Books: Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples

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It was not until much later, in the times to which the name of
Neolithic has been given, that men made stuffs, and replaced the skins
of animals by lighter and more flexible garments. The inhabitants of
the Lake Stations of Switzerland and of Italy cultivated hemp. At
Wangen and at Robenhausen have been found shreds of coarsely woven
cloth, and at Lagozza fragments of yet more primitive material. On
some of these pieces it is supposed that traces of fringe and
attempts at ornamentation have been made out. Even in the Perigord
caves Lartet noticed some long slim needles which could not have been
used for sewing skins; and he concluded that they were intended for
more delicate work, perhaps even for embroidery. A new art, and one
which we certainly should not have expected to find is now met with
for the first time.

It is probable that our savage ancestors tatooed themselves, or painted
their bodies, as did the Britons in the time of Caesar, and as do
modern savages, or, not to go so far afield, as do English sailors
and some of the workingmen of France.[102] At Montastruc have been
picked up some fragments of red chalk, and in Mayenne of red iron ore,
whilst in the cave of Spy was found a bone filled with a very fine red
powder, and in that of Saltpetriere some powder of the same kind was
discovered preserved from destruction in a shell. Lartet and Christy
have made similar discoveries in the caves of the Dordogne; M. Dupont
in a shelter at Chaleux, and M. Riviere at Baousse-Rousse. The Abbe
Bourgeois found at Villehonneur not only a piece of red chalk as big
as a nut, but also an oval-shaped pebble, which had been used for
grinding it, the interstices of the surface still retaining traces
of coloring matter.

Red chalk was not the only substance employed. At Chatelperron, were
picked up fragments of manganese; at Cueva de Rocca, near Valentia,
pieces of cinnabar; in the Placard Cave, bits of black lead; and
in the different stations in the Pyrenees, especially in that of
Aurensan, ochre has been found which was doubtless used for the same
purpose. At Solutre, ochre, manganese, and graphite were found;
the last named had been scraped with a flint, and the scratches
made by it are still distinctly visible. From a Westphalian cave,
Schaafhausen took some dark yellow ochre; at Castern (Staffordshire),
a bit of this same calcareous substance, worn with long service,
was picked tip; in Cantire (Argyleshire), a piece of red hematite,
which had evidently been brought from Westmoreland or Lancashire;
and lastly, in Kent's Hole was found some peroxide of manganese.

All these fragments of ochre or manganese, red chalk or black lead,
were reduced to powder with the help of pebbles, artificially hollowed
out. Everywhere we meet with these primitive mortars, and side by
side with them other pebbles in their native condition, which had
evidently been used for crushing the coloring matter.

A recent discovery tends to confirm the hypothesis that these colors
were used for the decoration of the human body. A curious engraving
on a bone represents the head and arm of a man, and on the lower
part of the forearm it is easy to make out a four-sided design which
evidently indicated tatooing.

In every country, and in every climate, we find men as well as women
manifesting a taste for ornament. The progress of civilization has
greatly increased this taste, but it existed as a natural instinct
in the very earliest days of humanity, and the contemporary of the
mammoth and the cave-bear, the cave-man cowering in his miserable den,
sought for ornaments with which to deck himself. In the caves near the
stations occupied by primeval men we find little bits of fossil coral,
beads of hardened clay, the teeth of bears, wolves, and foxes, boars'
tusks, and the jawbones of small mammals, fish-bones, and belemnites
pierced with holes, and intended to be used as amulets or ornaments
to be worn round the neck. At Lafaye, we find the incisors of small
rodents serving the same purpose. The dweller in the Sordes Cave owned
a precious necklace made of forty bears' and three lions' teeth. The
teeth found often have on them ornamental lines, which doubtless
indicated the rank or celebrated the deeds of the chief. The Abbe
Bourgeois describes some stags' teeth found at Villehonneur (Charente),
two of which bore scratches which may have had some signification. At
Cro-Magnon were picked up some ivory plaques pierced with three
holes; at Kent's bole were found some oval disks measuring five by
three inches, which in the delicacy of their workmanship presented a
curious contrast to the other objects taken from the same cave. In the
Belgian caves here picked up some thin slices of jet and some ivory
plaques, and in those of the south of France fragments of steatite,
cut into rectangular and lozenge shapes, whilst in the Thayngen Cave
was found a pendant of lignite (Fig. 27). Men were not content with
natural products; fashion demanded new forms and fresh materials.

