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

by Henry Fairfield Osborn

Fig. 126. The Mousterian cave of Hornos de la Peña, in the Cantabrian Mountains of northern Spain. Photograph by N. C. Nelson.

In Spain is the station of San Isidro, near the headwaters of the Tagus, and the beautifully situated grottos of Castillo and Hornos de la Peña, on the northern slopes of the Cantabrian Mountains.

As contrasted with the very numerous Acheulean sites of Italy, it is surprising to note that only two Mousterian grottos have thus far been discovered in this region: the Grotte delle Fate in the mountains of Liguria, and the very important group of caves on the Riviera, near Mentone, known as the Grottes de Grimaldi, close to the seashore and at the very point where the Italian Alps abut upon the sea. Crossing to the north, we note the superb Swiss grotto of Wildkirchli, on the headwaters of the Rhine, 5,000 feet above sea-level.

Fig. 127. Outlook from the cave of Hornos de la Peña. Photograph by N. C. Nelson.

In all Germany there are only about seven stations of unquestioned Mousterian age. Of these six are grottos, and the seventh, Mommenheim, is a fluvial redeposit of loess along a small stream, where only one implement has been found.[(69)] It is interesting to observe that in Germany these Mousterian sites occupy the great wedge of territory between the Scandinavian ice-fields on the north, and the Alpine on the south, and that Wildkirchli was actually within the area of glaciation; while the caves of Räuberhöhle and Šipka were not far from the glaciers which clothed the Carpathian Mountains, and Baumannshöhle was not so very remote from the great Scandinavian ice-field. In the region of the headwaters of the Rhine and Danube the industry of the Neanderthal race has thus far been traced only at the stations of Irpfelhöhle, Räuberhöhle, and Sirgenstein. The latter cavern is of especial importance because it comprises the entire Palæolithic history of this region, presenting a series of successive culture layers from Mousterian times up to the arrival of the Neolithic race. Further to the east are the Gudenushöhle, near Krems, in Lower Austria, and Ochos and Šipka, in Moravia, while over the Russian border are Wierschovie and Miskolcz. Well to the northwest of Wildkirchli are the stations of Mommenheim and Kartstein, and to the north that of Baumannshöhle.

Workmanship of the Neanderthals

The dense communal life of Mousterian times may have favored a social evolution, the development of the imagination and of tribal lore, and the beginnings of the religious belief and ceremonial of which apparent indications are found to be wide-spread among the entirely different races of Upper Palæolithic times. The life is not, however, marked by industrial progress or invention.

The successive stages of the Mousterian industry have not as yet been so clearly defined as those of the Acheulean (Schmidt[(70)]). In the open Mousterian stations and caverns of Belgium and England Schmidt has observed the stages of early, middle, and late Mousterian. Breuil and Obermaier consider La Micoque as belonging to the close of the Acheulean but as marking the transition into the Mousterian. Breuil considers the industry of the Combe-Capelle station as representing the oldest true Mousterian culture. The researches which have been carried thus far would appear to justify the following subdivisions of the Mousterian culture in southwestern France: