July 31, 1913] 



NATURE 



561 



employed as subsidiary to painting; the artists 

 try to regain by the use of various colours the 

 modelling lost in the preceding phase ; at first 

 they are timid, the animals are outlined in black 

 and the paint laid on in masses, but they soon 

 obtain a mastery of the technique, and produce 

 wonderful shaded polychrome paintings of bisons, 

 boars, and other animals in various positions. 

 Fifth phase : there is no longer any mural en- 

 graving ; nor are there paintings of animals, but 

 merely painted bands, branched designs, dots, and 

 so forth. With this decadence that marks the 



Azilian period comes the close of the Palaeolithic 

 age. 



The question naturally arises, whether the simple 

 decoration and absence of naturalistic drawings 

 of the Azilian period are due to a degeneration of 

 the Magdalenian art, or whether they reflect a 

 movement from elsewhere. The evidence certainly 

 points to the latter explanation, as the implements 

 are also different from the Magdalenian and agree 

 with those from pre-Neolithic sites in Italy, Sicily, 

 Tunis, Algeria, and south Spain. 



In various other parts of Spain pictographs have 

 been found in rock-shelters and on rocks in the 

 open ; these form an eastern and a southern group. 

 The rock-paintings in the lower valley of the Ebro 

 at Cretas were first noted in 1903, but not studied 

 till 1908, while those at Cogul were discovered in 

 1907 (Fig. 1). In every case they are in full day- 

 light and often exposed to the weather, whereas all 

 those previously considered are in the deep recesses 

 of dark and usually tortuous caves. The paintings 

 of the Dordogne include bears, lions, mammoths, 

 rhinoceroses, horses, bisons, wild oxen and goats. 

 deer, and reindeer. The reindeer and mammoth 

 scarcely occur in the caves of the French Pyrenees, 

 while in those of Cantabria the reindeer is entirely 

 absent, and there are two elephants and one bear. 

 Throughout the whole region representations of 

 human beings are practically absent. 



In the frescoes of eastern Spain the deer, primi- 

 tive ox, and wild goat are very abundant ; there 

 are also a few wolves, one horse, one male elk, 

 some fallow deer, and a bison. We are here in 

 a different zoological area. With the exception 

 of two very diagrammatic deer at Cogul (Fig. 2), 

 NO. 2283, VOL. 91] 



all the animals are depicted with the same artistic 

 feeling that is exhibited in the Magdalenian art of 

 France and Cantabria ; there is the same ability to 

 seize forms and attitudes, the same certainty of 

 execution. The number of human beings that are 

 drawn marks a sharp contrast to the art of the 

 north. At Cogul there was found a remarkable 

 fresco representing a group of nine partially clothed 

 women apparently dancing round a small nude 

 male figure — doubtless a representation of a cere- 

 mony that may have had fecundity for its object ; 

 300 kilometres south of Cogul, near AlpeVa, two 

 very similar women were painted in 

 the midst of a wonderful assem- 

 blage of men and animals. The men 

 are always nude, often they wear 

 feather head-dresses and tasselled 

 leglets ; they are drawn in various 

 attitudes, and the majority of them 

 are shooting with bow and arrows 

 at deer and other animals (Fig. 3). 

 The investigators have satisfied 

 themselves that the paintings belong 

 to the Magdalenian period, and now 

 we have indisputable evidence that 

 at all events in the latter part of 

 the Palaeolithic age the bow was a 

 common weapon in Spain ; its 



to the right m OS , r , r , 



f panel, o- 75 m. presence has not yet been proved 



in the Franco-Cantabrian area, but 

 we know that the spear-thrower was employed by 

 the French Magdalenians. Two large male figures 

 at Alpera in a dancing attitude, wearing a feather 

 head-dress and flourishing a bow and arrows, have 

 doubtless a ceremonial significance, and may 

 represent magicians. 



There is nothing to show whether the above- 

 mentioned schematic figures at Cogul were earlier 



-Hunting scene painted in 

 :er; the figure to the right i 

 ir. Length of fresco, 075 r 



1 the rock at Cogul : man shooting 

 ad deer lying on its back with legs 



or later than the other naturalistic paintings, for 

 assuredly they were not done by the same artists. 

 The same style reappears at AlpeVa, in the eastern 

 area, where it is easy to see that it is later than 

 the fine style. 



At Batuecas, in west-central Spain, enormous 

 panels are covered with dots, rows of lines, 

 branched, scaliform, pectiform, and other signs, 

 circles, and rayed figures, together with very 

 schematic men and animals (Fig. 4), which are 

 later than certain more naturalistic drawings. 

 Precisely similar diagrammatic siens occur in pro- 



