A very interesting fact, which goes a long way to establish the view that the European domesticated horse is derived from the Mongolian wild horse, comes to us in a most striking way from some of the most ancient records of the human race. In the South of France the contents of caves formerly inhabited by men have been dug out and examined with increasing care and accuracy of late years, though first investigated fifty years ago. Similar caves, though not so prolific of evidences of human occupation, have been explored in England (Kent’s Cavern at Torquay, and others). The astounding fact has now become quite clear that these caves were inhabited by men of no mean capacity from 50,000 to 250,000 years ago, when bone harpoons, flint knives, flint scrapers, and bone javelin-throwers were the chief weapons in use, when these islands were solidly joined to the European continent, when a sheet of glacial ice, alternately retreating and extending, covered the whole of Northern Europe, and when the mammoth, rhinoceros, hyena, lion, bear, bison, great ox, horse, and later the reindeer, inhabited the land and were hunted, eaten, and utilised for their bone, tusks, and skin by these ancient men. I revert to this subject in a later article ([page 371]), but would merely say now that it is all as certain and well-established a chapter in man’s history as that of the ancient Egyptians, who are really quite modern (dating from 8000 years at most) as compared with these cave-men of 50,000 years ago, and the even earlier races which preceded them in Europe.
The bones of the animals killed and eaten by the cave-men are found in some cases in enormous quantities. In one locality in France the bones of as many as 80,000 horses (which had been cooked and eaten) have been dug up and counted! The most wonderful and extraordinary thing about these cave-men is that they carved complete rounded sculptures, high reliefs, low reliefs, and line-engravings on mammoth’s ivory, on reindeer horn, on bones, and on stones—the line-engravings being the latest in date, as shown by their position in the deposits on the floor of the caves, which are often as much as twenty feet or thirty feet in thickness! Not only that, but these carvings are often real works of art, extremely well drawn, and showing not mere childish effort but work which was done with the intention and control of an artist’s mind.
An immense number of these carvings are now known. I have before me one of the most recent publications on the subject—a series of plates showing the carvings collected from caves in the Pyrenees, the Dordogne, and the Landes by M. Piette, who recently died. I have examined his collection and others of the same kind in the great Museum of St. Germain, near Paris. We have in London some of the earlier collections, and especially that of the Vicomte de Lastic, to purchase which my old friend Sir Richard Owen journeyed to the Dordogne in the winter of 1864. Many animals, as well as some human beings ([Fig. 7]), are represented in these carvings—the mammoth itself, carved on a piece of its own ivory, is among them, and a good many represent the horse ([Fig. 8]). Now it is a fact that the carvings of the horses of that period undoubtedly represent a horse which is identical in proportions, shape of head, mane, and tail, with the wild Mongolian horse, and is unlike in those points to modern European horses, or to the Arabian horse.
Fig. 7.—Drawing (of the actual size of the original) of an ivory carving (fully rounded) of a female head. The specimen was found in the cavern of Brassempouy, in the Landes. It is of the earliest reindeer period, and the arrangement of the hair or cap is remarkable.
[Transcriber’s Note: The original image is approximately 1½ inches (4cm) high and ¾ inches (2cm) wide.]
Fig. 8.—Drawing (of the actual size of the original) of a fully rounded carving in reindeer’s antler of the head of a neighing horse. The head resembles that of the Mongolian horse. This is one of the most artistic of the cave-men’s carvings yet discovered. It is of the Palæolithic age (early reindeer period), probably not less than fifty thousand years old. It was found in the cavern of Mas d’Azil, Ariège, France, and is now in the museum of St. Germain.