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

by Henry Fairfield Osborn

Fig. 241. Reindeer engraved around a piece of reindeer antler, from Kesslerloch, Switzerland. This is a unique instance of the portrayal of landscape in Palæolithic art. After Heim. Slightly more than three-quarters actual size.

In Germany, whereas only three Solutrean stations have been discovered,[(29)] there are no less than fourteen Magdalenian stations to attest the wide spread of that culture. Thus the favorite grotto of Sirgenstein, near the centre of the Magdalenian stations on the upper waters of the Danube, although abandoned in Solutrean times, was again entered by man during the early Magdalenian culture stage. Coincident with the return of man to this great grotto was the arrival of the banded lemming (Myodes torquatus), the herald of the cold tundra wave of life in the far north. At the very same time man with the banded lemming arrived at Schweizersbild, near the Lake of Constance; at a slightly earlier period, with the dawn of Magdalenian culture, man entered the sister station of Kesslerloch. It certainly appears that a cold moist climate accompanying the Bühl advance influenced all the Crô-Magnon peoples of this region just north of the Alpine glaciers and compelled them to seek the grottos and shelters. There are, however, some open stations in this general region, for example, at Schussenried, Württemberg; the Magdalenian culture layer is not found in a grotto, but lies under a deposit of peat mingled with the remains of the reindeer, horse, brown bear, and wolf. Again, among the best-known sites along the middle Rhine is the open-air station of Andernach. Demonstrating the eastward distribution of the art of engraving on ivory and bone is the presence in Andernach and in the grotto of Wildscheuer, near Steeten, on the Lahn, of engravings of this character. Thus far these are the only German stations in which such engravings have been found.

Of especial interest also is the open Magdalenian 'loess' station of Munzingen, on the upper Rhine, because it proves that the highest layers of the 'upper loess,' corresponding with the dry or steppe period of climate, were contemporaneous with the advanced or late Magdalenian industry, also because this final 'upper loess' stage about corresponds with the period when the last of the arctic tundra mammals began to abandon central Europe. It was at this critical geologic time that the late Magdalenian culture began to draw to a close. Kesslerloch, Switzerland, has yielded a considerable number of engravings on bone, including one of the finest examples of a browsing reindeer (Fig. 241), and Schweizersbild also has yielded a considerable number of rather crude engravings.

Frequented in Magdalenian times was that part of the Swabian Jura lying between the headwaters of the Neckar and of the Danube; along the course of the Danube, from Propstfels, near Beuron, in the southwest, to Ofnet, in the northeast, extend the other stations of Höhlefels bei Hütten, Schmiechenfels, and Bocksteinhöhle.

West of the Danube the industry was carried into the present region of Bavaria, as indicated by the recent discovery of Kastlhäng.[(30)] Here, beginning with the early Magdalenian (Gourdanien inférieur of the French school) and extending to the middle or high Magdalenian (Gourdanien supérieur), we find a complete series of Magdalenian stations; the middle Magdalenian layer is of exactly the same type as that found in the Abri Mège of Dordogne and in the lower levels of the Grotte de la Mairie; the same culture stage is again observed in southern Germany in the stations of Schussenquelle and of Höhlefels, and it extends eastward into Austria in the station of Gudenushöhle as well as into several Moravian stations, for example, that of Kostelík.

These facts are of extraordinary interest, for they show that the civilization, such as it was, of the Upper Palæolithic was very widely extended. This marks an important social characteristic, namely, the readiness and willingness to take advantage of every step in human progress, wherever it may have originated. At this point, therefore, it is interesting to compare the Magdalenian industry of Germany with that of France.[(31)] Germany shows the same technical and stylistic tendencies and the same evolutionary direction as France. The mammalian life was, of course, the same in both countries, for in each region the giant types of mammals still survived, and the banded lemming of the arctic appears in the sheltered valleys of the Dordogne as well as in Belgium and in Germany. The vicissitudes of climate were undoubtedly the same; we observe the alternation of cold moist climate in the early Magdalenian along the upper Danube as well as in the early Magdalenian of the type station of La Madeleine, Dordogne. Again, we observe the transition into the dry cold climate in the steppe character of the fauna both along the upper Rhine, at Munzingen, and also beneath the shelter station of La Madeleine, as recorded by Peyrony.

More vital still for this community of industrial culture was the community of race, for at Obercassel we find the same Crô-Magnon type as that discovered beneath the sheltering cliffs of Dordogne. It appears probable that the inventions of the central region of Dordogne travelled eastward when we note the fact that none of the prototypes of early forms of the harpoon which were common in southern France occur in any of the stations of central Europe, but the single-rowed harpoon is characteristic of the middle Magdalenian all over Germany. Other primitive Magdalenian bone implements, such as the bone spear point with the cleft base, the bâtons, and the needles, are also of rare occurrence in the German stations. In late Magdalenian times, however, a complete community of culture is established, for the industry of both countries in flint and bone appears to be very similar: flint microliths appear in increasing number and variety; beside the small flint flakes with blunted backs, numerous feather-shaped flakes of Pre-Tardenoisian type are found, as well as the types of graving flints. Some specialties of French Magdalenian culture did not find their way into Germany; for example, the graver of the 'parrot-beak' type has been found in France but has not been traced far eastward. In both countries, however, are found upper Magdalenian chisels of reindeer horn and perfected bone needles, bâtons, and harpoons with double rows of barbs. On the other hand, works of art and decorative designs in horn and bone are almost entirely wanting in German localities, with the exception of the stations of Andernach and Wildscheuer previously mentioned. In late Magdalenian times, both in Germany and France, we find the Eurasiatic forest fauna becoming more abundant.