MEN OF THE OLD STONE AGE
THEIR ENVIRONMENT, LIFE AND ART
HITCHCOCK LECTURES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, 1914
Pl. I. Neanderthal man at the station of Le Moustier, overlookingthe valley of the Vézère, Dordogne. Drawing by Charles R. Knight, under the direction of the author.
MEN OF
THE OLD STONE AGE
THEIR ENVIRONMENT, LIFE
AND ART
BY
HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN
SC.D. PRINCETON, HON. LL.D. TRINITY, PRINCETON, COLUMBIA, HON. D.SC. CAMBRIDGE
HON. PH.D. CHRISTIANIA
RESEARCH PROFESSOR OF ZOOLOGY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
VERTEBRATE PALÆONTOLOGIST U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY, CURATOR EMERITUS OF VERTEBRATE
PALÆONTOLOGY IN THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
UPPER PALÆOLITHIC ARTISTS
AND
CHARLES R. KNIGHT, ERWIN S. CHRISTMAN
AND OTHERS
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1915
Copyright, 1915, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published November, 1915
DEDICATED
TO
MY DISTINGUISHED GUIDES THROUGH THE UPPER
PALÆOLITHIC CAVERNS OF
THE PYRENEES, DORDOGNE, AND THE CANTABRIAN MOUNTAINS OF SPAIN
ÉMILE CARTAILHAC
HENRI BREUIL
HUGO OBERMAIER
PREFACE
This volume is the outcome of an ever-memorable tour through the countryof the men of the Old Stone Age, guided by three of the distinguishedarchæologists of France, to whom the work is gratefully dedicated. ThisPalæolithic tour[A] of three weeks, accompanied as it was by a constantflow of conversation and discussion, made a very profound impression,namely, of the very early evolution of the spirit of man, of the closerelation between early human environment and industry and the developmentof mind, of the remote antiquity of the human powers of observation, ofdiscovery, and of invention. It appears that men with faculties and powerslike our own, but in the infancy of education and tradition, were livingin this region of Europe at least 25,000 years ago. Back of theseintelligent races were others, also of eastern origin but in earlierstages of mental development, all pointing to the very remote ancestry ofman from earlier mental and physical stages.
Another great impression from this region is that it is the oldest centreof human habitation of which we have a complete, unbroken record ofcontinuous residence from a period as remote as 100,000 yearscorresponding with the dawn of human culture, to the hamlets of the modernpeasant of France of A. D. 1915. In contrast, Egyptian, Ægean, andMesopotamian civilizations appear as of yesterday.
The history of this region and its people