MAN, HIS ENVIRONMENT AND HIS ART 13 



nificent rock sbeltor facing the noitlnvest, but the overhanging rock 

 weathered away long ago, leaving a thick talus slope over the relic-bear- 

 ing deposits (Fig. 1). Here Dr. Henri Martin found a nearly complete 

 female skull of the Neandertal t}'pe and a portion of the skeleton. 

 Placard (Charente), occupied in Mousterian, Solutrean, and Magda- 

 lenian times, is a great shallow dry cave, a comfortable and picturesque 

 home for early man (Fig. 2). Equally picturesque is Mas d'Azil 

 (Ariege), a subterranean stream bed with connecting caverns occupied 

 by man in so-called Azilian times, that is to say at the very close of the 

 paleolithic period (Fig. 3). Shelters were evidently produced arti- 

 ficially at an early date, and no doubt varied according to locality just 

 as they do among primitive peoples of to-day. The ancestral hairy coat 

 was not discarded all at once, and before it ceased to be functional, some 

 exceptional mind had set a new fashion in garb. In more favored 

 climes this might well have been nothing more than the proverbial fig 

 leai. In colder regions recourse would be had to skins of animals. 



Much has been written concerning man and the glacial period, or 

 perhaps more correctly the glacial epochs; for there seem to have been 

 about four of these, all (or at least three) of which belong to the 

 Quaternary. The phenomena of fourfold terraces in the valleys of 

 Europe are widespread. To what extent these may be correlated with 

 the four glacial epochs is still an open question. 



At Amiens in the valley of the Somme, flint implements have been 

 found in all four terraces. Of the oldest two terraces at a height of 75 

 and 55 meters, respectively, above the sea, very little remains. A typical 

 pre-Chellean or eolithic industry has been found in the old gravel of the 

 second terrace. The third terrace about 42 meters above the sea is 

 made up of gravel at the bottom and two loess deposits, an old loess 

 and a recent loess (Fig. 4). Chellean industry occurs in the gravel, 

 Acheulian industry in the old loess, and Mousterian and Solutrean 

 industry in the recent loess. That a considerable period elapsed be- 

 tween the deposition of these two loess deposits is proved by the pres- 

 ence of the so-called limon rouge at the top of the old loess, representing 

 an old land surface, just as the brick earth at the top of the recent loess 

 represents a decalcified land surface — the present one. The fourth 

 terrace, the one last to be formed, is only 20 to 28 meters above the sea, 

 the 8 meters representing the thickness of the terrace (Fig. 5). Begin- 

 ning at the bottom, it is composed of coarse gravel with Chellean in- 

 dustry; a whitish layer of sand and gravel containing an ancient 

 Mousterian industry associated with a warm fauna (Elephas antiquus, 

 Rhinoceros mercJcii, Hippopotamus) : a sterile layer of fine gravels; and 

 lastly a thick deposit of recent loess with two horizons of later Mous- 

 terian industry. 



