Forgotten Ages Research

Out-of-Place Cultural Elements in the Stone Age—The Evidence for Cro-Magnon Civilization, Part One

Product ID: VC9

Report Topics:

• Evidence for Cro-Magnon fashion clothing, hairstyles, jewelry, sewing needles, musical instruments, stone-and-cement construction, mining, bridled horses, harvesting of crops, mathematics and calendar systems, knowledge of the zodiac constellations, widespread commerce, sailing across open seas, sophisticated artistic techniques, use of symbols and alphabetic writing

Full Report:

Up until the middle of the last century, the prevailing view among most historical scholars was that all the basic elements of civilization—agriculture, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, writing, artistic expression and religion—were not grasped until the dawning of Egypt, Sumer, China and the other classic ancient civilizations only half a dozen millennia ago, and that preceding this “dawning,” humanity spent tens of thousands of years in an acultural, nonproductive limbo called the “Stone Age.”

Now, however, the face of history is fact changing, and new research and discoveries are beginning to show just how wrong the prevailing view has been. We now know that the “Stone Age,” particularly its earliest aspects in what is termed the Paleolithic era, not only exhibited all the elements of a very sophisticated civilization, it also revealed curious anomalies of advanced culture, pointing to the influence of a higher civilization living alongside Stone Age humanity. Judging from the time period involved, and the direction from which it came, we can say with a degree of certainty that the prehistoric influence came from Atlantis.

The first mystery of the Stone Age begins about 35,000 B.C.E., with the sudden arrival of Cro-Magnon man. Prior to this, Europe had been dominated by a Neanderthal population--a people with protruding faces, heavy eyebrow ridges, small braincases, and a stocky but powerful build, standing an average of five feet tall. For over thirty-five millennia the Neanderthals had successfully survived the onslaughts of the Ice Age, with its various glacial advances and retreats, and had developed a simply but effective culture and stone tool assemblage.

But then inexplicably a break appears in the European human fossil record. Neanderthal man very quickly vanished and was replaced by Cro-Magnon man. What caused this sudden turnover has yet to be fully determined, though invasion and genocide have been suggested. Only in a few places do we find evidence from the fossil remains indicating a peaceful transition--in the majority of cultural layers left behind, the Neanderthals were clearly “removed” forever from the scene, and Cro-Magnon man is left the sole ruler.

The Cro-Magnon greatly contrasted the former population in many of their physical characteristics: They possessed narrow, sharply cut faces, high foreheads, and had a remarkably tall stature, ranging from between five feet ten inches and six feet four inches. But the most singular and astonishing Cro-Magnon feature was the size of the brains—from 1,590 to 1,715 cubic centimeters, greater in size tan that of modern humanity, whose brain capacity averages only 1,400 cc. As researcher-writer Otto Binder wondered, “Where did this huge braincase, three times that of a gorilla, come from?” Indeed, there is no precedence for it in the fossil records of the Middle East, Africa or Asia, where human forms had far smaller braincases. What this means is that Cro-Magnon could not have evolved from any of these eastern populations, and his sudden invasion first of western Europe and the subsequent slow spread of his race from this area strongly indicates he originally came from somewhere west of Europe, or from the direction of the Atlantic and the New World.

Besides his superior physique, Cro-Magnon also brought with him elements of a far more sophisticated culture. Before the arrival of the Cro-Magnons, the Neanderthals had possessed a tool kit of 63 tool types today classified under the name of Mousterian. With the coming of the Cro-Magnons, the tool assemblage suddenly jumps to 93 chipped stone tools, plus a large and diversified kit of bone implements never before seen. But more than just tools, the Cro-Magnons brought with them a wide range of artistry. Even in the earliest state of the Cro-Magnon civilization--the Chatelperronian--we find the remains of necklaces and headdresses and clothing of shells and other decorative material. There is also evident a strong desire to record the impressions of nature through drawings, on flat stone and bone, and upon cavern walls.

The Chatelperronian was of relatively short duration, and gave way to the Aurignacian, Gravettian-Perigordian and Solutrean. In each of these periods there is a marked improvement in stone tools, showing an overall sophistication and a higher order of specialization of labor. In art, the tendency was toward realism, with an eye for detail in many cases, and proper perspective. What is interesting is that the most developed features of Upper Paleolithic civilization appears only in France, Spain and England, with only traces found eastward.

Only in the Gravettian-Perigordian and later Magdalenian do we find some relation between the remains in eastern Europe and those in Russia. The evidence again strongly suggests that the Cro-Magnon civilization had its source from the west, from the Atlantic, and that only sample elements of the cultural influx filtered westward, into eastern Europe and beyond. Evan Hadingham noted about the artistic developments of the Magdalenian period, subsequent to the Solutrean: “The products of their artists are set apart, both in style and quality, from anything comparable in the rest of Europe at the end of the Ice Age. Caves were decorated in many regions outside the Magdalenian influence: for example, in the canyons of Languedoc and along the rocky coastlines of Sicily, but the vision of the Mediterranean artists was different. They followed archaic conventions of style that resulted in rather stiff and formal animal designs, quite unlike the vigorous, spontaneous images of the Magdalenian painters of Lascaux and Altamira.”

The pioneering prehistory the Abbe Breuil likewise observed: “It appears as if the fundamental elements of the superior Aurignacian culture had been contributed by some unknown route to constitute the kernel of the Magdalenian civilization, while the Solutrean episode remained elsewhere.”

Lewis Spence commented further: “This can only mean that the older Aurignacian art received impetus and stimulation from an original and parent source.”

Another indication of influence can be seen among the artifacts typical of each of the Paleolithic periods: There is no transition from one to the other. In the Solutrean, for example, there is the sudden appearance of flat, bifacially-worked “leaf shaped” points that have no European predecessors. Their origin is unknown. They appear to have been imported from beyond the Atlantic fully developed. Like the Solutrean points, other cultural artifacts show the same characteristic, indicating the Cro-Magnon civilization did not develop, but simply arrived in waves from another, more western source.

After the Solutrean came the Magdalenian, roughly dating between 16,000 and 9000 B.C.E., which might be called the Renaissance of the Paleolithic Age. Bone points give way to elaborate barbed harpoons, spear-throwers, rods and batons—beautifully carved with decorative patterns or animal representations. Among the stone tools there is also a marked change: Thousands of implements were manufactured, highly artistic but far too small and fragile to be used as tools, indicating their use was symbolic where before they had been a necessity. It has been suggested that these tiny flints represented a form of money—a medium of exchange, which presupposes an economic system and trade.

