Frobenius, Leo: Prehistoric rock pictures in Europe and Africa: from material in the archives of the Research Institute for the Morphology of Civilization, Frankfort-on-Main (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1937)

ROCK PICTURE RESEARCH

Ihe year 1895 was a decisive one for the modern conception of
the early periods of human culture, for it was then that the French
scholar Riviere showed that in a cave of Northern Spain, discovered
sixteen years before by Baron Sautuola, there existed pictures which
had been painted in the Ice Age. The impression which this evidence
of Riviere’s made on European science was a very curious one. The
matter was discussed at a meeting of the Anthropological Society in
Berlin, a body to which all the important scholars of the day belonged,
and a letter was read which described the Altamira paintings. Ac-
cording to this document, the paintings were neither primitive nor
simple, nor were they to be compared in any way with the daubs of
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