There is no evidence at this time of the presence of the more characteristic animals of the steppes, such as the saiga antelope, the jerboa, and the steppe hamster, which enter Europe during the later period of Magdalenian culture. As an indication, perhaps, of the dryness of the climate we observe that the moose (Alces) is no longer recorded, although it reappears in western Europe in later Magdalenian times. The giant deer (Megaceros) appears in southern Germany with the early Aurignacian culture, but this would seem to be the time of its extinction, because it does not occur in association with any of the later industries. For a time the bison in Dordogne, in southern Germany, and in Austria appears to be far more abundant than the wild cattle; the latter animals are not recorded either by Schmidt or Déchelette in association with the Aurignacian culture, but they reappear in the moister period of Magdalenian times.

The remains of similar late Pleistocene mammals lie scattered over a large area in Britain, and we must conclude from their presence, observes Dawkins,[(12)] that Britain was still broadly connected with the mainland of Europe. This is proved by the occurrence of the mammoth fauna in various places now covered by the sea, as in Holyhead Harbor, off the coasts of Devonshire and of Sussex, and in the North Sea. On the Dogger Bank the accumulation of bones, teeth, and antlers is so great that the fishermen of Yarmouth have collected in their nets and dredges more than three hundred specimens. They belong to the bear, wolf, cave-hyæna, giant deer, Irish elk, reindeer, stag, bison, urus, horse, woolly rhinoceros, mammoth, and beaver, and are to be viewed as the remains of animals deposited by river currents, as in the case of similar accumulations on land. Had they been deposited by the sea they would have been sifted by the action of the waves, the smaller being heaped together in one place and the larger in another. The carcasses had evidently been collected in the eddies of a river that helped to form the Dogger Bank, which now rises to within eight fathoms of the sea-level.

One of the animals of the Aurignacian period which is best known is the 'horse of Solutré.' Around the great Aurignacian camp at Solutré there accumulated the remains of a vast number of horses, which are estimated at not less than 100,000; the bones are distributed in a wide circle around the ancient camp, consisting of broken or entire skeletons compacted into a veritable magma, with which occur also remains of the reindeer, the urus, and the mammoth interbedded with all the types of Aurignacian implements. The majority of these horses belong to the stout-headed, short-limbed forest or northern type, measuring 54 inches (13.2 hands) at the withers, and about the size of the existing pony.[(13)] The joints and hoofs were especially large, and the long teeth and powerful jaws were adapted to feeding on coarse grasses; the greater part of the remains are those of horses from five to seven years of age. There is no evidence that the men of Aurignacian times either bred or reared these animals; they pursued them only for food. The discovery that the horse might be used as an animal of transport appears to have been made in the far East, and not in western Europe.

The animal and plant life of the Aurignacian station near Krems, on the Danube, above Vienna,[(14)] includes a strong element of the tundra forms—the arctic fox, wolverene, mammoth, rhinoceros, musk-ox, reindeer, hare, and ptarmigan. The steppe fauna, on the other hand, is rare, including only the suslik, but not the saiga antelope or any of the other characteristic steppe types. The principal objects of the chase were not only the mammoth, which was extraordinarily abundant, but also the reindeer and wild horses; the ibex is rare.

Obermaier observes that the chart of the geographic distribution of the Aurignacian shows this culture to belong essentially to the provinces surrounding the entire Mediterranean, from Syria (the grottos of Lebanon) through north Africa (Algiers) to Spain. It also has a strong development throughout France, entering middle and southern Germany and passing along the Danube to Austria, Poland, and southern Russia (Mezine) north of Kiev. There is no doubt that the mammoth hunters of Krems belonged in this wide-spread distribution; the shells used for ornaments, which unmistakably recall those of the Riviera, are only in part local from the neighborhood of Vienna; the larger part is from the Mediterranean. We may imagine that these shells passed through several hands among this race of nomadic hunters, and this is not surprising in view of the girdle which the Aurignacian stretched around the entire Mediterranean Sea.

Discovery of the Crô-magnon Race

The earliest discovery of a member of this race was that by Buckland, in the cave of Paviland, which opens on the face of a steep limestone cliff, about a mile east of Rhossilly, on the coast of Gower, Wales.[(15)] As described by Sollas, a painted skeleton, long known as the 'Red Lady,' was found in the kitchen midden which forms the floor of this cave; recent investigation has proved that this skeleton belongs to a man of the Crô-Magnon race; the associated implements are of Aurignacian type. Paviland cave is thus the first Aurignacian station discovered in Britain and marks the most westerly outpost of the Crô-Magnon race.

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Fig. 139. Section of the sepulchral grotto of Aurignac, the type station of Aurignacian culture, as restored by Lartet from the description of the original condition of the grotto as it was in 1852. After Lyell.