September 22, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



403 



lous Minoan civilization that has there come 

 to light shows that Crete of four thousand 

 years ago must unquestionably be regarded 

 as the birth-place of our European civiliza- 

 tion in its higher form. 



But are we, even then, appreciably 

 nearer to the fountain-head? 



A new and far more remote vista has 

 opened out in recent years, and it is not too 

 much to say that a wholly new standpoint 

 has been gained from which to survey the 

 early history of the human race. The in- 

 vestigations of a brilliant band of prehis- 

 toric archeologists, with the aid of repre- 

 sentatives of the sister sciences of geology 

 and paleontology, have brought together 

 such a mass of striking materials as to place 

 the evolution of human art and appliances 

 in the last Quaternary period on a far 

 higher level than had even been suspected 

 previously. Following in the footsteps of 

 Lartet and after him Riviere and Piette, 

 Professors Cartailhac, Captain, and Boule, 

 the Abbe Breuil, Dr. Obermeier and their 

 fellow investigators have revolutionized 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. 



To the engraved and sculptured works of 

 man in the "Reindeer Period" we have 

 now to add not only such new specialties 

 as are exemplified by the moulded clay 

 figures of life-size bisons in the Tuc d'Au- 

 doubert Cave, or the similar high reliefs of 

 a procession of six horses cut on the over- 

 hanging limestone brow of Cap Blanc, but 

 whole galleries of painted designs on the 

 walls of caverns and rock shelters. 



So astonishing was this last discovery, 

 made first by the Spanish investigator 

 Senor de Sautuola — or rather his little 

 daughter — as long ago as 1878, that it was 

 not till after it had been corroborated by 

 repeated finds on the French side of the 



Pyrenees — not, indeed, till the beginning 

 of the present century — that the Palaeolithic 

 Age of these rock paintings was generally 

 recognized. In their most developed stage, 

 as illustrated by the bulk of the figures in 

 the Cave of Altamira itself, and in those of 

 Marsoulas in the Haute Garonne, and of 

 Font de Gaume in the Dordogne, these 

 primeval frescoes display not only a con- 

 summate mastery of natural design but an 

 extraordinary technical resource. Apart 

 from the charcoal used in certain outlines, 

 the chief coloring matter was red and yel- 

 low ochre, mortars and palettes for the 

 preparation of which have come to light. 

 In single animals the tints are varied from 

 black to dark and ruddy brown or brilliant 

 orange, and so, by fine gradations, to paler 

 nuances, obtained by scraping and wash- 

 ing. Outlines and details are brought out 

 by white incised lines, and the artists 

 availed themselves with great skill of the 

 reliefs afforded by convexities of the rock 

 surface. But the greatest marvel of all is 

 that such polychrome masterpieces as the 

 bisons, standing and couchant, or with 

 limbs huddled together, of the Altamira 

 Cave, were executed on the ceilings of inner 

 vaults and galleries where the light of day 

 has never penetrated. Nowhere is there 

 any trace of smoke, and it is clear that 

 great progress in the art of artificial illu- 

 mination had already been made. We now 

 know that stone lamps, decorated in one 

 case with the engraved head of an ibex, 

 were already in existence. 



Such was the level of artistic attainment 

 in southwestern Europe, at a modest esti- 

 mate some ten thousand years earlier than 

 the most ancient monuments of Egypt or 

 Chaldsea! Nor is this an isolated phe- 

 nomenon. One by one, characteristics, both 

 spiritual and material, that had been for- 

 merly thought to be the special marks of 

 later ages of mankind have been shown to 