FIGURE 27

1. Lignite pendant. 2. Bone pendant (Thayngen Cave).

But what most attracted the attention of the ancient inhabitants
of France were bright-colored shells. The caves of Roquemaure have
yielded nearly a thousand disks and beads made of cockle-shells;
at Cro-Magnon more than three hundred shells were picked up which
formed a collar or necklace, which was not however so valuable
as that of the man of Sordes. M. de Maret discovered at Placard
numerous shells; some belonging to ocean species still extant, and
others fossils of forms now extinct. Many of them are foreign to the
country in which they were found. From the most remote times therefore
the inhabitants of the present department of Charente fished in the
Gulf of Gascony, crossed Aquitania, visited the shell marl deposits
of Anjou and Touraine, and penetrated as far as the present Paris
basin. The finding of the CYPRINA ISLANDICA in one of the French
caves proves that the prehistoric men of France even went as far
away as the north of England. This is by no means an isolated fact;
numerous shells from the department of Champagne had been taken to
tire shores of the Lesse and the Meuse. At Solutre have been found
belemnites, ammonites, and Miocene shells, which were certainly never
native to that district, with pieces of rock-crystal from the Alps,
and beads made of a jadeite of unknown origin.

In Scotland have been found necklaces of nerites and limpets;
at Aurignac, eighteen little plaques of cockle shell pierced with
holes in the centre. At Laugerie-Basse, a man overtaken by a landslip
had been crushed by the stones which had fallen upon him; time has
destroyed his clothes, but the shells with which he had decked himself
are still preserved.[103] He had worn four on his forehead, two on
each shoulder, four on each knee, and two on each foot. All idea of
these shells having formed a necklace must be abandoned; they were
all notched, and had been used either. to adorn or fasten the clothes.

The most interesting discoveries, however, were those made in the caves
of Baousse-Rousse, of which we have so often spoken. M. Riviere picked
up the skeletons of two children, some thousand shells (NASSA NERITEA)
artificially pierced, which had been used to deck their garments: Near
an adult were other shells forming a necklace, a bracelet, an amulet,
and a garter worn on the left leg; whilst on the head was a regular
RESILLE or net, not unlike that of the Spanish national costume, which
net was made of small nerita shells and kept in place by bone pins.

We must also mention amongst favorite ornaments beads made of
jet and of very fine ochreous clay dried in the sun, of calcareous
crystalline rock, and of grayish schist, and in other places of beads
of amber or of hyaline quartz, the brightness of which attracted the
attention. At the station of Menieux (Charente) with flints of a type
to which it is usual to give the names of Mousterien or Solutreen,
excavations have yielded numerous carefully polished balls of calx,
varying in diameter from one to two inches. If there had been any
doubts as to their use, those doubts would have been removed by the
discovery at Laugerie-Basse of a fragment of the shoulder-blade of a
reindeer on which was engraved the figure of a woman wearing round her
neck a necklace of clumsy round balls. Other yet stranger ornaments
have been found, for which what we have said about the cannibalism
of early man should have prepared the reader. Our ancestors of the
Stone age adorned themselves with necklaces of human teeth, and two
skeletons have been dug out wearing round their necks this token of
their victories. M. de Baye possesses in his collection some round
pieces of skull pierced with holes (Fig. 28), and at the meeting
of the American Association in 1886, at Ann Arbor (Michigan) were
presented some ornaments made of human bones from a mound in Ohio.

In taking from the gangue in which it was imbedded a skull from the
megalithic monument of Vaureal, Pruner Bey noticed a fragment of a
human shoulder blade pierced with an incision in which was fixed
a little rounded piece of bone. This style of ornament seems to
have remained in use for many centuries, for M. Nicaise has lately
discovered at Moulin d'Oyes (Marne) a necklace made of calx balls,
shells, and pendants cut out of the scales of unio shells. On this
necklace hung a round piece of human cranium, and in the Gallic
cemetery at Varille, the exterior lamina of a human lumbar vertebra
was fastened to a necklace made of coral beads.

FIGURE 28

Round pieces of skull pierced with holes (Al. de Baye's collection).

