CHAPTER XVI
PREHISTORIC PETTICOATS
After the last great extension of glaciers in Europe, during which nearly all of Great Britain and the North of France and Germany were buried with Scandinavia under one great ice-sheet—and when this ice-sheet had receded, and the climate was like that of the Russian "steppes," cold and dry—there were men inhabiting the caverns on both sides of the Pyrenees. The tract of land which we call "Great Britain" was a part of the Continent of Europe. There was no "English Channel." The Thames and the Rhine opened by a common mouth into the North Sea. The mammoth and the hairy rhinoceros still lingered on in France and the more central regions of Europe. Wild horses, the great ox (Aurochs), the bison, ibex, chamois, were abundant, and the thick-nosed Saiga antelope, now confined to the Russian and Asiatic steppes, was present. The most abundant and important animal immediately north of the Pyrenees was the reindeer. The cave-men of France and Central Europe were a fine race—living by the chase, and fabricating flint knives and scrapers, fine bone spearheads and harpoons, as well as occupying themselves in carving ivory and reindeer antlers, so as to produce highly artistic representations of the animals around them.
They rarely attempted the human face or figure, and when they did were not so successful as in their animal work. They also painted on the walls of some of their caverns, with red and yellow ochre, carbon, and white chalk representations—usually about one-third the size of nature—of some of the most important animals of the chase. They must have used lamps, fed with animal fat, to illuminate the walls, both when they were at work on the pictures and also afterwards, when they exhibited the finished pictures to the less gifted members of the tribe, as wonderful, even magical appearances. It is uncertain to what extent races of men succeeded one another or were cotemporaries in this period in Europe, but there is good reason for attributing the cave pictures to an early occupation of the caves by men who also carved, in ivory and stone, small figures of women resembling the Hottentot Venus—whilst the later occupants made no such statuettes, but carved in relief on bone or engraved it.
This was probably not less than 50,000 years ago, and may well have been much more. Earlier than the date of these Reindeer men (the Magdalenians, Solutrians and the Aurignacians[9]), in the preceding cold, humid period of the glacial extension (probably from 80,000 to 150,000 years ago) these and other caves were occupied by an inferior race—the Neandermen. They could not carve beasts on ivory nor paint, but could make very good and well "dressed" flint weapons, and could make large fires in and about the caves, both to cook their meat and to keep off the wild beasts (lions, bears, and hyenas), who contended with the strange, low-browed Neandermen for the use of the caves as habitations.
On this side of the Pyrenees the Reindeer men have left some wall-pictures, and new discoveries of great importance in the form of rock carvings of human figures as well as pictures and huge figures of horses, etc., are being made in France as I write these lines. But the best preserved and most numerous wall pictures are those of the cave of Altamira near Santander. These comprise some partially preserved representations in yellow, red, white, and black of the great bison, the wild boar, the horse, and other animals. A group representing some twenty-five or more animals (each about one third the size of nature), irregularly arranged, exists on a part of the roof, and others are found in other parts of the cavern. Among the wall-pictures made by ancient cave-men are numerous drawings of human beings in masks representing animals' heads—probably indicating the "dressing-up" in animal masks of priests or medicine men in the way in which we know to-day is the custom among many savage tribes. Twenty-seven of these "decorated" caverns were known in 1910—eleven in Spain, one in Italy, and fifteen in South and Central France—and others are continually being discovered. The most careful and critical examination by scientific men leaves no doubt as to the vast antiquity of these paintings, and as to their dating from a time when the animals painted (including in some cases mammoth and rhinoceros, as well as bison, reindeer, wild boar, ibex, red deer, bear, and felines) were existing in the locality. The covering up of some of the drawings (which are partly engraved and partly painted) by earthy deposits and by encrustations of lime, and the presence in the cave deposits of the worked flints and bones characteristic of the Reindeer men, leave no doubt that these pictures are of that immense antiquity which we express by the words "Quaternary period," "Upper Pleistocene" or "Reindeer epoch."