Perhaps the best known productions of the Magdalenian period is the cave art preserved to this day in the famous prehistoric galleries of Lascaux, Altamira and other locations. The art form is impressionistic and even abstract. Again, however, the artwork and tool industry of the Magdalenian is limited to France and Spain, with only traces found in Siberia: Other portions of Europe and Asia remained in the Gravettian-Perigordian or Solutrean cultural levels.

The Magdalenian period was a lengthy one, sub-divided into seven stages by artistic style—just as we define the Renaissance period of Western civilization in terms of Italian, French, Spanish and English periods and styles. Following the Magdalenian, however, there is a break to the Azilian period, which possessed little if any truly artistic merit. The tools indicate that the Azilians were quite productive, but not as aesthetically minded as their Magdalenian predecessors: The art consisted merely of simply symbols painted on stones.

What is very significant is that the break from the Magdalenian to the Azilian period saw not only a distinctive decline in artistic accomplishment, but also a major cultural transition, marking the end of the Paleolithic Age and the beginning of the Mesolithic and Neolithic Ages. From this point on, the high cultural influx from the west, from the Atlantic, ceases, and European development is thenceforth influenced by slowly emerging cultures first in eastern Europe and the Balkans, then from farming cultures in the Middle East.

More noteworthy is the fact that this sudden transition is dated to have occurred sometime between 10,000 and 9000 B.C.E.—a time, we recognize, when the entire Earth passed through cataclysmic changes. Prehistorian Hadingham described the transition in art in these terms: “If we turn from the best Paleolithic engravings to the painted dots and lines of the Azilians, it certainly seems as if the creative faculties of the hunters at the end of the Ice Age were fatally sapped and undermined. It is difficult to write of this period without suggesting hat some kind of collapse—whether of a spiritual, economic or social kind—took place around 9000 B.C.E. Distinguished prehistorians have occasionally written as if a ‘crash’ of unprecedented proportions severed the brilliant world of the Ice Age artists from that of their impoverished successors.”

The transition point of 10,000 to 9000 B.C.E. not only witnessed a drastic change in culture, but also a change in population: Cro-Magnon man himself disappears, and more modern types of homo sapiens with inferior cultures eventually carved out niches for themselves—just as the barbarian invaders overwhelmed and settled segments of the collapsing Roman Empire many millennia later.

One group in particular, who were very different from the rest, made a dramatic appearance on the Algerian and Moroccan coasts just at the moment the Paleolithic Age ended in Europe. They were the Mouillans, a population whose remains are very inexplicable in the archaeological record for several reasons. First, they brought with them types of stone tools and other artifacts from some unknown location which are fully developed yet unlike most other tools found anywhere else. Second, their braincases are the largest ever recorded, even larger than Cro-Magnons, averaging 2,000 cubic centimeters. Third, the Mouillons appear to have arrived as a large and well organized population from its very outset, yet its members were curiously mostly women and children—like survivors of some disaster at sea. And fourth, Mouillan individuals were buried always facing west, as if in remembrance of some important event which once took place in that direction. The Mouillon culture did not survive long, archaeologists note, yet their skeletal remains strongly suggest not a few of their descendants are related to the modern Tuaregs and Berbers of North Africa.

New finds are forcing experts to take a second look at Stone Age stereotypical images. Toward the middle of the last century, an engineer named Hans Eleischlager accidentally uncovered over five hundred stone figures of men and animals on the banks of the Elbe river near Hamburg. German archaeologist Walter Matthes established that they indeed were sculptures fashioned by human hands, yet they dated from before the Ice Age. Presenting these finds to a Rome conference on prehistory, Matthes noted that the stone figures of human heads were the most remarable, for they showed the faces of Homo sapiens, not ape-like creatures. W. Kristly, author of an article on the Elbe river stone heads made this remark: “The classical cliché of shaggy-haired figures with simian faces, wearing skins and stupidly rubbing two points together, is a nightmare of classical archaeology which bears no relation to reality.”

Yet even still today, when the average person imagines a Cro-Magnon man of the Stone Age, he or she usually pictures a primitive-looking individual dressed in an animal skin clinging to his torso and draped over one shoulder. In 1937, however, Leon Pericard and Stephane Lwoff uncovered 1,500 engraves stones dating from the Magdalenian period in the cave of La Marche near Lussac-les-Chateaux, that drastically changed the accepted picture. Fifty-one of the flat stones showed men and women in casual poses wearing robes, boots, belts, coats and hats. One etching is a profile of a woman who appears to be sitting and watching something. She is dressed in a pants suit with a short-sleeved jacket, a pair of small boots, and on her head is a decorated hat that stylishly flops down over her right ear and touches her shoulder. Resting on her lap is a square, flat object that has a flap that folds down the front—looking very much like a modern purse. Other examples show men wearing well-tailored pants and coats, broad belts with clasps, and having clipped beards, moustaches, and sport very modern-looking short-cut hair styles with bangs.

The La Marche etchings contradict everything that classical prehistory had accepted up to that time, and anthropologists were quick to call the drawings a hoax and a fraud. But the “out-of-place” pictures were authenticated in 1938, the Abbe Brueil being among those who demonstrated that the well-dressed individuals had indeed lived during the Magdalenian period of the Upper Paleolithic. Many other examples, in Stone Age engravings and in sculpture, have since confirmed the La Marche scenes of dress and hair styles: A dancing scene depicted at Cogul, near Lerida, Spain shows several women wearing dresses of various lengths and designs; a Magdalenian female figurine, called “La Dame de Brassempouy,” represents a young girl with carefully braided and stylized hair; and in the Moravske Museum is another female bust, this one exhibiting an elaborate bun hair arrangement.

Prehistoric rock paintings from the Kalahari Desert of Namibia, dated within the Stone Age period, show light-skinned men with blond beards and well-stylized hair, wearing boots, tight-fitting pants, multi-colored shirts and coats, and gloves. The most famous of these paintings is called the “White Lady of Brandenburg,” and portrays a light-skinned female huntress with very European features, wearing jewelry, a headdress of shells, tight slacks, a sweater, gloves, garters and shoes.

