At the close of the Magdalenian we enter upon the last period of Paleolithic times, the Azilian, which lasted from about 10,000 to 7,000 B. C., when the Upper Paleolithic, the age of chipped flints, definitely and finally ends in Europe. This period takes its name from the Mas d’Azil, or “House of Refuge,” a huge cavern in the eastern Pyrenees where the local Protestants took shelter during the persecutions. The extensive deposits in this cave are typical of the Azilian epoch and here certain marked pebbles may be the earliest known traces of symbolic writing, but true writing was probably not developed until the late Neolithic.
With the advent of this Azilian Period art entirely disappears and the splendid physical type of the Cro-Magnons is succeeded by what appear to have been degraded savages, who had lost the force and vigor necessary for the strenuous chase of large game and had turned to the easier life of fishermen.
In the Azilian the bow and arrow are in common use in Spain and it is well within the possibilities that the introduction and development of this new weapon from the South may have played its part in the destruction of the Cro-Magnons; otherwise it is hard to account for the disappearance of this race of large stature and great brain power.
The Azilian, also called the Tardenoisian in the north of France, was evidently a period of racial disturbance and at its close the beginnings of the existing races are found.
From the first appearance of man in Europe and for many tens of thousands of years down to some ten or twelve thousand years ago all known human remains are of dolichocephalic type.
In the Azilian Period appears the first round skull race. It comes clearly from the East. Later we shall find that this invasion of the forerunners of the existing Alpine race came from southwestern Asia by way of the Iranian plateau, Asia Minor, the Balkans and the valley of the Danube, and spread over nearly all of Europe. The earlier round skull invasions may as well have been infiltrations as armed conquests since apparently from that day to this the round skulls have occupied the poorer mountain districts and have seldom ventured down to the rich and fertile plains.
This new brachycephalic race is known as the Furfooz or Grenelle race, so called from the localities in Belgium and France where it was first discovered. Members of this round skull race have also been found at Ofnet in Bavaria where they occur in association with a dolichocephalic race, our first historic evidence of the mixture of contrasted races. The descendants of this Furfooz-Grenelle race and of the succeeding waves of invaders of the same brachycephalic type now occupy central Europe as Alpines and form the predominant peasant type in central and eastern Europe.
In this same Azilian Period there appear, coming this time from the South, the first forerunners of the Mediterranean race. The descendants of this earliest wave of Mediterraneans and their later reinforcements occupy all the coast and islands of the Mediterranean and are spread widely over western Europe. They can everywhere be identified by their short stature, slight build, long skull and brunet hair and eyes.
While during this Azilian-Tardenoisian Period these ancestors of two of the existing European races are appearing in central and southern Europe, a new culture phase, also distinctly Pre-Neolithic, was developing along the shores of the Baltic. It is known as Maglemose from its type locality in Denmark. It is believed to be the work of the first wave of the Nordic race which had followed the retreating glaciers northward over the old land connections between Denmark and Sweden to occupy the Scandinavian Peninsula. In the remains of this culture we find definite evidence of the domesticated dog.
With the appearance of the Mediterranean race the Azilian-Tardenoisian draws to its close and with it the entire Paleolithic Period. It is safe to assign for the end of the Paleolithic and the beginning of the Neolithic or Polished Stone Age, the date of 7,000 or 8,000 B. C.