We are also acquainted with facts of another order, which may be
mentioned in this connection. The men of Marjevols drank out of human
crania; the Grenoble Museum owns a drinking-vessel of this kind; others
have been discovered at Billancourt, at Chavannes, at the Chassey
Camp, and at Sutz, AEfele, and Loci-as in Switzerland, as well as
at Brookville in the State of Indiana. Dr. Prunieres possesses half
a human radius, probably that of a female, carefully polished and
converted into a stiletto (Fig. 29). Dr. Garrigou has an arrow-head
made of a human bone, Pellegrino a fibula converted into a polisher
found in the lower beds of the celebrated Castione TERREMARE near
Parma. At the meeting of the Prehistoric Congress in Paris in 1869,
Pereira da Costa mentioned a femora converted into a sceptre or staff
of office, and to conclude this melancholy list, Longperier mentions
a human bone pierced with regular openings, which, by a strange irony
of death, served as a flute to delight the ears of the living. .

FIGURE 29

Part of a rounded piece of a human parietal-Stiletto made of the end
of a human radius -- Disk made of the burr of a stag's antler.

One of the earliest necessities of human nature must have been
companionship; for help was absolutely necessary to enable man to
cope with the dangers surrounding him. Tribes, formed at first of
members of the same family, must have existed from the very dawn
of humanity. The reindeer phalanges, pierced to serve as whistles
(Fig. 30), found at Eyzies, Schussenreid, Laugerie-Basse, Bruniquel,
in the Chaffaud Cave and the Belgian shelters, in a peat-marsh of
Scania, in the island of Palmaria, and in many other places, were
doubtless used to summon men to war or to the chase. In the Cottes Cave
were found some reindeer and aurochs' shanks, which may naturally be
supposed to have served the same purpose. The curious objects preserved
in the Christy collections must also have been used in war or in the
chase. They bear, in addition to the mark of their owner, notches of
different shapes commemorating his exploits in battle or in hunting. At
Solutre, MM. Ducrost and Arcelin noticed fragments of elephants'
tusks, calcareous plaques, and some sandstone disks from the Trias,
with notches and equidistant lines evidently having a similar purpose.

FIGURE 30

Whistle from the Massenat Collection.

From whistles to regular musical instruments the transition is
simple. Without describing that mentioned by M. de Longperier, which
we cannot confidently assert to be of great antiquity, M. Piette,
in one of his numerous excavations, discovered a primitive flute made
of two bird bones which, when put together and blown into, produced
modulations similar to those of the pipes used by the people of
Oceania; the monotonous music of which is alluded to by Cook. Some
time afterwards M. Piette noticed similar bones in the Rochebertier
collection. So far we know of no other discovery of a similar kind.

The curious objects known under the name of staves of office would,
if it were needed, afford yet another proof that the men of the Stone
age lived in societies, possessed an organization, and acknowledged
a chief. The staves of office consist of large pieces of reindeer
or stag antler, artistically worked and presenting a pretty uniform
appearance. Their surface is decorated with carvings and engravings
representing animals, plants, and hunting scenes. They are thicker
than they are wide, and the care often taken to reduce the thickness
is a proof that an attempt was made to combine elegance and lightness
with solidity (Figs. 31, 32, 33, 34, and 35). Nearly all of them are
pierced at one end with large holes, of which the number varies. Some
of these holes were later additions. May we perhaps see in them the
signs of a priesthood, in which successive ranks were attained, and in
which every new achievement was rewarded with a new distinction? This
is difficult to prove, but these staves could not have been used as
weapons or as tools; the care taken to cover them with ornaments,
with the long time required for this decoration, shows the value their
owners attached to them. The impossibility of any other hypothesis
is the best proof we have of their use.

FIGURE 31

Staff of office.

Amongst the marvellous objects collected by Dr. Schliemann at
Hissarlik, were two fragments of reindeer antler pierced with holes
presenting a singular resemblance to those we have been describing. We
may also compare with them the POGOMAGAN, the badge of office of Indian
chiefs on the Mackenzie River, the Tartar KEMOUS, the sticks on which
the Australians mark by conventional signs any event of importance to
themselves or their tribe, and the similar objects from Persia, Assam,
the Celebes, and New Zealand. But why seek examples so far away? Is
not the memory of these ancient insignia preserved in our own day,
and may they not have been the original forms of the sceptres of our
kings and the croziers of our bishops?

FIGURE 32

Staff of office made of stag-horn pierced with four holes.

FIGURE 33

Staff of office found at Lafaye.

FIGURE 34

Staff of office in reindeer antler, with a horse engraved on it,
found at Thayngen.