In opposite latitudes, the remains of two well-dressed boys from the Gravettian-Perigordian period, dating to 23,000 B.C.E., were unearthed in 1969 at Vladimir near Moscow, at a site called Sungir. Professor Otto Bader of the Ethnological Institute of the Academy of Soviet Sciences undertook the task of painstakingly stripping away the prehistoric soil around the two bodies inch by inch, in order to preserve what remained of the boys’ attire. It appears they wore large pairs of trousers made of fur, shirts embroidered with thousands of mammoth ivory beads, and very practical jackets. Hardly anything remains of the actual clothing, but the pieces could be reconstructed from the bead patterns, as well as from several ivory badges and clasp-fasteners still intact.

Also at Sungir was found the skull and headdress of a young Cro-Magnon girl dating to 25,000 B.C.E. showing the girl wearing an ivory-bead embroidered hat which also covered the ears, having a stylish knot at its top, and was complemented by a collar of twisted leather set with tiny shells around her neck, fastened with a large white bone-needle over her heart.

Other burial examples from Sungir and also from the Grottes des Enfants on the Italian Riviera and La Madeleine rock shelter in France, show the extensive use of intricate embroidery, necklace pieces, bracelets and rings throughout the Magdalenian period. At Fontanet, in the Ariege region of the Pyrenees, there is the additional evidence of footwear. Among the prehistoric imprints that were perfectly preserved upon the cavern soft clay floor is one showing signs of a shoe, which appears to be a well-made open-toe sandal.

Not only do we have models and remains of prehistoric clothing, but we also have the tools with which such clothing was made—and they reveal a sophistication of their own. Finely worked sewing needles with small eyes from as early as the Solutrean period indicate the ability to carefully fit and intricately sew together leather and fur pieces into a variety of patterns. These prehistoric needles are so well made that they are considered to be superior to those that existed in Europe until as late as the Renaissance. The Romans, for example, never had needles comparable to those of the Paleolithic era.

At another Russian site, at Kostienski, intricate carved bones have been discovered which were tools for making and tailoring fabrics. These include loom-battens, buttons, needles, spindle-whorls, bobbins, and even thimbles, all dating to at least 15,000 years ago. Of course cloth itself would have long disintegrated into powder by now. However, one Kostienski bone shows a delicately carved herringbone design and was used in all probability as a teaching aide. For us, it indicates the intricacy of the sewing techniques once employed.

Music also seems to have been very much a part of Cro-Magnon’s life, for we find a wide variety of musical instruments scattered throughout Upper Paleolithic remains. Lalinda cavern in France revealed the remnants of a bull-roarer, very similar to those used by modern Indigenous Australians which they whirl around on a string to create low-pitched sounds. At Mezin in the Ukraine, going back 22,000 years, several percussion instruments were unearthed, including a shoulder-blade drum with antler drumsticks, a hipbone xylophone which resonates in different tones, jawbone castanets and rattlers, plus evidence of a stringed instrument that was made of gut stretched across a curved bone. Whistles and flutes have also been uncovered at several prehistoric sites, these consisting from simple hollow reindeer toe bones with a single hole to delicate bird and cave-bear pieces 8 inches long having 3 to 7 finger holes, utilizing either cross-blowing or special reeds made of bone. One such flute was experimented with by Lyle Davidson of the New England Conservatory of Music, who noted that the Cro-Magnon appear to have used a pentatonic or five note scale, still utilized today in Hindu music and Japanese kabuki theater. As Davidson further commented: “The flute by its very existence and design indicates something fixed and planned about the melodies played, something fixed in the composer’s mind. It is anything but haphazard, being delicate and sensitive with a level of technology subtlety which implies a corresponding subtlety of use.”

Music was no doubt used for purely entertainment purposes, but more importantly it was most likely utilized for ritualistic purposes. Many of the Cro-Magnon cavern-temples were chosen because of their excellent acoustics, and by playing within certain instruments—accompanied by intoning chanting, clapping and dancing—this would have certainly enhanced the participants’ ability to enter altered states of consciousness.

Another misconception now emerging concerning Cro-Magnon man concerns his mode of habitation. Because most Paleolithic remains have usually been found in caves, the assumption has been made that this was prehistoric man’s singular way of life. But the newest evidence is proving otherwise.

In 1965, at a place called Mezherich, ninety miles south of Kiev in the Ukraine, a farmer digging a cellar suddenly struck the lower jawbone of a mammoth with his shovel. Excavating further he discovered that the jawbone was inserted into the bottom of a second jawbone, fit together like a child’s building brick.

After Russian scientists were called to the scene, and the site was fully uncovered, what emerged were the remains of a Paleolithic domed-shaped dwelling about seventeen feet in diameter, the support structure of which was entirely made of interlocking mammoth bones, skulls and tusks. What amazed the investigators is that this bone-framed house had been very sturdy, ingeniously built, and incorporated within it principles of architectural design thought not to have been discovered until thousands of years later. If such knowledge had been inherent in dwellings using bone, there is no reason why Stone Age man could not have utilized the same for masonry buildings as well.

In the Lascaux caverns, world-famous for their Magdalenian paintings, one can still see the holes in the rock that held wooden crossbeams. Probably looking much like what Michelangelo utilized some millennia later for the Sistine Chapel, these crossbeams held scaffolding that enabled Cro-Magnon artists to execute their works on the cave ceilings, ten to twelve feet above the cavern floors. The evidence for this scaffolding is important, for in the opinion of Professor Doru Todericiu of the University of Bucharest, the history of architecture shows that scaffolding did not precede knowledge of masonry. If the Lascaux artists constructed scaffolds, it presupposes a knowledge of how to construct walls. “To deny this,” Professor Todericiu stated, “would be like saying that the candle was invented before anyone knew how to kindle fire.”

Examples of prehistoric construction have been found, which also show a remarkable degree of sophistication. At Duruthy in France, the remains of a middle Magdalenian settlement was discovered, in which square shaped cobblestones had been excavated from a local river, and had been used by prehistoric peoples to build pavements.

These pavements in turn were designed to form a series of terraces, making the approach to the river less slippery and more aesthetic, and also served to reduce erosion—perhaps the earliest example we know of soil conservation. The terraces likewise served many important functions, for evidence indicates they were repaired and rebuilt a total of eight times. The Abbe Breuil and Professor Lantier described the finding of a prehistoric oven at Noailles: “It was made of squared stones held in place by a packing of chalky clay and sand.” In other words, the Stone Age oven had been constructed using stones shaped like bricks, and mortared with cement.

Near Lascaux, a local farming digging in his front yard unearthed a rectangular pit complete with stone-lined drainage systems and a flat stone covering a ceremonial burial, dating back almost into Neanderthal times. At an open-air site at Solvieux near Bergerac in France, James Sackett of the University of California in Los Angeles has explored sixteen occupation levels dating back 30,000 years containing pavements and footpaths of stones set out in complex mosaics of straight and curved lines, which appear to be highly symbolic, perhaps representing celestial movements of the seasons. These are accompanied by large circular block structures made of deliberately squared chunks of limestone, whose purpose is as yet undetermined.

