PALAEOLITHIC CAVES. ALTAMIRA 15 



Of such are Kent's Cave near Torquay (which from its 

 remains of animals may have been a mansion, or technically a 

 " station," as early as any), the Kesserloch in Switzerland, the 

 shelters, or cavcrnes, in Southern France, of which La Madelaine 

 in Dordogne, earliest to be discovered, ranks still the most 

 famous, and a score or so of stations in Spain — not limited we 

 now realise to its north-west corner — of which Altamira, not 

 far from Santander, stands out pre-eminent. 



With their exploration a remoter vista has opened out in 

 recent years ; a wholly new standpoint has been gained from 

 which to review the early history of the human race. A brilliant 

 band of pre-historic archaeologists has brought together such 

 a mass of striking materials as to place the evolution of human 

 art and appliances in the Quaternary Period on a level far 

 higher than had been previously ever suspected. The in- 

 vestigations of Lartet, Cartailhac, Piette, Breuil, Obermaier. 

 etc., have revolutionised our knowledge of a phase of human 

 culture which goes so far back beyond the limits of any 

 continuous story that it may well be said to belong to an 

 older world. 



These sentences of Sir Arthur Evans ^ gain further 

 emphasis from Professor Boyd-Dawkins : " It is not too much 

 to state that the frescoed caves in Southern France and 

 Northern Spain throw as much light on the life of those times 

 as the Egyptian tombs do on the daily Hfe of Egypt, or the 

 walls of the Minoan palace on the luxury of Crete, before the 

 Achaean conquest." 



The picture of Palaeolithic life revealed by these dwelling 

 places attracts from every point of view. But as our last is 

 fish and fishing, to fish and fishing we must stick. I shall 

 therefore Umit myself to the caves which furnish specimens or 

 representations of ichthyic interest, with the one exception of 

 " marvellous Altamira," which, though it unfortunately 

 yields us no portrayals of fishing, from every other aspect 

 compels mention. 



So astonishing was the discovery of this cave with its whole 



1 Presidential Address to the British Association for the Advancement of 

 Science (Newcastle, 1916). pp. 6-g. Cf. M. Burkitt, Prehistory, Cambridge, 

 1 92 1, chs. iv— XX- 



