DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.66493#0023
of glaciers with which it covered Europe, we must assume that it lasted
for at least 30,000 years.1 It has been established that the Mousterian
culture, for instance, lies in the first high point, the Aurignacian, to
which the earliest rock pictures belong, in the somewhat warmer
period between the two peaks, and the Solutrean in the second high
point. According to the lowest figures available, those of the noted
Swedish geologist de Geer (who has recently made some remarkable
investigations in America), the last phase of this last Ice Age, that
is, from the second high point to the time when the glaciers had
melted and gone, lasted from approximately 18,000 to 5000 B. C.
In this period lie the Magdalenian, the Mesolithic (carrying on the
New Paleolithic tradition) and the proto-Neolithic cultures. The
Magdalenian, which produced the finest specimens we have of pre-
historic art, probably flourished till 10,000 B. C. This is a high age
to attribute to a culture which produced such magnificent and, in
some cases, such finely preserved paintings and engravings. One of
the many facts which speak for it, however, are the arctic (Scandina-
vian) rock pictures of a younger culture which, again, according to
the geologists, must have existed at least as far back as 8000 B. C.
The paleolithic connection with Africa has been established by the
discovery in Europe of the bones of African fauna such as the hippo-
potamus and the elephant in conjunction with early Old Stone Age
implements. According to Vignard, Sandford and others, there is
nothing to prevent us from assuming that man appeared in Europe
and Africa simultaneously, and it has been established that the de-
velopment of the early Old Stone Age culture was the same on both
continents, something which justifies the application to North Africa
and Egypt of the French classifications for the early paleolithic cul-
ture stages.
A question with which we are often faced is: “What do the pictures
mean? ” Now it is a fact that the European pictures have, on the sur-
1 This figure and the ones which follow are based on geological findings. Although they are the
lowest we have to go by, they are fantastically high from the culture-morphological standpoint.
21
for at least 30,000 years.1 It has been established that the Mousterian
culture, for instance, lies in the first high point, the Aurignacian, to
which the earliest rock pictures belong, in the somewhat warmer
period between the two peaks, and the Solutrean in the second high
point. According to the lowest figures available, those of the noted
Swedish geologist de Geer (who has recently made some remarkable
investigations in America), the last phase of this last Ice Age, that
is, from the second high point to the time when the glaciers had
melted and gone, lasted from approximately 18,000 to 5000 B. C.
In this period lie the Magdalenian, the Mesolithic (carrying on the
New Paleolithic tradition) and the proto-Neolithic cultures. The
Magdalenian, which produced the finest specimens we have of pre-
historic art, probably flourished till 10,000 B. C. This is a high age
to attribute to a culture which produced such magnificent and, in
some cases, such finely preserved paintings and engravings. One of
the many facts which speak for it, however, are the arctic (Scandina-
vian) rock pictures of a younger culture which, again, according to
the geologists, must have existed at least as far back as 8000 B. C.
The paleolithic connection with Africa has been established by the
discovery in Europe of the bones of African fauna such as the hippo-
potamus and the elephant in conjunction with early Old Stone Age
implements. According to Vignard, Sandford and others, there is
nothing to prevent us from assuming that man appeared in Europe
and Africa simultaneously, and it has been established that the de-
velopment of the early Old Stone Age culture was the same on both
continents, something which justifies the application to North Africa
and Egypt of the French classifications for the early paleolithic cul-
ture stages.
A question with which we are often faced is: “What do the pictures
mean? ” Now it is a fact that the European pictures have, on the sur-
1 This figure and the ones which follow are based on geological findings. Although they are the
lowest we have to go by, they are fantastically high from the culture-morphological standpoint.
21