It is, of course, only in accordance with what one would expect that these pictures are of very varying degrees of artistic merit. But some (a considerable number) are quite remarkable for their true artistic quality. In this respect they differ from the rock paintings of modern savage races—the Bushmen of South Africa, the Australians, and the Californian Indians—with which, however, it is instructive to compare them. Many of them agree in their essential artistic character with the carving and engraving of animals on bone and ivory so abundantly produced by the later Reindeer men. It is also the fact that these Franco-Spanish wall paintings were executed at different periods in the Reindeer epoch. Some are more primitive than others; some are very badly preserved, mere scratched outlines with all the paint washed away by the moisture of ages; but others are bright and sharp in their colouring to a degree which is surprising when their age and long exposure are considered. The French prehistorians, M.M. Cartailac and the Abbé Breuil, have produced a sumptuous volume containing an account, with large coloured plates, of the best preserved of the Altamira paintings—a copy of which I owe to the kindness of H.S.H. the Prince of Monaco, who has ordered the publication of the work at his own charges. This has been followed by an equally fine work under the same auspices, illustrating the wall-pictures of the Cavern of the Font-de-Gaume in the Dordogne, for which we have to thank the Abbé Breuil. A further volume on Spanish Caves has also appeared from the same source in the present year. It is not surprising that the country folk, who, in some of the Spanish localities, have known the existence of these paintings from time immemorial, should regard them as the work of the ancient Moors, all ancient work in Spain being popularly attributed to the Moors, as a sort of starting-point in history. It is, however, very remarkable that little damage appears to have been done by the population to the paintings, even when they exist in shallow caves or on overhanging rocks. No doubt weathering, and the oozing of moisture, and the flaking caused by it, has destroyed most of the Pleistocene paintings which once existed, and it is an ascertained fact that some—for instance, those of Altamira—are breaking to pieces owing to the opening-up and frequentation of the caverns.
It has been remarked that, although these paintings belong to what is called the "reindeer epoch," yet in the cave of Altamira there are no representations of reindeer, but chiefly of bison and wild boar. It is also remarkable that in the case of the painted rock shelters of Calapata (Lower Aragon) and of Cogul (near Lerida, in Catalonia), no reindeer are represented; but on the former there are very admirable drawings of the red deer, and on the latter silhouettes of the bull, of the red deer, and the ibex. In fact, no representations of reindeer have been observed on cave walls or rock-shelters south of the Pyrenees. It is possible that this may be due to the date of the Spanish paintings being a good deal later than that of those French cave-paintings which show reindeer, mammoth, and rhinoceros. And we have to bear in mind that in the North of Africa (Oran) engraved drawings on exposed rocks are known, which are for good reasons attributed to the Neolithic period; that is to say, they are later than the Reindeer epoch of the Palæolithic period, whilst some are even much later.
In any case we have to remember that there are two very different and possible explanations of the presence or absence either of certain animals' bones or of representations of certain animals in one "decorated" cave and not in another. The one explanation is that animals have succeeded one another in time in Western Europe—changing as the climatic conditions have changed—and that when, in two cave-decorations or cave-deposits compared, the animals are different, the cause may be that the one deposit or cave-decoration is more recent than the other. The other explanation is that (as we well know) at one and the same moment very different animals occupy tracts of land which are only a hundred miles or so apart, but differ in climate and general conditions. At this moment there are wild bears and also wolves in France, but none in England; the elk occurs in Sweden and Russia, but not in the West of Europe; the porcupine in Italy and in Spain, but not in France. As late as the historic period the African elephant flourished on the African shore of the Mediterranean, but not in Spain; now it is not found north of the Sahara at all. So we have various possibilities to consider in comparing the animal pictures on the cave walls of Spain with those found in France, and may well suspend judgment till we have knowledge of a greatly extended area.