Even among the Paleolithic remains of eastern Europe, which did not share entirely in the higher culture of the Magdalenian in France, we also find indications of a sophisticated knowledge of construction. The remains of three huts dating from the Upper Paleolithic were excavated at Vestonice on the lower slopes of the Pavlov Hills in what is now the Czech Republic. The largest of the three was thirty to forty feet in size, and its floor had been covered by a limestone grit, a simple form of cement. In similar fashion, the other smaller huts had been built using circular walls covered with limestone and clay—considered to be among the oldest recognized true walls surviving in the world.

What was also significant about the Vestonice site is that one of the huts contained bee-hive shaped kilns with remains of fired clay inside. Fragments of clay-sculptured foxes and bears were also unearthed. The use of fired clay was thus not beyond the scope of Paleolithic culture, as previous thought.

Note far from Vestonice evidence of prehistoric construction was uncovered in 1965 by archaeologist Dragoslav Srejovic at a site now called Starveco, on the Danube River, on the Rumanian border. Digging into the river bank, Srejovic first encountered traces of a Roman road; beneath this were fragments of proto-Greek pottery, and below these were Neolithic remnants and traces of Mesolithic cultural artifacts. Deeper still, Srejovic came upon something totally out of place: the remains of a cement floor. More specifically, the material was an amalgam of local limestone, sand and water, considered a feat of chemistry and construction several millennia ahead of its time. The cement surfaces were not placed haphazardly, but were carefully laid out in large slabs to form the foundations of houses. Several foundations were built one on top of another, indicating that buildings had been constructed and reconstructed over an indeterminate period. Yet there was also remarkable uniformity. The layout of the houses in the later periods was the same as that in the earlier periods—there was no evidence of a gradual development from a simple to a complex pattern. Rather, the Starveco village suddenly appeared, fully mature, then decayed and was abandoned in the same advanced state.

In addition to the foundations, the individual Starveco buildings also showed a high order of architectural sophistication. They all had one side larger in size than the other three, with proportions of either 3:1 or 4:1. The larger side was shaped like a 60-degree segment of a circle. This larger side always faced toward the river, providing the occupants with the maximum view of the Danube and the surrounding hilly country. Inside each house, the shape of the dwelling was repeated in the hearth or oven, which was bounded by carefully shaped stone slabs and always located in the eastern or sunny end of the house.

Srejovic noted that the position of the hearth was significant, as it was situated in the exact center of an equilateral triangle if the lines of the house were extended. The implications of the mathematical and geometrical knowledge cannot be ignored.

The same precision and order evident in the architecture is also found in the arrangement of the dwellings at the Starveco site. The structures were laid out in what appears to have been a planned fan shape, opening toward the riverbank. The larger buildings, presumably those belonging to members of a higher class or governing body, were located toward the center, surrounding a paved plaza.

The Starveco site also yielded a number of cultural characteristics previously thought to have been developed thousands of years later. Behind the hearth in each house, archaeologists unearthed the remains of altars, indicating religious beliefs and practices. Each altar was composed of a flat stone, with a cup impression for burning a sacrifice, which faced two or more upright stones of reddish sandstone. This sandstone had been excavated from an outcrop, located in a ravine several miles away, and many of the stones had carved wavy lines or chevrons in low relief, considered to be among the oldest examples of architectural decoration. Even more significant was the discovery of twenty sculpted life-size human faces of stone.

An interesting aspect of the site was the evidence of very good health among the Starveco population. There was a striking absence of deformed or diseased bones, and the women were so robustly built that it was difficult to tell their skeletal remains from those of the men.

Yet another erroneous concept about the Stone Age is that, because it is called such, it does not necessarily mean that humankind in that time period did not know or use metals. So far, few actual metal artifacts have been reported among Paleolithic remains, for the simple reason that metal tools will not normally last much longer than a thousand years or so, when exposed to the weathering processes of time. Nevertheless, the evidence is there that metals were minded and used. At Victoria Cavern in southern Africa, excavators unearthed the bones of extinct lions, bison, hyenas, woolly rhinos and mammoths—all Ice Age fauna. One of the bones was engraved on by human hand, and depicted something quite startling. The bone bore the outline of a horse’s head, with a well-clipped mane. As one investigator remarked, how did Stone Age man cut the mane without fine-edged meal tools? Other worked bone implements show similar tell-tale signs of metal usage.

In 1960, Russian researchers Gritsai and Yatko discovered extinct animal remains in a cave near Odessa in southwest Russia. A number of the bones had been drilled with perfect round holes and engraved with sharp-well-defined grooves. Both researchers are of the opinion that only metal tools could have made such incisions.

Perhaps the most remarkable evidence for the prehistoric use of metals was discovered in Siberia toward the middle of the last century. Rock drawings of the same style and age as those made during the French Magdalenian period were found in the Lena rive Valley near Shishkino in eastern Russia. Farther to the west, near Lake Yolba, Yakutsk, investigators unearthed a metallurgical shop for the production of bronze axes. The artistic styles employed by the Yolba site bronze workers indicated they lived in the same period as the Lena River remains—the Magdalenian. The production of bronze, according to conservative historians, was not supposed to have been developed until thousands of years later. A few years after the Yakutsk discoveries, Soviet geologists prospecting n the remote Tien-shan mountains of Central Asia came across heaps of slag, well-worn picks, pit-shafts and underground galleries, all dating from the middle Upper Paleolithic, circa 15,000 B.C.E.

A number of other more recent excavated sites have pushed back the history of prehistoric mining even further. At Lion Cavern near Ngwenya in Swaziland, southern Africa, investigations conducted in 1967 and 1969 have shown that long before the present population of Bantu, Bushmen and Hottentot inhabited the area—at a time when local Neaderthal types such as Rhodesian, Boskop and Florisbad man were extant—someone had mined deposits of hematite and specularite, forms of iron ore. Haematite is also called bloodstone, and it has been found associated with Neanderthal remains at La Chapelle-aux-Saints in France from the same period as the Ngwenya mining. It is believed that bloodstone was used as a cosmetic, and use of bloodstone in this specific manner has been found as far away as Tasmania off southern Australia, in Tierra del Fuego in extreme southern South America—always in coastal areas. It may be that the practice of using bloodstone—and perhaps the material itself—may have been exported over a considerable area in prehistoric times. Such an extensive trade is, or course, all out of proportion with modern theories of the primitiveness of early humanity.

