414 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1896. 



the rocky walls of the caveru' associated with objects and evidences of 

 Madelainieu art, gravers bone points, etc. ; further discoveries of M. 

 Eiviere in the celebrated Cavern of Cro-Magnon at Les Eyzies.^ There 

 not only former paleolithic objects of industry were continued, but the 

 gravers and engraved bones were found, the most important being a 

 fragment of rib bone with the figure of a female engraved in profile 

 and at full length. Also art works similar to those in the Grotto de la 

 Mouthe found in the cavern of Pair-non-Pair, excavated by F. Daleau 

 (Bourg-sur-Gironde) and F. Regnault.^ 



SUCCESSION OF ART PERIODS. 



The nomenclature of the different art cultures heretofore described 

 belonging to the Paleolithic period in Europe is of small importance 

 compared with the facts of their superi)osition and succession in point 

 of time and their evolution in art. The fact of progression from an 

 earlier and ruder to a later and higher art culture seems to have been 

 satisfactorily established by investigation of the caverns themselves. 

 The caverns were gradually tilled up, either by natural or artificial 

 causes, or by both. By examining the strata in their succession the 

 investigators have demonstrated that there are marked differences in 

 the art and industry between tlie objects found in the different strata. 

 Of course, the filling up of the caverns must have been in chronologic 

 sequence. Superposition means succession. The distinction between 

 the various epochs in the Paleolithic period or the distinctions 

 between the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods are not to be discussed 

 here. The reader is referred to standard works upon the subject. A 

 list of these is given in the Handbook^ and in Primitive Industry.^ 



A few salient facts may be presented showing this superposition 

 and consequent succession, explaining an improvement in art culture 

 from the bottom of the cavern toward its top. For examjde, at Kent's 

 cavern, near Torquay, England, in the caverns investigated with all 

 possible care during a period of twelve or thirteen years, in which as 

 many thousand dollars were expended, under the direction of a com- 

 mittee appointed by the British Association, the strata of these early 

 occupations were covered by layers of stalagmite spread over what was 

 then the entire surface, separating and sealing it hermetically from sub- 

 sequent occupation. Under this, in various parts of the cavern, were 

 found specimens of Chelleen chipped-tiint itnpleraents, and beyond the 

 chii)S and fiakes, possibly the hammers incident to their fabrication, no 



'Bull. Soc. d'Anthropologie, Paris, July 1, 1897, VIII, pp. 302-329; November 4, pp. 

 484, 497. 



^Noiivelle's iccberches nntliropologiqucs et paldontologiqnes daua la Dordogue 

 (Assn. frantiiise pour rAvancoiiient do la Seieuce, Caen, 1894); Bull. Soc. d'Authro- 

 pologie, Paris, November 18, 1897, VIII, pp. 503-7. 



3Bull. Soc. d'Antbropologie, Paris, 1897, VIII, p. 315. 



^Report of tbe U. S. National INIuscum, 1887-88, pp. 597-672. 



^Smitbsouiau Report, 1892, pp. 522-534. 