These staves, of which hundreds have now been found, were picked up
in many different places, including the Goyet Cave in Belgium, the
caves of Perigord and Charente, and the Veyrier Station in Savoy. At
Thayngen, as many as twenty-three were found, all pierced with one
hole only.[104] We must not omit to mention amongst these relies of
ages gone by, one of the most interesting found in 1887 at Montgaudier
(Charente) (Fig. 35), which bears on one side a representation of two
seals, and on the other of two eels, the former of which especially are
executed with a truth to form, boldness of execution, and delicacy of
touch which are positively astonishing when we remember that the artist
(we cannot refuse him this title) bad no tools at his disposal but
a few miserable flints or roughly pointed bones. The hinder limbs,
so strangely placed in amphibia, are faithfully rendered; each paw
has its five toes, the texture of the skin can be made out, the head
is delicately modelled; the muzzle with its whiskers, the eye, the
orifice of the ear, all testify to real skill. The existence of the
seal in the Quaternary epoch in the south of France was not known
until quite recently, when Mr. Hardy found in a cave near Perigueux
the remains of a seal (PHOCA GROENLANDICA), associated with quite an
arctic fauna. In part at least therefore of the Quaternary period,
very great cold must have prevailed in Perigord.[105]

With this staff of office were picked up some pieces of ivory
covered with geometrical designs, engraved with some sharp implement,
stilettos, bone needles, knives, flint scrapers, and, stranger still,
the remains of the cave-lion, the cave-hyena, and the RHINOCEROS
TICHORHINUS, all contemporaries of the most ancient Quaternary fauna.

FIGURE 35

Staff of office found at Montgaudier.

It was not only on the staves of office that the men of the Stone age
exercised their talent. Many and varied are the subjects which have
been found engraved on plaques of ivory or on stone, and incised on
bears' teeth or on stag horn. We represent one forming the hilt of
a dagger (Fig. 36), and another representing a bear with the convex
forehead, characteristic of the species, engraved on a piece of schist
(Fig. 37), and a mammoth engraved on an ivory plaque with its long
mane, trunk, and curved tusks (Fig. 38). The artist who depicted
these animals with such faithful exactitude evidently lived amongst
them. The first discovery of this kind was made by Joly-Leterme in
the Chaffaud Cave (Vienna); it was a reindeer bone on which two stags
were represented.[106]

FIGURE 36

Carved dagger-hilt (Laugerie-Basse).

FIGURE 37

The great cave-bear, drawn on a pebble found in the Massat Cave
(Garrigou collection).

In the Lortet Cave was found the bone of a stag on which could be
made out a representation of fish and reindeer, whilst at Sordes was
discovered a bear's tooth with a seal engraved upon it (Fig. 39), at
Marsoulas a piece of rib on which is depicted an animal said to be a
musk-ox (Fig. 40), and at Feyjat (Dordogne) a bird's bone bearing on
it a drawing of three horses moving rapidly along. I am obliged to
pass over many other most interesting examples, but I must not omit
to mention the magnificent examples which form part of the Peccadeau
collection at Lisle. Cartailhac mentions some chamois, an ox, and an
elephant; some engraved on the bones of deer and others on fragments
of ivory, or on reindeer antlers. The art of the cave-men was now at
its zenith.

FIGURE 38

Mammoth, or elephant, from the Lena Cave.

FIGURE 39

Seal engraved on a bear's tooth found at Sordes.

But for one exception to which I shall refer again, it is curious to
note that we only find these engravings and carvings, which so justly
excite our astonishment in a district of limited extent, bounded on
the north by the Charente, on the south by the Pyrenees and extending
on the east no farther than the department of the Ariege. It is a
pleasant thought that in the midst of their struggle for existence,
and when they had to contend with gigantic pachyderms and formidable
beasts of prey, our most remote ancestors, the contemporaries of the
mammoth and the lion, already developed those artistic tendencies
which are the glory of their descendants.

FIGURE 40

Fragment of a bone with regular designs. Fragment of rib on which is
engraved a musk-ox, found in the Marsoulas Cave.

FIGURE 41

Head of a horse from the Thayngen Cave.

FIGURE 42

Bear engraved on a bone from the Thayngen Cave.

