(Read upward)
- Postglacial and Recent:
- Bison, Bison priscus.
- Wild cattle, Bos primigenius.
- Red deer or stag, Cervus elaphus.
- Roe-deer, Capreolus.
- Reindeer, Rangifer tarandus.
- Wild boar, Sus scrofa.
- Fourth Glacial and Postglacial fauna: typically Mousterian to Magdalenian:
- Woolly mammoth, Elephas primigenius.
- Woolly or Siberian rhinoceros, Rhinoceros antiquitatis.
- Cave lion, Felis leo spelaea.
- Cave hyaena, Hyaena crocuta spelaea.
- Cave bear, Ursus spelaeus.
- Horse, Equus caballus.
- Ibex.
- Banded lemming, Myodes torquatus.
- Third Interglacial fauna: typically Chellean and Acheulean:
- Straight-tusked elephant, Elephas antiquus.
- Broad-nosed rhinoceros, Rhinoceros Merckii.
- Lion, Felis leo antiqua.
- Spotted hyaena, Hyaena crocuta.
- Brown bear, Ursus arctos.
- Horses, probably several varieties.
- Second Interglacial Fauna: typically Pre-Palæolithic, but in part surviving into the Chellean in favored localities:
- Southern mammoth, Elephas meridionalis.
- Etruscan rhinoceros, Rhinoceros etruscus.
- Hippopotamus major.
- Saber-tooth tigers, Machaerodus.
- Striped hyaena, Hyaena striata.
- Steno’s horse, Equus stenonis.
- Bison antiquus.
- Mastodon, tapir, anthropoids, and all primates but man and the macaque monkey already extinct in Western Europe.
The student who perhaps contributed most to the foundation of knowledge of the Palæolithic period was Gabriel de Mortillet. He first recognized four distinct sub-periods of the Palæolithic, each possessing its distinctive kinds of implements. These four periods, each named after one particular “station,” are the Chellean or earliest; the Mousterian; the Solutrean; and the Magdalenian or latest. These derived their designations from the four stations of Chelles in northern France, and of Le Moustier, Solutré, and La Madeleine in southern France ([Fig. 16]). De Mortillet did not endeavor to relate the culture of each of these four periods wholly to the particular locality for which he named it. He chose the stations as typical and included others as belonging to the same eras.
Fig. 16. Type stations of the Palæolithic periods. (After Osborn.)
As more implements were found and studied, it was recognized, in part by de Mortillet himself, that while his original classification was sound, it was also incomplete. Two other periods had to be admitted. One of these, the Acheulean, falls before the Mousterian, and the second, the Aurignacian, after it. This makes six periods within the Old Stone Age; and these have been adopted by all students of the prehistory of man in Europe. The first three, the Chellean, Acheulean, and Mousterian, make up the Lower Palæolithic; the last three, the Aurignacian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian, constitute the Upper Palæolithic or Reindeer Age. These six divisions of the Old Stone Age are so essential to an understanding of the prehistory of man, that the serious student finds it necessary to know their names and sequence automatically.
71. Human Racial Types in the Palæolithic
When it comes to defining the types of fossil man in the Palæolithic, a curious situation develops. Long before there was even a true Stone Age, in the early and middle Pleistocene, there lived the half-human Pithecanthropus and the primitively human Heidelberg race (§ [11], [12]). But for the whole first part of the Palæolithic, throughout the Chellean and Acheulean, no undisputed find of any skeletal remains has yet been made, although thousands of implements have been discovered which are undoubtedly human products.[9]
In the present state of knowledge the strongest case is that for the skull found at Piltdown in southern England. This is said to have been associated with “Pre-Chellean” tools, which would seem to establish the Piltdown type as the race that lived about the beginning of the Palæolithic (§ [13]). But the deposit at Piltdown had been more or less rolled or shifted by natural agencies before its discovery, so that its age is not so certain as it might be; and there is no unanimity of opinion as to whether the highly developed skull and the excessively ape-like jaw that were found in the deposit really belong together. With this doubt about the fossil itself, it seems most reasonable not to press too strongly its identification as the type of man that lived in Europe at the commencement of the Old Stone Age.