(39) Collignon, 1890.1.
(40) Verneau, 1891.1.
(41) Ibid., 1906.1.
CHAPTER VI
CLOSE OF THE OLD STONE AGE—INVASION OF NEW RACES—HISTORY OF THE MAS D'AZIL, OF FÈRE-EN-TARDENOIS—FOREST ENVIRONMENT AND LIFE—ORIGIN OF THE AZILIAN-TARDENOISIAN CULTURE—CHARACTERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE NEW RACES—TRANSITION TO THE NEOLITHIC AND RELATIONS OF THE OLD AND NEW RACES—APPARENT CHIEF LINES OF HUMAN DESCENT AND OF HUMAN MIGRATION INTO WESTERN EUROPE.
We have now reached the very close of the Old Stone Age, a period which is believed to extend between 10,000 and 7,000 years before the present era. The entrance to the final cultures of the Upper Palæolithic, known as the Azilian-Tardenoisian, marks a transition even more abrupt than that witnessed in any preceding stage. It is not a development; it is a revolution. The artistic spirit entirely disappears; there is no trace of animal engraving or sculpture; painting is found only on flattened pebbles or in schematic or geometric designs on wall surfaces. Of bone implements only harpoons and polishers remain, and even these are of inferior workmanship and without any trace of art. The flint industry continues the degeneration begun in the Magdalenian and exhibits a new life and impulse only in the fashioning of the extremely small or microlithic tools and weapons known as 'Tardenoisian.' Both bone and flint weapons of the chase disappear, yet the stag is hunted and its horns are used in the manufacture of harpoons. This is the 'Age of the Stag,' the final stage of the 'Cave Period' in western Europe, and is subsequent to the 'Age of the Reindeer' in the south.
It would appear as if the very same regions formerly occupied by the great hunting Crô-Magnon race from Aurignacian to Magdalenian times were now inhabited by a race or races largely employed in fishing. The country is thickly forested. The climate is still cold and extremely moist, and human life everywhere is in the grottos or entrances to the caverns.
Invasion of Four New Races in Closing Upper Palæolithic Times