Fig. 173. Mammoth sculptured on a fragment of ivory tusk from the Solutrean station of Předmost, Moravia. After Maška. This figure is covered with fine lines representing the long, hairy coating, and measures about four and one-half inches.
This ivory sculpture of the mammoth indicates very accurately the characteristic contours of the top of the head, and of the back; the striations on the side represent the falling masses of hair. Other sculptured figures representing the mammoth are believed to be of Magdalenian age, the best known being the figures found in the grottos of Bruniquel and Laugerie Basse, a fragment from Raymonden, Dordogne, and a bas-relief in the grotto of Figuier, Gard. All these sculptures of the mammoth have in common the indication of a very small ear—similar to that in the Předmost model—feet shaped like inverted mushrooms, bordered with short, coarse hairs, the tail terminating in a long tuft of hairs. If the figure of Předmost is of Solutrean age, it is by far the earliest of all the sculptured or engraved animal representations in the mobile art, and is also the most complete of the animal figurines of this group. It is certainly of more recent date than the engraved designs of Aurignacian age in the grottos of Gargas and of Chabot or than the red or black tracings of the mammoth, also of Aurignacian age, at Castillo, Pindal, and Font-de-Gaume. It is probable that the mammoth figures of Combarelles are of later date than the Předmost sculpture and belong to the beginning of Magdalenian times, while those at Font-de-Gaume belong to the end of Magdalenian times and are the most recent of all the parietal designs. Despite the differences in age and technique, all the designs of the mammoth are undoubtedly the work of artists of a single race; they agree in faithfully portraying the external form of this great proboscidian which wandered over the steppes and prairies of western Europe from the beginning of the fourth glaciation until near the close of Postglacial times.
(1) Breuil, 1912.7.
(2) Verneau, 1906.1, pp. 202-207.
(3) Op. cit., p. 204.
(4) Keith, 1911.1, p. 60.
(5) Obermaier, 1912.1, p. 178.
(6) Breuil, 1912.7, p. 174.