EUROPEAN CAVES AND EARLY MAN 
By N. C. Nelson 
Intropuctory Note: The American Museum is one of several institutions in the New 
World to maintain an active interest in palzolithic archeology as developed in Europe. At 
the present time, for example, a comprehensive display indicative of this earliest of art and 
industry is open to the public. With the addition of a much-needed somatological series the 
exhibit would give the visitor a surprisingly complete ocular demonstration of man’s origin and 
of the various steps in his physical and mental history. 
In order to make clearer to the general public the binding nature of modern conclusions 
regarding early human developments it was decided some time ago to construct a model of a 
palzolithic cave station. The station selected as most instructive for this purpose was the 
Castillo grotto, in northern Spain, there being preserved here in forty-five feet of distinctly 
stratified deposits the whole industrial history of man almost from the earliest beginnings down 
to the introduction of metal. In connection with this project, which was inspired largely by 
the interest of Henry Fairfield Osborn, president of the Museum, the writer had opportunity 
a little over a year ago to examine a large number of the palolithic stations in western Europe 
and the following general remarks are based on observations then made.! — N.C.N. 
HERE are recorded at the present 
time for the southern two-thirds 
of Europe, including Mediter- 
ranean Asia and Africa, no less than 
four hundred paleolithic stations, that 
is, places where remains of one kind or 
another have been left behind by early 
man. ‘This man was primarily a hunter 
and his chief center of activity appears 
to have been what is now southwestern 
France and northeastern Spain although 
Germany, Austria, Italy, Belgium, Eng- 
land, and to a lesser degree other coun- 
tries, came within his range. ‘This 
apparent distribution may be deceptive 
however. Many of the stations are out 
1The geographical distribution of important 
caves and shelters, the cave art and the palzo- 
lithic industrial remains were considered in the 
JOURNAL issues of December, 1912 and October, 
1914, 
in the open, as for example on the valley 
terraces of the Thames and the Somme; 
but the majority of the sites, especially 
those of later times, are sheltered in some 
way. The shelter may consist merely 
of an overhanging cliff, it may be a grotto 
yawning on the mountain side and it may 
be the far interior of a cave. This 
latter type of site it is relatively easy to 
find by making a deliberate search while 
the location of an ancient camp or 
workshop in the open country is the 
result only of chance. It is conceivable 
of course, that these roaming migratory 
hunters returned seasonally to the nat- 
ural shelters, but on the other hand, it is 
possible that many of them built huts — 
some of the geometric cave paintings 
suggest that they did — and unless these 
huts stood in very close proximity to 
237 
