Page:Smithsonian Report (1909).djvu/639

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ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY.
533

delberg), Le Moustier, La Chapelle-aux-Saints, Combe-Capelle, Le Pech de l'Azé, and La Ferrassie; the studies of Breuil, Cartailhac, Capitan and others relating to paleolithic mural paintings and engravings; Commont's recent explorations at the classic station of Saint-Acheul; those of Martin and Giraux at La Quina; the researches of Szombathy, Hoernes, and Obermaier in Austria-Hungary, those of R. R. Schmidt[1] and of Wiegers in Germany, and of Bächler in Switzerland. Mention has already been made of the work done in the caverns of Grimaldi and that begun in northern Spain, both under the generous patronage of the Prince of Monaco.

To enumerate all the important stations recently discovered, even of the paleolithic period alone, would require more space than is at my disposal here. There is therefore need of limiting this study chronologically as well as geographically. Excepting the bare mention of quite recent paleolithic discoveries by S. J. Czarnowski[2] in the caverns of Russian Poland, the countries to be included are France and Belgium in the center, with Switzerland and parts of Germany and Austria-Hungary on the east, and Spain to the south. We shall not even cross the channel, as we might well do, for paleolithically England has much in common with France and Belgium, and English students of the period in question have by no means been idle of late.

The time element must also be reduced. The original table of relative chronology provided for an age of stone, of bronze, and of iron. For the present let us ignore the last two. This leaves the stone age, at first applied to the neolithic only, then divided into paleolithic and neolithic, and finally into eolithic, paleolithic, and neolithic. It is a case of the first being last and the last first in more senses than one, for during the past decade there have developed what may well be styled an eolithic school as well as a paleolithic school. Students of the neolithic on the other hand, while particularly active, must still await a more favorable moment for correlation, for crystallization of data. By common consent, then, we shall eliminate the neolithic from the present discussion, with only a passing reference to its place and divisions in the table of relative chronology.

As for the eolithic school, I endeavored five years ago to sum up its work in a paper entitled "The Eolithic Problem."[3] Since then investigations have been carried on almost continuously. Attempts were made to explain away the origin of eoliths by the invocation of flint mills as factories for their wholesale production, but such


  1. E. von Koken and R. R. Schmidt have in preparation a larse work to be called "Die paläolithischen Kulturstätten Deutschlands."
  2. Paleolit na zboczu Gory smardzewskiej. Kosmos, vol. 31, Lemberg, 1906.
  3. American Anthropologist, u. s., vol. 7, 425–479, 1905.