PALAOLITHIC 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 cavernes, 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 archeologists 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 life of Egypt, or the 
walls of the Minoan palace on the luxury of Crete, before the 
Achzan conquest.” 
The picture of Paleolithic 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 limit 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 
_| Presidential Address to the British Association for the Advancement of 
Science (Newcastle, 1916), pp. 6-9. Cf. M. Burkitt, Prehistory, Cambridge, 
1921, chs. iv—xx. 
