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

by Henry Fairfield Osborn

It is the above entire Eurasiatic forest and meadow fauna which survived all the climatic vicissitudes of Pleistocene time, and which alone remained in western Europe to the very close of the Upper Palæolithic culture, and into the period of the arrival of the Neolithic race.

The descent of the European and Asiatic alpine types of mammals to the lower hills and valleys is one of the most striking episodes of Magdalenian times. The argali sheep (Ovis argaloides) of western Asia had already appeared in the upper Danubian region during the Aurignacian; it is replaced in Magdalenian times by the ibex (Ibex priscus), and by the chamois, which descended along the northern slopes of the Alps and of the Pyrenees, and became numbered among the most highly favored subjects of the Magdalenian artists, especially in the mobile art of ivory and bone, and in the decoration of their spear throwers and bâtons de commandement. From the mountains also come the pikas or tailless hares (Lagomys pusillus), the alpine marmot (Arctomys marmotta), the alpine vole (Arvicola nivalis), and the alpine ptarmigan (Lagopus alpinus).

The Tundra Climate of Early Magdalenian Times

In the first cold moist period the full wave of arctic tundra life appeared in the whole region between the Alpine and Scandinavian glaciers during the renewed descent of the ice-fields; this was the tundra stage of early Magdalenian times, accompanying the Bühl advance. At the stations of Thaingen, Schweizersbild, Kastlhäng, and Niedernau, appears the musk-ox, together with the woolly mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, and the reindeer. The discovery of the grotto of Kastlhäng, a reindeer hunting station in the Altmühltale of Bavaria[(6)] fills out what has long been a gap in the geographic distribution of the early Magdalenian. The principal objects of the chase here were the reindeer, the wild horse, the arctic hare, and the ptarmigan; the royal stag is very rare, and the bison is wanting entirely; a strong arctic character is given to the fauna by the presence of the banded lemming, the arctic wolverene, and the arctic fox. From this region the musk-ox migrated far to the southwest, reaching the northern slopes of the Pyrenees. At the same time the arctic grouse, the whistling swan, and other northern birds entered the region of the Rhine and the Danube. But the surest indicators of a cold tundra climate prevailing during the period of the Bühl advance are the banded lemming (Myodes torquatus) and the Obi lemming (Myodes obensis), which are found in the same deposits with the arctic hare, the reindeer, and the woolly mammoth mixed with the implements of the early Magdalenian industry at the stations of Sirgenstein, Wildscheuer, and Ofnet along the upper and middle Danube. There also appear the ermine and the arctic wolverene; in fact, almost all the characteristic forms of tundra life except the polar bear, which only enters the northern tundras in the summer season.

Fig. 185. Characteristic forms of alpine life, which descended from the mountains or migrated from the highlands of western Asia in Aurignacian and Magdalenian times: the ibex, the chamois, the alpine ptarmigan, the argali sheep, and the (A) alpine vole, all shown one-twenty-fifth life size; and the (A) alpine vole also one-fifth life size.

The regions of the northern Alps bordering the great glaciers of the Bühl and Gschnitz advances, were barren stretches of rock, and the valleys and plateaus now free from ice became tundras, where the swamps alternated with patches of polar willows and stunted fir-trees, while other areas were covered with low, scrubby birches, or reindeer moss and lichens. The return of these hard conditions of life undoubtedly exerted a great influence both upon the physical and mental development of the Crô-Magnon race; it was at the very period when the life conditions in western Europe were most severe that the artistic development of these people began to revive. Forced to return to the shelters and grottos, which certainly were less frequented in Solutrean times, there was time for the development of the imagination and for its expression both in the mobile and parietal arts. There was a less vigorous development of the flint industry, and apparently a degeneration in physique and stature.

In Germany and northern Switzerland, on the headwaters of the Rhine and the Danube, the entrance and departure of the northern waves of life are recorded, especially in the grottos of Sirgenstein, Schussenquelle, Andernach, Schmiechenfels, and Propstfels. It would appear that the woolly mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros were not hunted in this region, for their remains are not preserved in any of the grottos or stations mingled with the middle or late Magdalenian cultures. On the other hand, we find the steppe horse, the kiang, the stag, and the reindeer very abundant indeed. The bison is absent, and wild cattle are very rare; so that this region is not typical of the mammalian life of Magdalenian times as found in Dordogne and in the Pyrenees.

The migration of the woolly mammoth and woolly rhinoceros along the Pyrenees and westward into the Cantabrian Mountains, and the crossing of the Pyrenees by the reindeer, have already been described. In the mural frescos of Font-de-Gaume, Dordogne, it is noteworthy that the very latest engravings are those of the mammoth superposed on the fine polychromes which belong to the period of middle Magdalenian art.

The Dry Steppe Climate of Middle Magdalenian Times