Men of the Old Stone Age: Their Environment, Life and Art

by Henry Fairfield Osborn

Fig. 97. The seven Mousterian stations of Germany lay between the Scandinavian glacier (IV) on the north and the Alpine glacier (IV) on the south (dotted areas). They include the grottos of Sirgenstein, Irpfelhöhle, and Räuberhöhle, along the valley of the Danube; Kartstein and Buchenloch, near the middle Rhine, and Baumannshöhle, south of Hanover; also the open loess station of Mommenheim. The Mousterian grotto of Wildkirchli, in Switzerland, lay within the limits of the Alpine ice-fields; and the burial at Neanderthal, near Düsseldorf, was probably of Mousterian age. After R. R. Schmidt, modified and redrawn.

Geographic and Climatic Environment of the Neanderthal Race

Let us first glance at Dordogne. Among the stations of the early Mousterian industry we have seen that the Neanderthals in the valley of the Vézère, at La Micoque, were in the midst of a fauna chiefly composed of the bison and of the wild horse, the remains found in the hearths being almost exclusively of the latter animal.[AF] In the primitive Mousterian station of Combe-Capelle near by the fire-hearths yield remains of the bison but only a few of the horse.

Among the earliest caves inhabited by man[(10)] was that of Le Moustier, situated on the right bank of the Vézère, and about 90 feet above it. This shelter and cave were examined as early as 1860-3 by Lartet[(11)] and Christy and subsequently by de Vibraye,[(12)] Massénat,[(13)] and others. Besides the deposits in the floor of the grotto there, a deep Mousterian culture layer has been found under the cliff in front, and this has been selected for our representation of the life of the men of Mousterian times, and of the flora of the Vézère in this early period (see frontispiece). Peyrony observes that, here as elsewhere, the older and lower industrial camps were farther away from the shelters; indeed, in this very region there are evidences that the Chellean and Acheulean flint workers occasionally visited the plateaus above; but as time passed and the weather became more severe the Neanderthals began to work nearer to the overhanging cliffs and finally directly beneath them. At this classic station of Le Moustier, one of the most complete skeletons of Neanderthal man was unearthed by Hauser, in 1908. There was a continuous residence here in middle and upper Mousterian times, extending into the lower Aurignacian of the Upper Palæolithic. The contemporary fauna in these deposits included the mammoth, the reindeer, the giant deer (Megaceros), the horse, the bison, the woolly rhinoceros, and the cave-bear. During the habitation of this typical station by man the climate was very cold and damp.

In this region is found the complete record of the course of Mousterian evolution, both in the implements and in the advent of new forms of life; the number of reindeer gradually increases in the ascending layers with the development of the Mousterian industry. There is a constant gradation from the Acheulean into the Mousterian industrial types; according to Cartailhac, this industry is all the work of the same people, with no sharp lines of division.

Fig. 98. The type station of Le Moustier, on the right bank of the Vézère, Dordogne. The culture layer is on the middle terrace, overlooking the hamlet of Le Moustier. (Compare frontispiece, Pl. I.) Photograph by Belvès.

Thus at Combe-Capelle, where the début of the true Mousterian culture took place, we find a number of large coups de poing, pointing back to the early Acheulean implements. The gradations which are exhibited here in these successive layers are quite in contrast to the advance of the industry at the close of Mousterian times in the very same locality, where there is an abrupt cultural transition toward the Aurignacian.

Southern Britain tells of a similar sequence, which we may interpret as follows. Belonging either to the temperate climate of early Mousterian times, or to the period of the recession of the fourth glaciation, known in the Alps as the Laufenschwankung, are the Mousterian stations along the Lea and near the mouth of the Thames at Crayford (Worthington Smith,[(14)] Geikie[(15)]). These Palæolithic 'floors' of Mousterian times are buried beneath 4 to 5 feet of sand and loam and rest upon the surface of older river-gravels. Among the later river deposits several old land surfaces have been discovered; they consist of a few inches of angular gravel, crowded in places with unabraded implements and flakes which obviously occur just where they were left by Palæolithic workmen. At one point there is evidence that the flint maker squatted over his work, with his knees slightly apart, for the chips are thrown to the right and left in small piles. Here and there, mixed with these Mousterian implements, are more archaic forms which may have been drifted down from the older land surfaces above.