The layers of travertine are indicative of very important geographical changes which were occurring in central and southern Europe in the middle period of Third Interglacial times. The travertines of the Ilm and of other parts of central Germany were due to wide-spread volcanic disturbances and eruptions, accompanied by the deposition of travertines, gypsums, and tufas. To this volcanic disturbance in central France is attributed the deposition of the tuf de La Celle-sous-Moret, near Paris, which records the warm temperate climate of early Acheulean times, as well as the somewhat cooler succeeding climate of late Acheulean times. This uplift in the centre of Germany and France apparently left the region between France and Great Britain undisturbed, because there is evidence of continued free migration of the tribes and of the Acheulean cultures; but there appears to have been a wide-spread subsidence of the coasts of southern Europe by which the islands of the Mediterranean became isolated from the mainland, and the migrating routes between Europe and Africa across the central Mediterranean region were cut off. Thus, Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia were separated from the mainland after having received a large contingent of mammalian life from the continents both to the north and to the south. While descendants of the African and Asiatic mammals, as well as of the northerly European forest and meadow types, survive on these islands, there is, thus far, no indication that they were invaded by hunters carrying the implements of the Acheulean culture, although these Acheulean flint workers ranged over all parts of the Italian peninsula (Fig. 80), as indicated by the discovery of nine stations.

Distribution of Acheulean Stations

The Acheulean stations are widely distributed along the Seine, Marne, and Somme in northern France, where flint is abundant and well adapted for fine workmanship. In central and southern France, where large flints are scarce, the Acheulean tribes were forced to use quartz, which fashions into clumsier forms. In the north the Acheulean workers continued on the old Chellean sites at Chelles, St. Acheul, Abbeville, and Helin. In late Acheulean times were established the new stations of Wolvercote on the Thames, near Oxford, and of Levallois on the Seine, near Paris, both famous for their 'Levallois' flint knives or blades. Near Levallois is the late Acheulean station of Villejuif, south of Paris, where the flints are buried in drifts of loess. In Normandy are the important stations of Frileuse, Bléville, and La Mare-aux-Clercs, which give the whole Acheulean development, both early and late. On a small tributary valley of the Vézère, in Dordogne, in late Acheulean times there was established the station of La Micoque, which gives its name to a number of miniature flints of distinctive form which were first found there and are known as the 'type of La Micoque.' Other stations, such as Combe-Capelle, also show examples of this 'miniature' Acheulean workmanship.

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Fig. 80. Distribution of the principal Acheulean industrial stations in western Europe.

Altogether, over thirty Acheulean stations have been found in France, two—Castillo and San Isidro—in northern and central Spain, the single station of Furninha in Portugal, over eight in Germany, three in Austria, and three in Russian Poland. Especially remarkable is the wide distribution of this culture all over Italy, where explorations by no means exhaustive have resulted in the discovery of at least nine or ten very prolific stations extending from Goccianello in the north to Capri in the south, but not into Sicily as far as is at present known. Thus all of western Europe, excepting the area covered by the Scandinavian ice-fields on the north and by the Alpine ice-fields on the south, was penetrated by the workers of Acheulean flints, probably members, for the most part, of the Neanderthal race.

Fig. 81. Late Acheulean station of La Micoque, in Dordogne, where miniature flints of distinctive late Acheulean form are found. Photograph by N. C. Nelson.

The general uniformity of Acheulean workmanship in all parts of western Europe is an indication that these Neanderthaloid tribes were more or less migratory and that the inventions of new and useful implements, such as the lance-pointed coup de poing of La Micoque and the flint-flakes of Levallois, which probably originated at an especial centre, or perhaps even in the inventive mind of a single workman, became widely distributed and highly distinctive of certain periods. The development of the implements in different regions is so uniform as to prove that the evolution of the early Palæolithic cultures extended all over western Europe and that the various types or stages were essentially contemporary.