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

by Henry Fairfield Osborn

Fig. 267. Fresco from the rock shelter of Alpera, Albacete, Spain, painted in dark red and representing a stag hunt, the hunters being armed with bows and arrows. Attributed to the southern races arriving in Neolithic times. After Breuil and Obermaier.

The frescos in the Spanish caverns of Alpera and of Cogul recall those of southern France but are almost always grouped in series of the chase, of encampment, and perhaps of war. This frequency of human figures, the representations of the bow and arrow, and the presence of a small animal which may be recognized as the domesticated dog are indications of an entirely distinct race coming from the south and bringing in a new spirit in art which has no relation whatever to that of the Magdalenian.

Neolithic Mammalian Life

Even in the oldest Neolithic deposits no trace of the horse as an object of food appears. The domestication of this animal was introduced from the east, and thus it ceased to be an object of the chase. The newly arriving tribes were undoubtedly attracted by the abundance of horses, both of the forest and Celtic types, which had survived from Upper Palæolithic times. A very distinctive feature of the modern horses, however, should be mentioned, that is, the presence of a forelock covering the face, no trace of which is indicated in any of the Upper Palæolithic carvings or engravings.

The wild animal life of western Europe at this time is a direct survival of the great Eurasiatic forest and meadow fauna which we have traced from the earliest Palæolithic times. It includes the bison, the long-horned urus, the stag, the roe-deer, the moose, the wild boar, the forest horse, the Celtic horse, the beaver, the hare, and the squirrel. The fallow deer (Cervus dama) also appears more abundantly. Among the carnivora are the brown bear, the badger, the marten, the otter, the wolf, the fox, the wildcat, and the wolverene. The lion has disappeared entirely from western Europe. The reindeer survives only in the north.

As observed above, two of these wild animals were early chosen by the invaders for domestication, namely, the plateau or Celtic horse and the forest horse. The former type is found in the Neolithic deposits of Essex, England. The wild urus (Bos primigenius) was hunted but was not domesticated.

Two new varieties of domestic cattle appear, neither of which has been previously observed in western Europe. The first of these is the 'Celtic shorthorn' (Bos longifrons), the probable ancestor of the small breeds of British short-horned and hornless cattle. The second is the 'longhorn' (Bos taurus), which shows some points of resemblance to the 'urus' (Bos primigenius) but is not directly related to it. Direct wild ancestors of this latter animal are said to occur in the Pleistocene of Italy. A new type of pig also appears, the so-called turf pig (Sus scrofa palustris).

The Neolithic invaders, or men of the New Stone Age, thus brought with them, or domesticated from among the animals which they found in the forests of western Europe, a great variety of the same types of animals as those domesticated to-day, namely, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, horses, and dogs.