Not far from Ngwenya, at Border Cave in South Africa, diggings in 1972 by Adrian Boshier and Peter Beaumont uncovered ten prehistoric filled-in mining pits, some up to forty-five feet in depth. Again, hematite ore had been excavated. Associated with the Border Cave remains were both Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon types of men, the earliest dating to 43,000 B.C.E. Found too was evidence that the miners used mathematics and kept records by making etchings on stone. It would appear that the ore had had economic value, enough to prompt the diggers to keep “books,” so to speak, on what they produced.

As an interesting aside, it is noteworthy to remember that Plato, in his dialogues on Atlantis, mentioned the early peoples of that lost civilization once utilizing a mysterious ore called “orichalcum.” Plato recorded: “Orichalcum, which is now but seldom mentioned, but then was much celebrated, was dug out of the earth in many parts of the island, and was considered as the most honorable of all metals except gold.” Plato clearly described the material as “reddish” in color, “red-gleaming,” and of “fiery splendor”—all of which characterize refined red hematite.

More fascinating evidence for prehistoric mining is found in North America. In the Keweeneaw Peninsula of Isle Royale in Michigan, in the copper-rich Lake Superior region, are mines whose origins not even the Native Americans know anything about. Several thousands of tons of copper were removed at a very early date, yet not a single cultural artifact nearby could tell us who the enigmatic miners had been. The American Antiquarian (vol. 25, 258) remarked: “There is no indication of any permanent settlement near these mines. Not a vestige of a dwelling, nor a skeleton, nor a bone has ever been found. What is known is that the prehistoric miners not only had the means of extracting the ore, but also of transporting it to some distant location, for not one ounce of the ore was ever found to have been used anywhere near the mine sites.”

The first discovery of the prehistoric mining shafts was made in 1848 by S. O. Knapp, then an agent for the Minnesota Mining Company. In passing over a portion of the company’s ground, he observed a continuous depression in the soil, which he surmised was formed by the disintegration of a vein. Following up these indications, he came to a cavern where he noticed evidence of artificial excavations, the first sign that someone else had discovered the copper resources. On clearing out the debris, he found numerous stone hammers, and at the bottom of the hole was a vein of ore which the prehistoric miners had not finished unearthing.

Two and a half miles east of the Ontonagon River—today the center of the copper region of Michigan—Knapp discovered a second mine. This shaft was situated in a rock wall. The excavation reached a depth of 26 feet, which was later filled in with clay and a tangled mass of vegetation—an indication that the mine was of very old origins, perhaps as much as ten to twelve millennia years in age. At a depth of 18 feet, Knapp discovered a detached mass of copper weighing 6 tons. This mass had been raised about 5 feet above its break-off point on timbers and wedges. The timbers were from 6 to 8 inches in diameter, and the ends showed signs of a cutting tool. The copper mass itself had been pounded smooth, and what had been protruding pieces were broken off so that transportation could be made easier.

The shaft contained other copper masses, charcoal and evidence of fire, and a stone hammer that weighed 30 lbs. Radiocarbon-dating of the charcoal revealed a date which placed it squarely in the period of the Magdalenian in France.

On the island of Isle Royale, near the northern shore of Lake Superior, the prehistoric excavations are very extensive, some of the pits reaching 60 feet in depth. On opening one of the island pits it was discovered that the mine had been worked through solid rock to a depth of 9 feet, before the vein of copper 18 inches thick was uncovered at the bottom.

It appears the miners were highly intelligent and experienced both in observation of locating veins and somehow following them underground when their course on the surface was interrupted. This would presuppose a knowledge of dowsing. Many of the excavations were connected underground, and drains were cut into the rock to carry off excess water. At one point the Isle Royale excavations extend for two miles in nearly a continuous direction.

The one solitary clue we are left with besides radiocarbon-dating concerning the time period and origins for the mines was found in Canada, at Thunder Bay, Ontario. Embedded in a blue clay layer 40 feet below the surface were discovered the bones of extinct bison and horses, dating to the closing periods of the Ice Age. Among them was a copper spear point, the copper being of the same type and showing the same grain characteristics as the ore from Isle Royale.

There is also evidence that prehistoric man worked with flint in much the same manner as metals. Through a process called annealing, the crystalline structure of flint can be softened by heat and then allowed to cool slowly, forming more of a workable bond. Different kinds of flint, made into different forms, each take their own variations of heat—between 400 and 1,100 degrees F—and cooling time. Yet Upper Paleolithic remains indicate just such sophisticated knowledge was known and utilized. Certain Cro-Magnon hearths were built in compact hollows, circled with stones and prepared with a narrow channel or “tail” scooped out of the bottom to allow a draft and create the necessary hotter temperatures for the annealing process. It would have been a small step for Cro-Magnon to have experimented with other materials in the same way, including metals.

However, metallurgy may have been purposely kept at a minimal use, for the reason that for most practical purposes of cutting, flint and obsidian are actually superior. Today, surgeons are discovering that blades of volcanic glass have a sharper edge than metal blades, and they tend to sharpen themselves with use, not become duller as with most metallic edges. In test, an obsidian blade is 100 times sharper than a steel scalpel.

One of the recognized signs of a high civilization is the domestication of animals and the employment of their energies for everyday purposes. Conservative scholars are of the “accepted” opinion that the advent of domestication occurred first among the early Neolithic farmers of the Middle East in about 7000 B.C.E. Near the turn of the last century, however, investigators at La Quina, situated in the Charente district of southwest France, discovered unusual markings of wear on the front incisor teeth among horse skeletons excavated from late Mousterian and early Aurignacian levels, between 30,000 and 20,000 years old. These marks bear strong resemblances to those exhibited by modern horses’ teeth resulting from “tic,” or the nervous habit by an animal shut up in captivity of continuously chewing on hard objects. More recently, British researcher Paul Bahn expressed his belief that actual horse bridles exist among Paleolithic bone artifacts. For years, much controversy has surrounded the meaning and purpose behind a strange type of object found repeatedly in layers from the Aurignacian and especially the Magdalenian, variously called “batons” or “maces.”

