The greater number of the Aurignacian stations, like those of Mousterian times, were under the shelters or within the entrances of the grottos and caverns; all the stations in southwestern France are of this character. There was, however, a great open camp at Solutré, which was a most famous hunting station for the wild horse in Aurignacian times. In northern France there are several open stations, such as those of Montières and St. Acheul, along the River Somme, and to the east, along the middle Rhine, there are several open 'loess' stations, such as those of Achenheim, Völklinshofen, Rhens, and Metternich. It may very well be that these open stations were visited only during the mild summer season. The continued choice of sites which naturally afforded the greatest protection from the weather, in France, Britain, Belgium, and all along the Danube, as well as in the genial region of the Riviera, is a sure indication of a prevailing severe climate. It is hardly possible, however, that the closed or protected stations were the only residences of these people; they merely indicate the points where the flint industry was continuously carried on and also the vast foyers and gathering places; but there is little doubt from the evidence afforded by the signs on the walls of the caverns, known as 'tectiforms,' that huts and large shelters built of logs and covered with hides were grouped around most of these stations and scattered through the country at points favorable for hunting and fishing. These would be the only dwelling-places possible in such vast open camps, for example, as Solutré.
Climate and Life of Aurignacian Times
3. First Postglacial Retreat, Achenschwänkung in the Alpine region. Period of Solutrean industry. A cold dry climate, with dust-storms and wide-spread deposition of 'loess' in western Europe. Flint workers seeking many open stations. Horses and wild asses numerous on the prairies; reindeer and wild cattle very abundant.
2. Recession of the Ice-Fields of the Fourth Glaciation. Period of Aurignacian industry. Climate cold and increasingly dry; renewal of the dust-storms and deposits of the 'newer loess.' Flint industry in the caverns, grottos, shelters, and a few open stations. Opening of the Upper Palæolithic period. Arrival of the Crô-Magnon race.
1. Final Stage of Fourth Glaciation. Close of the Lower Palæolithic Mousterian culture. Gradual extinction of the Neanderthal race.
The arrival of the Crô-Magnon race and the beginning of the Aurignacian industry took place during the period of retreat of the ice-fields of the fourth glaciation. As we pass from the levels of the early Aurignacian industry into those of the middle and upper Aurignacian, we find that the mammal life of Mousterian times continued in its prime all over western Europe, with the addition, one by one, of some new forms from the tundras, such as the musk-ox, and the successive arrival from the mountains and steppes of western Asia of such characteristic forms as the argali sheep and the wild ass, or kiang.
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Fig. 138. Geographic distribution (horizontal lines) of the reindeer, mammoth, and woolly rhinoceros, the three chief mammals of the tundra fauna, with reference to the retiring ice-fields (dots) of the Fourth Glacial Stage. After Boule and Geikie. (Compare Figs. 95 and 96.)
The extremely cold and moist climate of the fourth glaciation had passed, and a somewhat drier but still extremely cold climatic condition prevailed throughout western Europe. During the early Aurignacian the two northern types of lemming, the banded lemming (Myodes torquatus) and the Obi lemming (Myodes obensis), were still found along the upper Danube, as in the grottos of Sirgenstein, Ofnet, and Bockstein. From middle Aurignacian on through Solutrean times these denizens of the extreme north disappear from this region of Europe. Further evidence of a dry, cold climate is found in the recurrence of dust-storms and in the great deposits of 'newer loess' beginning in certain parts of Europe at the very close of the Mousterian industry and extending through both middle and late Aurignacian and Solutrean times in all the region of the upper Rhine, along both shores of the Danube, and westward in the valley of the Somme, in northern France. This period is therefore believed to correspond with the Achen retreat of the great glaciers still covering the Alpine region.