MEN OF THE OLD STONE AGE 



323 



Europe directly from the east, or even along 

 the northern coast of the Mediterranean, but 

 rather along the northern coast of Africa, 

 where Chellean culture is recorded in associa- 

 tion with mammalian remains belonging to 

 the middle Pleistocene epoch." "Industry 

 similar to the Chellean, but not necessarily 

 of the same age, is distrii)uted all over eastern 

 Africa from Egypt to the Cape." This then 

 is a faint hint that the earliest type of human- 

 ity to reach Europe came from Africa. 



For a vast span 

 of time aftxM'waril 

 we are completely 

 in the dark as to the 

 history of man in 

 Europe, until there 

 suddenly appears 

 upon the scene, oc- 

 cupying Europe 

 from Gibraltar to 

 Neanderthal, and 

 from England to 

 the Carpathians, 

 the uncouth race of 

 Neanderthal men, 

 characterized by 

 "an enormous head 

 placed upon a short 

 and thick trunk, 

 with limbs very 

 short and thick set, 

 and very robust ; 

 the shoulders broad 

 and stooping, with 

 the head and neck 

 habitually bent for- 

 ward into the same 

 curvature as the 

 back ; the hands ex- 

 tremely large and 

 without the delicate 

 play between the 

 thumb and the fin- 

 gers characteristic 

 of modern races." 



In spite of the big brain, this is a vastly 

 different type of humanity from any races 

 that we know today, and one that was unable 

 to hold its own in competition with the supe- 

 rior type of man which we distinguish as the 

 species sapiens. 



I have quoted from Professor Osborn the 

 hint that the earliest human beings to enter 

 Europe came from Africa. The distribution 

 of Mousterian remains — ■ not forgetting that 



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IT"^ 



The nimble-witted race (Homo sapiens, the same as the 

 man of today) was evolved probably near the isthmus 

 between Africa and Asia. It later superceded the Nean- 

 derthal race in Western Europe. Afler restoration by 

 J. H. McGregor 



the most primitive, and possibly the earliest, 

 of them was found at Gibraltar — -suggests that 

 the Neanderthal race may have followed the 

 same route. It in turn was superseded by 

 races of men of modern type, before whose 

 nimbleness of mind and skill of hand neither 

 the brutal strength nor the massive brain 

 of the Neanderthal race availed to spare 

 it from extinction. Such evidence as we 

 possess points to the fact that the newcomers 

 also "came through Phoenicia and along the 

 southern coasts of 

 the Mediterranean, 

 through Tunis, into 

 Spain." 



v.The reconstruc- 

 tion of the wonder- 

 ful story of Upper 

 Palaeolithic man 

 and his works is 

 one of the greatest 

 achievements of re- 

 cent anthropologi- 

 cal research, to 

 which Professor Os- 

 born has done full 

 justice in his book. 

 Somewhere in the 

 neighborhood of the 

 isthmus linking 

 Africa to Asia, 

 Homo sapiens was 

 evolved; and from 

 time to time fresh 

 broods of the new 

 type of intelligent 

 and enterprising 

 humanity left the 

 parent stock and 

 took possession of 

 Asia, Africa and 

 Europe, and even- 

 tually of the rest 

 of the world. The 

 vanguard of this 

 higher type of man 

 in Western Europe brought with it the germs 

 of the culture known as Aurignacian, which 

 perhaps did not attain its maturity and its 

 distinctive characteristics imtil the immi- 

 grants had been settled for some time in 

 southern France. 



One of their most remarkable practices was 

 the mutilation of the fingers and the sil- 

 houetting of these damaged members on the 

 walls of caverns. This is one of the earliest 