They are Y- and T-shaped staves of reindeer horn or bone, slightly curved, with one end pierced with one or two holes at the branching point. Many of the holes of the “batons” show signs of wear around their inner edges, as if some form of rope or leather strap had passed through and rubbed hard against the surfaces. Bahn is of the opinion that these bone “batons” are nothing less than cheek pieces which formed part of a leather or fiber bridle which fit over the head of prehistoric horses. Strikingly similar pieces are found in use today in Sardinia, and among the Samoyed peoples of Siberia.

The existence of some form of bridle device is also portrayed in several examples of Stone Age art. In 1889, Edouard Piette delivered an address before an international conference on prehistory, on “The Question of Reindeer Domestication.” He announced his discovery at Mas d’Azil in the Pyrenees of several Paleolithic engravings showing horses and reindeer with nose-bands. In 1893, an engraved bone was brought to light in the cave of St. Michel d’Arudy, also in the Pyrenees, depicting a horse’s head with a lower cheek piece decorated with chevrons attached to what appears to be a bridle system of leather strapping fitting over the muzzle and head. In another cave near Arudy, in 1975, a second horse head engraving with bridle markings exactly in the same positions as the first engraving, was unearthed. In 1976, at La Marche, yet another engraved horse’s head likewise shows the tell-tale bridle pattern.

Researcher Paul Bahn in 1980 found a lower horse jaw from the Magdalenian periods showing evidence of cribbing. The jaw, now in the collection of the Institut de Paleontologie Humaine in Paris, had been brought to light at the site of Le Placard in southern France not far from La Quina, where the first prehistoric horse teeth displaying cribbing were found. At La Quina, new excavations include seventy-six stone spheres which have all the appearance o being parts of bolas, or stone weights attached to either end of a leather line, and are thrown to entangle the legs of running game—still used today by the rancheros of Argentina. As Richard Leakey noted, the image of Cro-Magnon man, “galloping across the chilly grasslands of Europe,” like modern cowboys on horseback rounding up and felling herds of reindeer or bison with their bolas, “may conflict with archaeologists’ preconceptions about life in this period, but it may well be accurate.”

Just such an image was found by the Abbe Breuil in the Les Trois Freres caverns. It clearly depicts a Cro-Magnon man riding a horse. The horse is moving in the stance of a typical equestrian gait. The horse’s head is cocked back, held by a harness in the man’s hands. Interestingly enough, the rider appears to be wearing a hat or helmet with a chin strap, vest-jacket with rolled up sleeves, belt, pants and boots. The image dates to the Magdalenian period, circa 14,000 B.C.E.

As other experts have observed, not only were prehistoric horses harnessed for practical purposes, but so were reindeer, and Paleolithic representations of these animals also have been found sporting chevron-decorated cheek pieces. As to the domestication of the reindeer, Hadingham noted: “A good reindeer is said to pull heavy loads in sledges up the fifty miles a day. In addition to carrying loads, the Chukchi herders of Siberia use their sledge beasts for running down wolves and foxes, which gives indications of the speed they can attain. A more significant point is that domesticated reindeer were often used as decoys, sent in among wild herds and directed by the hunters’ calls toward an ambush. A similar development among the Paleolithic hunters of France is by no means impossible.”

As evidence that reindeer were in fact kept and cared for by prehistoric people, a reindeer leg-bone was uncovered not long ago from Magdalenian layers in the French Basque country near Isturitz. What has intrigued experts is that the leg-bone shows signs of having suffered a serious fracture, with osteitis and running sores. Yet the new bone growth over the fracture indicates the animal lived for at least two years after the break took place. The problem is, if the animals had been in the wild, exposed to predators, how could it have survived with a crippled leg? The only feasible answer, the experts admit, is that the reindeer must have been tamed, and protected by prehistoric humanity.

At three locations in the central highlands of Kenya, archaeologist Charles M. Nelson of the University of Massachusetts reported the unearthing of the bones and teeth of domesticated cattle, with dates analyzed at 13,000 B.C.E.

Yet another beast of burden depicted in Paleolithic art with bridle patterns are bison. Two notable examples are found in the carvings of bison unearthed at La Madeleine and at Isturitz. The bison of the Ice Age world were large and more imposing creatures, even larger than the modern American buffalo. If prehistoric man was able to domesticate these, as the evidence suggests, he would have had at his disposal a great deal of potential energy. The bison may have been used not only for draught purposes, but could also have served as the Stone Age equivalent to modern cattle—an important source of food and hide. The keeping of such animals, however, would have necessitated the development of some form of agricultural production, in order to keep these huge beast fed, especially during the harsh Ice Age winters. But did Stone Age man have the knowledge and means to grow crops?

A new study now being conducted involves the microscopic examination of Cro-Magnon teeth, in order to determine the type of diet he once had. It is known as a fact that different diets produce different wear patterns on human teeth: A largely vegetarian intake, for example, requires more mastication than one predominantly of meat. Conservative scholars, believing Stone Age man to have been only a hunter and ignorant of plant cultivation, were surprised to find that the teeth examinations so far reveal that Cro-Magnon’s diet consisted of both meat and grains. At Duruthy, anthropologist Robert Arambouru discovered in Magdalenian IV layers remains of stone mortars and grinders, which appear to have been used to turn a local variety of grass seed into a palatable flour, probably used to make a kind of porridge, bread or cake.

At Duruthy were also unearthed a large number of tiny flint bladelets which, when examined by microscope, were found to bear traces of glue on the blunt-side edges, and a peculiar sheen along the cutting edges that can only have been formed from cutting grass stems. Investigators are of the opinion that the curious bladelets had been cemented into a long-handled wooden or bone piece, to make sickles that were employed to harvest the grasses of the Oloron Valley.

The number and positions of the bladelets in the Magdalenian layers indicated that this harvesting had been quite extensive in scope, and took place over a long period, which suggests that the growth and supply of the grasses had to have been controlled and managed. In several locations, Paleolithic soil strata reveal a sudden reduction in the number of tree pollen and a sharp increase of grass and herb seeds, indicating an increasing of grasslands at the cost of a forest. From the charcoal and stone artifacts found in these layers, there is every reason to believe that the change of the environment had been caused by humans: They had formed clearings by burning down the woods. Today, we would call this process swidden, or prescribed burning, and was utilized by most ancient civilizations for creating new cropland and revitalizing grassland fertility.

In 1981, Dr. Fred Wendorf of Southern Methodist University found evidence at six Paleolithic sites along the Nile valley of the domestication of wheat and barley grains, with radiocarbon dates going back to 18,300 years ago. The grain samples possessed several features indicating that the original plants had not been wild, but were deliberately planted and harvested. The sites also revealed the use of grinding stones and harvesting implements.

