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

by Henry Fairfield Osborn

Environment and Mammalian Life

It appears that the chief geographic change during this period was a subsidence of the northern coasts of Europe and an advance of the sea causing the circulation of warm oceanic currents and a more humid climate favorable to reforestation.

To the north, in Belgium, the tundra fauna lingered during the extension of the early Tardenoisian industry, for here we still find remains of the reindeer, the arctic fox, and the arctic hare mingled in the fire-hearths with flints of Tardenoisian type. This, observes Obermaier, constitutes proof that the Tardenoisian, with the Azilian, must be placed at the very close of Postglacial time and with the final stage of Upper Palæolithic industry.

To the south, in the region of Dordogne and the Pyrenees, the tundra fauna had entirely disappeared, as well as that of the steppes and of the alpine heights; the prevailing animal in the forests is the royal stag, adapted to forests of temperate type and associated with the Eurasiatic forest and meadow fauna which now dominated western Europe.

The only survivor of the great African-Asiatic fauna is the lion, which appears in the late Palæolithic stations in the region of the Pyrenees; the arctic wolverene also gives the fauna a Postglacial aspect, for, like the lion, it is never found in central or western Europe after the close of Upper Palæolithic times. Other enemies of the herbivorous fauna were the wolf and the brown bear.

Besides the red deer, or stag, the forests at this time were filled with roe-deer. To the south in the Pyrenees the moose still survived, and to the north there were still found herds of reindeer which survived in central Europe as late as the twelfth century. Wild boars were numerous, and in the streams were found the beaver and the otter. In the forest borders and in the meadows hares and rabbits were abundant. Through the forests and meadows of southern France and along the borders of the Danube ranged the wild cattle (Bos primigenius). It would appear from our limited knowledge of the life of Azilian-Tardenoisian times that bison were found chiefly in the northern parts of Europe. There is little direct evidence in regard to the wild horse, the remains of which do not occur in the hearths of Azilian times.

Our knowledge of the life of the Spanish peninsula at a period closely succeeding this is indirectly derived from the animal frescos in certain caverns of northern Spain, which were formerly attributed to the Upper Palæolithic but are now referred rather to the early Neolithic. Here are found representations of the ibex, the stag, the fallow deer, the wild cattle, and also of the wild horses. This would indicate that wild horses were still roaming all over western Europe at the close of Upper Palæolithic times. The presence of the moose in late Palæolithic times at Alpera, on the high plateaus of Spain, has been determined; this animal has also been found in the Pyrenees during the Azilian stage.[(7)]

The great contrast between the mammalian life of Magdalenian and that of Azilian-Tardenoisian times is witnessed in the stations along the upper Danube, as described by Koken.[(8)] In Höhlefels, Schmiechenfels, and Propstfels, associated with implements of the late Magdalenian industry, are found ten types of animals belonging to the forests and four characteristic of the forests and meadows, or fourteen species altogether. With these are mingled two alpine forms, the ibex and the alpine shrew; also two types of mammals belonging to the steppes, and no less than six mammals and birds from the tundras, namely, the reindeer, the arctic fox, the ermine, the arctic hare, the banded lemming, and the arctic ptarmigan.

In wide contrast to this assemblage of late Magdalenian life on the upper Danube, there appear in Azilian times along the shores of the middle Danube in the stations of Ofnet and of Istein the following characteristic forest forms: Sus scrofa ferus (wild boar), Cervus elaphus (stag), Capreolus capreolus (roe-deer), Bos (?) primigenius (urus), Lepus (rabbit or hare), Ursus arctos (brown bear), Felis leo (lion), Gulo luscus (common wolverene), Lynchus lynx (lynx), Vulpes (fox), Mustela martes (marten), Castor fiber (European beaver), Mus (field-mouse), Turdus (thrush). It thus appears that the alpine, the steppe, and the tundra faunæ had entirely disappeared from this region.

Origin and Distrubution of the Azilian-Tardenoisian Industry