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

by Henry Fairfield Osborn

The total thickness of these culture deposits is 8.03 m., or 26 feet 4 inches. The Azilian type layer (VI) containing flat harpoons of stag horn and painted pebbles, intercalated between the deposits of the Reindeer Age and the Neolithic layers, is, on account of its stratigraphic position, the most interesting and instructive of all the sites representing this phase of transition; and Piette was fully justified in giving to the corresponding culture period the name of Azilian.[(2)]

The transformation of art and industry, indicated in the Azilian culture layer, is as decided as that in the animal life. We observe in this layer no trace of the animal engravings or sculptures which occur so abundantly in the late Magdalenian layer below; the use of pigments is confined to the paintings of schematic or geometric figures on the flattened pebbles. There is no suggestion of art in any of the bone implements, and the harpoons of stag horn are rudely fashioned; this type of harpoon appears to be the chief survivor of the rich variety of implements noted in the Magdalenian layer below. The stag horn harpoon, moreover, is fashioned with far less skill than the beautiful Magdalenian harpoons; like them it has two rows of barbs, but they are not cut with the same delicacy and exactness. As to the form of the new model, it is explained by the nature of the new material; the interior of the stag horn being composed of a spongy tissue, could not be utilized as could the harder and more compact interior of the reindeer horn; the craftsman, therefore, was obliged to fashion his harpoon out of the exterior of one side of the stag horn, and in consequence to make it flat.

Fig. 247. Typical Azilian harpoons of stag horn. After de Mortillet. 287. A single-rowed harpoon from Mas d'Azil. 288. Harpoon with perforated base from the shelter of La Tourasse, Haute-Garonne. 289. Double-rowed harpoon from the same shelter. 290. A similar harpoon with the barbs alternate instead of opposite, from Mas d'Azil. 291. Harpoon with triangular base and round perforation from the Grotte de la Vache, near Tarascon. All one-third actual size, except 291, which is four-ninths actual size.

There are no bone needles, no javelins or sagaies; nor are there any of the beautifully carved weapons of bone. There is also a reduction in the uses to which the split bones are put, such as the large lissoirs or polishers. The bone implements appear to be derived from an impoverished late Aurignacian stage; the same is true of the flint implements, for we observe a return of the keeled scraper (grattoir caréné). There is also a return of certain types of graving tools and of the knife-like form of the flake; even some of the small geometric types of flints resemble those of the Aurignacian levels.

The many shells of the moisture-loving snail Helix nemoralis, found in the fire-hearths of Mas d'Azil are proofs of the humidity of the climate, a fact confirmed by the contemporary flood deposits of the Arize. The frequent and heavy rains drove the last few representatives of the steppe fauna away to the north. These climatic conditions favored the formation of peat-bogs, so frequent to-day in the north of France, and also the growth of vast forests, inhabited by the stag, which extended over the whole country.

The pebbles of Mas d'Azil are painted on one side with peroxide of iron, a deposit of which is found in the neighborhood of the cave. The color, mixed in shells of Pecten, or in hollowed pebbles or on flat stones, was applied either with the finger or with a brush. The many enigmatic designs consist chiefly of parallel bands, rows of discs or points, bands with scalloped edges, cruciform designs, ladder-like patterns (scalariform) such as are found in the 'Azilian' engravings and paintings of the caverns, and undulating lines. These graphic combinations resemble certain syllabic and alphabetic characters of the Ægean, Cypriote, Phœnician, and Greco-Latin inscriptions. However curious these resemblances may be, they are not sufficient to warrant any theory connecting the signs on the painted pebbles of the Azilians with the alphabetic characters of the oldest known systems of writing.[(3)] Piette attempted to explain some of the exceedingly crude designs on these pebbles as a system of notation, others as pictographs and religious symbols, and some few as genuine alphabetical signs, and suggested that the cavern of Mas d'Azil was an Upper Palæolithic school where reading, reckoning, writing, and the symbols of the sun were learned and taught. The very wide distribution of these symbolic pebbles and the painting of similar designs on the walls of the caverns certainly prove that they had some religious or economic significance, which may be revealed by subsequent research.

Fig. 248. Azilian galets coloriés, flat, painted pebbles, from the type station of Mas d'Azil. After Piette.