Be this as it may, the fact is certain that this strange intermixture of northern and southern species is found in almost all the European deposits of the Quaternary age, until towards its close with the coming on of the second great glacial period, when the southern forms disappear, and the reindeer, with an Arctic or boreal flora and fauna, become preponderant, and extend themselves over Southern France and Germany up to the Alps and Pyrenees.
The Quaternary period is therefore roughly divided by geologists into three stages: 1st, that of the mammoth and cave-bear, there being some difference of opinion as to which came first, though probably they were simultaneous; 2nd, the middle stage of the mixed fauna; 3rd, the latest stage, that of the reindeer.
Now to these stages there is an exact correspondence in the character of the human implements found in them. In the earliest, those of the oldest deposits and of the oldest animals, we find the rudest implements. They consist almost exclusively of native stones, chipped roughly into a few primitive shapes: celts, which are merely lumps of flint or other hard stone with a little chipping to supplement natural fractures in bringing them to a point or edge, while the butt-end is left rough to be grasped by the hand; scrapers with a little chipping to an edge on one side; very rude arrow-heads without the vestige of a barb or socket; and flakes struck off at a blow, which may have served for knives. As we ascend to later deposits we find these primitive types constantly improving. The celts are chipped all over and the butt-ends adapted for haftings, so also are the other implements and weapons, and the arrow-heads by degrees acquire barbs. But the great advance occurs with the use of bone, which seems to have been as important a civilizing agent for palæolithic as metals were for neolithic man. This again seems to have been due to the increasing preponderance of the reindeer, whose horns afforded an abundant and easily manipulated material for working into the desired forms by flint knives.
At any rate the fact is, that as we trace palæolithic man upwards into the later half of the Quaternary period when the reindeer became abundant, we find a notable advance of civilization. Needles appear, showing that skins of animals were stitched together with sinews to provide clothing. Barbed arrows and harpoons show that the arts of war and of the chase had made a great advance on the primitive unhafted celt. And finally we arrive at a time when certain tribes showed not only an advance in the industrial arts, but a really marvellous proficiency in the arts of sculpture and drawing. In the later reindeer period, when herds of that animal and of the wild horse and ox roamed over the plains of Southern France and Germany, and when the mammoth and cave-bear, though not extinct, were becoming scarce, tribes of palæolithic savages who lived in the caves and rock shelters of the valleys of Southern France and Germany, and of Switzerland and Belgium, drew pictures of their chases and of the animals with which they were surrounded, with the point of a flint on pieces of bone or of schist. They also carved bones into images of these animals, to adorn the handles of their weapons or as idols or amulets. Both drawings and sculptures are in many cases admirably executed, so as to leave no doubt of the animal intended, especially in the case of the wild animals, for the rare portraits of the human figure are very inferior. Most of them represent the reindeer in various attitudes, but the mammoth, the cave-bear, the wild horse, the Bos primigenius, and others, are also represented with wonderful fidelity.
With the close of the reindeer age we pass into the Recent period and from palæolithic to neolithic man. Physically there is no very decided break, and we cannot draw a hard-and-fast line where one ends and the other begins. All we can say is, that there is general evidence of constantly decreasing cold during the whole post-glacial period, from the climax of the second great glaciation until modern conditions of climate are fairly established, and the existing fauna has completely superseded that of the Quaternary, the older characteristic forms of which having either become extinct or migrated. How does this affect the most characteristic of all Quaternary forms, that of man? Can we trace an uninterrupted succession from the earliest Quaternary to the latest modern times, or is there a break between the Quaternary and Recent periods which with our present knowledge cannot be bridged over? And did the division of mankind into distinct and widely different races, which is such a prominent feature at the present day and ever since the commencement of history, exist in the case of the palæolithic man, whose remains are so widespread?
These are questions which can only be answered by the evidence of actual remains of the human body. Implements and weapons may have altered gradually with the lapse of ages, and new forms may have been introduced by commerce and conquest, without any fundamental change in the race using them. Still less can language be appealed to as a test of race, for experience shows how easily the language of a superior race may be imposed on populations with which it has no affinity in blood. To establish distinction of races we consult the anthropologist rather than the geologist or philologist.
PORTRAIT OF MAMMOTH.
Drawn with a flint on a piece of Mammoth's ivory; from Cave of La Madeleine, Dordogne, France.