On leaving the Roca del Moro at a distance of 200 meters, Breuil chanced to see in another rock shelter a figure painted red. He leaped from his horse and clambered up to the spot to find a companion figure in black and near these, two deer in red and black and three other smaller figures (wild goat) in black. This discovery caused the explorers to change their plans so as to include a reconnaissance tour of the whole province. After three months, Cabré reported that he had found nine other localities with paintings or engravings in open shelters[1] (à l'air libre). A tenth situated to the south of the province has been discovered and it looks, says Breuil, as if we might have the satisfaction of seeing Quaternary art clasp hands by the way of Gibraltar with the rock paintings and engravings of northern Africa.
A Catalonian rock-shelter near Cogul, south of Lérida in the province of the same name, is adorned with frescoes that furnish interesting additional data concerning paleolithic art. These frescoes known for ages were formerly attributed to the Moors. The researches of Breuil prove them to be of Magdalenian age. They form five groups, two of which are shown in plate 6, figure b. Both of these are hunting scenes. Above and to the left is a hunter in the act of striking down a stag after having already killed one. The drawing is highly stylistic without obscuring the real meaning of the ensemble. The dead stag lies on his back with all four feet in the air. The group at the right is a combination of stylistic and realistic art, the figure of the bison being similar to figures of that animal in a number of French and Spanish caverns. But the bison emigrated from south- western Europe before the close of the Quaternary; the Cogul frescoes are therefore Magdelenian. Another remarkable group in this rock shelter represents nine women surrounding one man. The latter is executed in the style of the hunters reproduced in figure b. The female figures are somewhat more realistic and are readily distinguished by skirts reaching to the knees and by pendent breasts. While the presence of feminine skirts gives to the scene a modern air, the art as a whole is more closely related to the paleolithic than to that of any succeeding epoch.
The explorations of French caverns have more than kept pace with those in Spain. Confining ourselves chiefly to caverns with mural decorations those of the Dordogne are perhaps the most important, the largest group being in the Vézère Valley. The calcareous formation, cleft by the Vézère and its tributaries, is composed of Cretaceous beds approximately horizontal and of varying degrees of hardness (pl. 7); so that overhanging rocks often shelter horizontal galleries and niches. Again subterranean streams have left meandering caverns, some of them several hundred meters in length. These as well
- ↑ This province has a very dry climate.
