CHAPTER II 



PORTRAITS OF MAMMOTHS BY MEN WHO 

 SAW THEM 



SOME fifty-five years ago pieces of reindeer's antler 

 were discovered in the cave known as " La Made- 

 leine" in the Dordogne (a department of France 

 some eighty miles east of Bordeaux), upon which were 

 engraved the outlines of various animals such as reindeer 

 and horses. They and the bone spear-heads and needles, 

 and the flint knives found with them, were the first 

 revelation to later man of the existence of the prehistoric 

 cave-men. Among the carvings was a piece of ivory which 

 excited the profoundest interest. Partly hidden by a con- 

 fused mass of scratches it showed the well-drawn outline of 

 the great extinct elephant, thus scratched or " engraved " 

 on a bit of its own tusk (Fig. 7). The engraving was 

 barely 5 in. long, and has been reproduced in many books. 

 The specimen is now in Paris, and was for long the only 

 known representation of the Mammoth by the ancient 

 men who lived with it in Western Europe. 



During the last fifteen years, however, our knowledge 

 of the works of art executed by these ancient men has 

 increased to an extraordinary extent, chiefly owing to the 

 energy and skill of the French explorers of the caverns 

 in the south central region of that country. As long ago 

 as 1879 a little girl, the daughter of Senor Sautuolo — a 

 proud woman she should be if alive to-day — when visiting 



the cavern of Altamira, near Santander, in the north of 



26 



