MAN, HIS ENVIRONMENT AND TIIS ART 17 



suggested by raised beaches near Calais and on the ^outh coast of 

 England. 



All things considered, it looks as if pre-noolithic man had to con- 

 tend with more than one glacial epoch, which means an environmental 

 disturbance of the first magnitude. Think, for example, of a great 

 continental ice-sheet creeping slowly but inevitably down upon Xew 

 York City. What an overturning of unearned increments ! What a 

 succession of Titanic disasters at sea ! But unearned increments and 

 floating palaces were happily non-existent in past glacial times. Pre- 

 neolithic man simply abandoned his wind-break or folded his tent of 

 skins and carried it with him. Besides the European continental ice- 

 sheet never reached quite so far south even as London; it never covered 

 the spots where the Piltdown skull and the Heidelberg jaw were found. 

 There was, to be sure, a considerable extension of the Alpine and Pyre- 

 nean glaciers, but there was always enough room for safety and the 

 survival of those best adapted to the environment. 



The wide distribution in Europe of flint-bearing chalk deposits 

 makes it almost an ideal place for the evolution of a stone-age culture. 

 In many parts of Europe these flint-bearing deposits also afforded man 

 ready-made shelter in the shape of caves and overhanging rocks. They 

 are usually in proximity to water courses, and frequently so bunched 

 as to invite a relatively dense population: those became centers of 

 culture. 



Such favored regions as the foothills of the Cantabrian Mountains 

 in Spain, those of the French Pyrenees, the Italian Eiviera, and Dor- 

 dogne go a long way toward explaining the origin and evolution of 

 paleolithic art. The great cave group of the Vezere valley became the 

 Paris of the antique world. Here the arts flourished to a remarkable 

 degree, beginning with the Aurignacian epoch. and continuing through 

 to the close of the paleolithic. 



It must be remembered that these early artists were limited in their 

 choice of materials. Pebbles, pieces of schist or slate, fallen fragments 

 from the overhanging calcareous rock, bone, reindeer horn, ivory were 

 all utilized: but the most notable works were executed on the walls of 

 caverns and rock shelters. Suitable wall space was at a premium; the 

 result is that one often finds superposed figures two, three and even 

 four deep covering the same wall space. One of the best examples of 

 this is the great band of frescoes, five meters long, which shows inter- 

 locking of figures as well as superposition (PI. I.). Here as in prac- 

 tically all polychrome frescoes there is a basis of engraving which also 

 prepares the field for the color. This foundation of engraving is seen 

 in the upper half of the plate. The band is readily divided into four 

 groups or sections. To the first group belong three figures all headed 



VOL. LXXXII.— 2. 



