338 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 83 



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 certain), but the same is true of the 

 bulk of the Neolithic and many other early, as well as later, popula- 

 tions. How many such designs, or other permanent forms of art, 

 for instance, have been left by the post-Neanderthal 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 southern France and 

 northern 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 blood-related to the late 

 Aurignacians ? On the other hand, practically a replica of the European 

 cave-art was produced by the lowly Bushmen of South Africa, who 

 certainly were no superior race or species. 



That the Mousterians may not have been lacking in artistic sense 

 is indicated by some of their beautiful implements from La Quina 

 and other stations ; by the beautiful topaz and then by a crystal cleaver 

 found in 1925-6 by the American school at Sergeac ; by the decorated 

 bone fragment from La Ferrassie ; and possibly by the pierres- figures 

 (e. g., Roellecourt, Dharvent), and used chunks of manganese oxide, 

 found occasionally in the Mousterian deposits {c. g., La Quina, Henri 

 Martin). Sir Arthur Evans tells us that, "When we turn to the 

 most striking features of this whole cultural phase, the primeval arts 

 of sculpture, engraving, and painting, we see a gradual upgrowth and 

 unbroken tradition. From mere outline-figures and simple two- 

 legged profiles of animals we are led on step by step to the full 

 freedom of the Magdalenian artists " (" New Archaeological Lights on 

 the Origins of Civilization in Europe," by Sir Arthur Evans, Science, 

 1916, n. s. Vol. 44, No. 1134, p. 406). MacCurdy is even more direct : 

 " The inception, development, and decay of Quaternary art all took 

 place during the upper paleolithic period. The beginnings of sculp- 

 ture, engraving and fresco are traceable to the Aurignacian epoch " 

 (MacCurdy, Human Origins, Vol. i, p. 155). And there are some 

 very good words of appreciation of the abilities of Mousterian man in 

 Sir Arthur Keith's recent two volumes (The Antiquity of Man, 1925, 



