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Fig. 251. Azilian stone implements of types surviving from the Magdalenian and earlier Palæolithic times. After R. R. Schmidt. 1. Finely flaked point from the large cave of Ofnet. 2, 3. Small Azilian grattoirs, or planing tools, from Istein, on the upper Danube. 4. Slender blade from Kleinkems. 5. Borer from Wüste Scheuer. 6. Polyhedral borer from Wüste Scheuer. 7. Incurved scraper from Istein. 8, 9, 10. Gravers or borers from Istein. 11. Double graver or borer with points at the right and left of the upper end. 1 to 4, actual size; 5 to 11, one-half actual size.

Fig. 252. Azilian double-rowed harpoons of stag horn, from Oban, on the west coast of Scotland. After Boule.

The labors of de Morgan, Capitan, and others have thrown great light on the Palæolithic of Tunis, where a flint culture was developed only slightly different from that of the Azilian of Valle, Santander, of the Mas d'Azil, Ariège, and of Bobache, Drôme. A resemblance is also found in Portugal; and southern Spain, despite its poverty of typical implements, shows a similar evolution. Near Salamanca, northwest of Madrid, Spain, the grottos contain schematic figures and colored pebbles resembling the Azilian. In Portugal the hearths of Mugem and Cabeço da Arruda are distinguished by their triangular microliths and are undoubtedly Pre-Neolithic, because there is neither pottery nor any trace of domesticated animals, excepting, possibly, the dog.

To the north of Europe the discoveries in Belgium have especial importance, for typical Azilian implements, including small round scrapers, lateral gravers, elongated triangular microliths, and knife flakes are found associated with the remains of the reindeer in the grotto of Remouchamp and at Zonhoven. It appears in Belgium, as in Italy, that the use of the Tardenoisian microlithic flint types is prolonged into a later time than that of the typical Azilian flint implements—the scrapers, gravers, borers, and knife flakes—which, as we have seen, appear at the end of the true Magdalenian.

On the other side of the English Channel we again find these flints always unmingled with pottery and usually distributed along the sea or river shores. The best-known stations are those of Hastings, directly across the Channel opposite Boulogne, and of Seven Oaks, near London; in Settle, Yorkshire, is the Victoria Cave station. To the north, in Scotland, four Azilian stations have been discovered around Oban, on the western coast near the head of the Firth of Lorne, while Azilian harpoons have also been found on the Isle of Oronsay, at its entrance.

Thus the spread of the very small Tardenoisian flint implements in the final stages of the Palæolithic precedes the southern advent of the Neolithic.

In Germany only six Azilian-Tardenoisian stations have thus far been discovered: two to the east of Düsseldorf, one in the neighborhood of Weimar, two on the headwaters of the Rhine, near Basle, and, by far the most important, the large and small grottos of Ofnet, on a small tributary of the Danube northwest of Munich. This last is exceptionally important because it is the only station where skeletons have been found buried with Azilian-Tardenoisian flints, thereby enabling us positively to determine the contemporary human races.

Burials in Azilian-Tardenoisian Times