Not only did Cro-Magnon man harvest and eat ground seeds and grains, but he very likely possessed a wide variety of vegetables as well. Again, the conservative view is that the domesticated vegetables so familiar with us today had their origins in the Middle East only between nine thousand and six thousand years ago, and therefore could not have been known before that time. But in 1965, this theory was greatly upset when Chester Gorman, a University of Hawaii graduate student, discovered in the lowest levels in Spirit Cave, located in northern Thailand near the Burmese border, the domesticated seeds of peas, beans and various root and grain plants, all radio-carbon dated at 11,690 B.P. Gorman also uncovered pebble tools, cutting flakes, grinding stones and pottery, all of which would have been involved with preparing vegetables and grains, in layers going back to 12,500 B.P.—or well within the time period contemporary with Paleolithic humanity.

Agricultural production on any level involves having a keen awareness of times and seasons for planting, which necessitates some knowledge of the length of the year, calculated by astronomical observations. This, in turn, presupposes the ability to construct calendar systems, and computations involving mathematics. Recent findings indicate that Cro-Magnon man most certainly had such an intimate understanding of both the movements of the heavens and its mathematics.

We find among both Paleolithic cave paintings and various stone and bone etchings not only realistic representations of nature and everyday life, but also a great many abstract symbols variously called tectiforms, clavicorns and blazons. Sometimes their forms are recognizable; other times they are not. These symbols are undoubtedly meant to convey ideas of some sort, and they thus may be considered a Paleolithic form of pictographic writing. Curiously from as early as the Aurignacian on, these symbols appear, with no European precedent, and passed through stages where they developed from semi-pictures to almost pure “shorthand” abstractions--just as many scripts metamorphosed millennia later in the ancient world, such as cuneiform and hieroglyphs. In many instances the Paleolithic signs are simply composed of a series of lines, scratches and dots in carefully planned patterns. At first many prehistorians considered these series as only a form of decoration, but now they have been identified as notation—some purely mathematical, others of a chronological nature, marking off such astronomical phenomenon as the phases of the moon.

In 1964, American researcher Alexander Marshack published his preliminary findings on his study into Paleolithic and post-Paleolithic art that was to revolutionize modern theories of prehistory. For almost a decade Marshack had scrutinized thousands of notational sequences found from Spain to the Ukraine. Repeatedly, he discovered many were mathematical equations, others were sequences of 29 or 30—pointing to lunar cycle observations. The notation that first attracted Marshack’s attention was carved onto a bone tool handle discovered at Ishango, an early Mesolithic site situated on the shores of Lake Edward, in central Africa.

The notation appears as three columns of notches divided into numerical series: A(11, 13, 17, 19); B(11, 21, 19, 9); and C(3, 6, 8, 10, 5, 5, 7). In column A, all the numbers are prime numbers—that is, they are divisible only by themselves and by the number 1—and they are the only prime numbers between 10 and 20. Column B appears to be an appreciation of the unit 10: 11 + 10 = 21; 19 - 10 = 9. Both columns A and B are carved close together on the Ishango bone, and there is in fact direct relation between the two—the total sum of each is 60. Column C suggests experimentation with multiplying and dividing by 2: 2 x 3 = 6; 2 x 4 = 8; 10 divided 2 = 5 + 5. The addition of 7 to the column is curious, for it bears no purely mathematical relation to the rest of the column numbers. Marshack believes that 7 was added to bring the column’s total to 48, which happens to be the length of one full lunar cycle of 29 days, plus a lunar cycle of 19 days. The two 60’s of columns A and B each represent two full cycles of 30 days. Thus the Ishango bone reveals a knowledge of prime numbers, addition, subtraction, division, inter-relations between number sets, and careful lunar observations pointing to a prehistoric calendar system.

A truly astonishing specimen of prehistoric notation was found on a mammoth tusk from Gontzi, a late Paleolithic site west of Kiev in the Ukraine. The notation appears around the edges of a flattened surface, marked off in graduated form, like the markings on a modern ruler. The markings are grouped along a horizontal line, divided into series by longer strokes at specific intervals. There is also a number of symbols and figures appearing along the sequence, pointing to some event at those intervals. Marshack analyzed the Gontzi notation and found clear evidence that it was indeed a detailed record of lunar phases. What is more, the notation pointed to its being used as a calculator--that is, the moon events could have been predicted in advance. The Gontzi bone was thus a scientific instrument of a high order, demonstrating that Paleolithic man was more than a pure mathematician and astronomical observer: He was also a scientist who had applied what he had discovered toward creating a workable formula that reflected the repetition he saw and measured in the night sky.

Marshack believes that many similar markings now being studied go several steps beyond. A bone sample from Blanchard, for example, contains not only a complete lunar calendar with self-correcting leap days added, but also records the movements of Venus and Mars. Other notations, particularly of 63-day cycles, are believed by Maria Losada of the University of Sussex to represent the ear emergence, flowing and ripening period of certain edible plants. Still other markings may indicate the gestation periods of horses and other animals, and Marshack has identified more than a dozen such number set systems.

Professor V. Larichev of the Institute for History, Philology and Philosphy of the Siberian Academy of Sciences, reported a surprising discovery near Achinsk. Larichev observed:

“The sculpture is in the form of a rod carved out of a mammoth tusk I found in excavations of an old Stone Age Achinsk settlement about 18,000 years old. A number of very fine depressions cover the sculpture in a strange manner. Sinuous bands of holes are interrupted below the middle part by a protuberant ring belt. A painstaking transfer was made onto paper of the hole-depressions cared on the rod, of which thee were 1,032 in all. The spiral curved bands in space consisted of a certain number of rows of points. A count of these showed immediately that the numerical combinations of separate segments here are filled with some kind of hidden meaning. The first band which directly adjoins the circular base of the rod consists of four lines of depressions. The first three contains 11 points, and the fourth has 12 points, their total being 45. In addition, the first hole in the first line from which the count was begun turned out to be unique from all the rest of the rod, being filled with a white paste. The strips B, C, D, E and F contain 201, 165, 180, 162 and 279 points, respectively. By adding the number of points of bands D and E to 12 points from one of the lies of band A we get the number of days in the common annual lunar calendar: 180 + 162 + 12 = 354. By successfully combining the 11 points with 354 days we arrive at a calculation of an ordinary solar calendar year of 365 days. And if we add instead another 12 points, we obtain a leap year of 366 days.

