid 

 Moir and the Abbe H. Breuil. The main points in Breuii's syn- 



' Kfprlnted by ix-rmlsslon, witli uutlior's rt'vlslon and nddltiuii of lIluHtrutiouH, from 

 I'roceediDgs of the .\niericau Philosophical Scirn'ty, v<il. 09, No. 4, 1930. 



495 