I referred above to ail exceptional example of prehistoric art found
beyond the borders of France. In excavations in the Thayngen Cave,
on the borders of Switzerland and Wurtemberg, twenty most remarkable
examples were found, in which it is easy to recognize the horse
(Fig. 41), the bear (Fig. 42), and the reindeer grazing (Fig. 43).[107]
All, especially the last named, are rendered with such perfection,
that it was at first supposed that they were the work of a forger. A
searching inquiry has proved that they are nothing of the sort;
a skilful zoologist would have been needed to represent the OVIBOS
MOSCHATUS (Fig. 44), which retired many centuries ago towards the
extreme north. If we do find a few rare attempts at art in other
districts, they are absolutely rudimentary. The staff of office found
in the Goyet Cave is of very rude workmanship. The Brussels Museum
contains a few other specimens, of which the most important is a
fragment of sandstone from the Frontal Cave, on which a few uncertain
scratches represent what looks like a stag. Some indistinct traces of
engraving have been made out on the bones found in the Altamira Cave,
near Santander, and recently a bone on which a kind of horse was
engraved, was picked up at Cresswell's Crags, Derbyshire, in a cave
known in the district as MOTHER GRUNDY'S PARLOR. This specimen, as were
those of Thayngen, was associated with numerous bones of Quaternary
animals, amongst which those of the hippopotamus were the most curious.

FIGURE 43

Reindeer grazing, from the Thayngen Cave.

The representation of the human figure is extremely rare. I have
already mentioned the young man trying to strike an aurochs which is
running away from him; and the woman wearing a necklace. The former
(Fig. 45), found at Laugerie, is engraved on a piece of reindeer
antler about twenty-five centimetres long. The aurochs with its head
down and quantities of bristling hair, widely open nostrils, arched
and uplifted tail, presents the appearance of a terrified animal
endeavoring to escape the danger threatening it. The man is naked,
and has a round head, his hair is stiff and seems to stand up on the
top of his skull; on the chin a short beard can clearly be made out;
the face expresses the delight and excitement of the chase. The neck
is long, the arm short, and the spine of unusual length. In the other
example of the representation of the human figure, that of the woman
wearing a necklace, drawn on a piece of a shoulder-blade of a reindeer,
she is seen lying by a stag, and would seem to be in an advanced state
of pregnancy. The piece of bone however is broken, and the head of the
woman is lost, which of course greatly lessens the value of the relic.

FIGURE 44

Head of OVIBOS MOSCHATUS engraved on wood, found in the Thayngen Cave.

FIGURE 45

Young man chasing the aurochs, from Laugerie.

On a fragment of a staff of office from the Madeleine Cave is
engraved a man between two horses' heads (Fig. 46). On a reindeer
antler is represented a woman with flat breasts and very high hips,
followed by a serpent; a shell from the crag near Walton-on-the-Naze
had a human face roughly engraved on one side. The Abby, Bourgeois,
in the excavations so fruitful of results at Rochebertier, found a
rough carving of a human face (Fig. 47); M. Piette at Mas d'Azil
found a little bust of a woman, carved on the root of the tooth
of a horse. This statuette had a low forehead, a prominent nose, a
retreating chin, and breasts of the negress type of the present day;
characteristics quite unlike those of the skeletons taken from this
cave or those near it. We wonder whether the artist meant to represent
the features of a race other than his own.[108] M. du Bouchet mentions
a rough sketch engraved on a flint discovered near Dax; the workman,
doubtless daunted by the difficulties of his task, had abandoned it
unfinished. It is, however, easy to tell what it was meant for. The
skull is low and flat, the nose but slightly prominent, the eyes
are oblique, and neither the mouth nor the chin are finished. The
magnificent collection of the Marquis de Vibraye contains a little
figure from Laugerie, representing a nude woman without arms. Thin
and stiff, she is chiefly remarkable for the exaggerated size of the
sexual organs, and for some peculiar protuberances on the loins. We
dwell upon the former peculiarity, because it is so far extremely
rare, whereas certain relics of the Greeks and Romans, in spite of
the comparatively advanced civilization of these two great races,
are such that they can only be exhibited in private museums. Such
depravity as this implies was then quite an exception among the
cave-men, and but for the one example I have just mentioned, I have no
phallic representations to refer to except the few from the Massenat
collection, which were shown at the Exhibition of 1889.

FIGURE 46

Fragment of a staff of office, from the Madeleine Cave.

FIGURE 47

Human face carved on a reindeer antler, found in the Rochebertier Cave
(Charente).

We must not close this account of the art efforts of the men of the
Stone age without mentioning the remarkable discovery by M. Siette,
of flints covered with lines and geometrical designs colored with red
chalk. These are the very earliest examples of the art of painting
which have hitherto come to our knowledge. They bear witness to a
remarkable progress made by our remote ancestors of the valleys of
the Pyrenees.

We cannot more appropriately close this chapter than by quoting
the magnificent verse of Lucretius, which brings before us, better
than could a long description, the condition of these men, and the
humble starting-point from which humanity has advanced to achieve
its immortal destiny:

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