“But even this is not the end of the story. Using strip A, it turned out to be possible to calculate the length the stellar sidereal and synodic annual periods of revolution for five planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

“Thus, in fact, the brilliant, deeply thought-out section of certain numbers allowed Paleolithic astronomers in Siberia to solve a most complex problem: to relate as one whole the calendar systems of five planets and the earth. The calendars themselves and the characteristic order for the arrangement of the spiral bands on the surface of the rod shows the surpassing orientation of primitive man to the orbital-spherical reaches of space.”

In the mid-1980’s, a series of carved bones dating to 26,000 years ago was discovered near Polesini, Italy. One of the carvings showed the figure of a wolf partially surrounded by incised dots forming unusual patterns. Archaeological investigator Ivan Lee believes that the dots represent major stars of the constellation Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Serpens and Lyra as they would have actually looked in the night sky above Ice Age northern Italy. The wolf image may be the portrait of what Paleolithic people saw these constellations as symbolizing—an early Zodiac sign. The presupposes not only a long period of observation, but a body of astrological information and lore shared in common by many inhabitants over a wide area. The prehistoric Wolf constellation may still be remembered in the Norse legend of the Fenris Wolf which at the end of every Age threatens to devour the Sun and Moon during their passage through the heavens.

In 1979, an ivory tablet—measuring 38 x 14 x 4 millimeters—was uncovered in a cave in the Ach Valley in the Alb-Danube region of Germany, showing on one side the figure of a man standing upright with raised arms in a singular pose, and on the other side are eighty-six notches. It dates between 32,500 and 38,000 years old, making this one of the earliest known depictions of a human being in Paleolithic art. However, Dr. Michael Rappenglueck of the University of Munich believes that the figure depicts something even more startling, that it is an image of the constellation Orion. The stance and proportions of the figure—particularly the slim waist, the upraised arms and the shorter left leg—all correspond to the pattern of stars that comprise Orion.

The figure even accurately compensates for the slightly different positions of some of the stars over the past 32,000 years due to a phenomenon called “proper motion.” The German expert also notes that the eighty-six notches on the reverse side corresponds to the number of days that one of Orion’s prominent stars, Betelgeuse, is visible in northern hemisphere skies. It also is the number of days that can be subtracted from a year to equal the average number of days of human gestation. In other words, this was a primitive pregnancy calendar linked with an astronomical cycle.

Dr. Rappenglueck was also responsible for discovering in the Cueva di El Castillo cave in Spain a prehistoric star map 14,000 years old of the constellation called the Northern Crown.

Prehistoric researcher Franklin Edge likewise has identified many of the animal paintings in Lascaux caverns as being astronomical in nature. Near the entrance to the complex is an image of a bull, and over its shoulder is a map of the Pleiades star cluster. Inside the bull painting are other dots which closely correspond to the other stellar points found in the constellation Taurus. Another Lascaux scene depicts a woolly rhino with a peculiarly curved tail which corresponds to the hooked appearance of the constellation Leo. Still another Lascaux figure, that of a horse, is now recognized to contain a sophisticated lunar calendar.

In the Lascaux Hall of the Bulls, Edge has identified a planetarium of the heavens as they were seen 17,000 years ago. The mural figures on the east wall represent the constellations that were visible as the sun rose. On the west wall are the constellations that were visible as the sun set. In addition, Edge also discovered that where the two walled murals meet corresponded precisely to the place in the sky where the full moon annually appeared at the time of the summer solstice.

At Altamira, Edge found that the scope of the star chart depicted among the paintings was more ambitious than at Lascaux. While Lascaux attempted to represent the constellations along the ecliptic, Altamira’s murals were organized to depict the entire visible nocturnal sky, as seen 13,500 years ago through springtime evening hours between sunrise and sunset.

The circumpolar stars are seen at the top of the mural, while the lowest seen constellations, such as Scorpio, Leo and Taurus, are depicted toward the bottom.

Yet another misconception that we usually have about Stone Age man is that he lived and hunted only within a few miles of his home, and rarely ventured beyond the confines of his immediate habitat, and never communicated or traded with other peoples in far distant locations. But Paleolithic remains tell a different story; in fact, Cro-Magnon man appears to have had an intimate knowledge of the sea and sea-voyaging. As we previously noted, Cro-Magnon civilization first appeared along the western coasts of France and Spain, and successive cultural waves came from the west, from the Atlantic, presupposing a continual communications by sea throughout the entire Paleolithic period. A bone baton found at Montgaudier is engraved with two seals and a spouting sperm whale. The seals are so detailed that they can be recognized as male and female. Montgaudier is over one hundred miles from the coast--which means that someone had been observant of marine life in close detail, recorded his observations, and these in turn had found their way far inland from their sources. Likewise, in a cave of Merja in the Malaga region of southern Spain, near the Mediterranean coast, at a deep and almost inaccessible place in the cavern, are painted three dolphins, two male and one female, in face-to-face encounter. Their creator would have had to have journeyed far out into the open waters of the ocean in order to eye-witness and record his story.

Products of the sea and distant places also found their way far inland, very likely by water travel, up the European rivers swollen with glacial run-off. The jaw of a harp seal was uncovered at Raymonden in the Dordogne, almost 150 miles from the present coast, and perhaps as much as 300 miles from the prehistoric coast. The fragment of a sperm whale tooth reworked into a relief of two ibexes appeared among the artifacts of Mas d’Azil, in the central Pyrenees. Findings at Gourdan and La Vache revealed more seal engravings, while at Lespugne a carved bone silhouette was found on a deep-sea flatfish.

Stone Age man also appears to have regarded fossils as a curiosity, and a trade commodity: A fossil mollusk shell unearthed from the cavern floor at Lascaux could only have come from beds in Wexford and the Isle of Man, in Britain; another fossil, found at Laugene Basse, is peculiar to the Isle of Wight; and a trilobite impression, uncovered at Arcy-sur-Cure in the nineteenth century, had its origins in geologic strata in central Germany—over 1,200 miles away.

Cro-Magnon humanity appears to have traded quite extensively. Examples of brown flint extracted from clay deposits in central Poland were carried to 250 miles away into Russia, German and the Czech Republic. In the Ukraine region, highly prized bits of amber were discovered 100 miles from their source, while seashells from the Black Sea found their way into Cro-Magnon tool assemblies some 400 miles to the north. A Magdalenian spear thrower design showing a young ibex or faun was popularized by several examples at Mas d’Asil, but also appears at other sites 20 to 100 miles away.

[Copyright 2009. Joseph Robert Jochmans. All Rights Reserved.]