Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples Part 6

FIGURE 30

Whistle from the Ma.s.senat Collection.

From whistles to regular musical instruments the transition is simple. Without describing that mentioned by M. de Longperier, which we cannot confidently a.s.sert to be of great antiquity, M. Piette, in one of his numerous excavations, discovered a primitive flute made of two bird bones which, when put together and blown into, produced modulations similar to those of the pipes used by the people of Oceania; the monotonous music of which is alluded to by Cook. Some time afterwards M. Piette noticed similar bones in the Rochebertier collection. So far we know of no other discovery of a similar kind.

The curious objects known under the name of staves of office would, if it were needed, afford yet another proof that the men of the Stone age lived in societies, possessed an organization, and acknowledged a chief. The staves of office consist of large pieces of reindeer or stag antler, artistically worked and presenting a pretty uniform appearance. Their surface is decorated with carvings and engravings representing animals, plants, and hunting scenes. They are thicker than they are wide, and the care often taken to reduce the thickness is a proof that an attempt was made to combine elegance and lightness with solidity (Figs. 31, 32, 33, 34, and 35). Nearly all of them are pierced at one end with large holes, of which the number varies. Some of these holes were later additions. May we perhaps see in them the signs of a priesthood, in which successive ranks were attained, and in which every new achievement was rewarded with a new distinction? This is difficult to prove, but these staves could not have been used as weapons or as tools; the care taken to cover them with ornaments, with the long time required for this decoration, shows the value their owners attached to them. The impossibility of any other hypothesis is the best proof we have of their use.

FIGURE 31

Staff of office.

Amongst the marvellous objects collected by Dr. Schliemann at Hissarlik, were two fragments of reindeer antler pierced with holes presenting a singular resemblance to those we have been describing. We may also compare with them the POGOMAGAN, the badge of office of Indian chiefs on the Mackenzie River, the Tartar KEMOUS, the sticks on which the Australians mark by conventional signs any event of importance to themselves or their tribe, and the similar objects from Persia, a.s.sam, the Celebes, and New Zealand. But why seek examples so far away? Is not the memory of these ancient insignia preserved in our own day, and may they not have been the original forms of the sceptres of our kings and the croziers of our bishops?

FIGURE 32

Staff of office made of stag-horn pierced with four holes.

FIGURE 33

Staff of office found at Lafaye.

FIGURE 34

Staff of office in reindeer antler, with a horse engraved on it, found at Thayngen.

These staves, of which hundreds have now been found, were picked up in many different places, including the Goyet Cave in Belgium, the caves of Perigord and Charente, and the Veyrier Station in Savoy. At Thayngen, as many as twenty-three were found, all pierced with one hole only.[104] We must not omit to mention amongst these relies of ages gone by, one of the most interesting found in 1887 at Montgaudier (Charente) (Fig. 35), which bears on one side a representation of two seals, and on the other of two eels, the former of which especially are executed with a truth to form, boldness of execution, and delicacy of touch which are positively astonis.h.i.+ng when we remember that the artist (we cannot refuse him this t.i.tle) bad no tools at his disposal but a few miserable flints or roughly pointed bones. The hinder limbs, so strangely placed in amphibia, are faithfully rendered; each paw has its five toes, the texture of the skin can be made out, the head is delicately modelled; the muzzle with its whiskers, the eye, the orifice of the ear, all testify to real skill. The existence of the seal in the Quaternary epoch in the south of France was not known until quite recently, when Mr. Hardy found in a cave near Perigueux the remains of a seal (PHOCA GROENLANDICA), a.s.sociated with quite an arctic fauna. In part at least therefore of the Quaternary period, very great cold must have prevailed in Perigord.[105]

With this staff of office were picked up some pieces of ivory covered with geometrical designs, engraved with some sharp implement, stilettos, bone needles, knives, flint sc.r.a.pers, and, stranger still, the remains of the cave-lion, the cave-hyena, and the RHINOCEROS TICHORHINUS, all contemporaries of the most ancient Quaternary fauna.

FIGURE 35

Staff of office found at Montgaudier.

It was not only on the staves of office that the men of the Stone age exercised their talent. Many and varied are the subjects which have been found engraved on plaques of ivory or on stone, and incised on bears' teeth or on stag horn. We represent one forming the hilt of a dagger (Fig. 36), and another representing a bear with the convex forehead, characteristic of the species, engraved on a piece of schist (Fig. 37), and a mammoth engraved on an ivory plaque with its long mane, trunk, and curved tusks (Fig. 38). The artist who depicted these animals with such faithful exact.i.tude evidently lived amongst them. The first discovery of this kind was made by Joly-Leterme in the Chaffaud Cave (Vienna); it was a reindeer bone on which two stags were represented.[106]

FIGURE 36

Carved dagger-hilt (Laugerie-Ba.s.se).

FIGURE 37

The great cave-bear, drawn on a pebble found in the Ma.s.sat Cave (Garrigou collection).

In the Lortet Cave was found the bone of a stag on which could be made out a representation of fish and reindeer, whilst at Sordes was discovered a bear's tooth with a seal engraved upon it (Fig. 39), at Marsoulas a piece of rib on which is depicted an animal said to be a musk-ox (Fig. 40), and at Feyjat (Dordogne) a bird's bone bearing on it a drawing of three horses moving rapidly along. I am obliged to pa.s.s over many other most interesting examples, but I must not omit to mention the magnificent examples which form part of the Peccadeau collection at Lisle. Cartailhac mentions some chamois, an ox, and an elephant; some engraved on the bones of deer and others on fragments of ivory, or on reindeer antlers. The art of the cave-men was now at its zenith.

FIGURE 38

Mammoth, or elephant, from the Lena Cave.

FIGURE 39

Seal engraved on a bear's tooth found at Sordes.

But for one exception to which I shall refer again, it is curious to note that we only find these engravings and carvings, which so justly excite our astonishment in a district of limited extent, bounded on the north by the Charente, on the south by the Pyrenees and extending on the east no farther than the department of the Ariege. It is a pleasant thought that in the midst of their struggle for existence, and when they had to contend with gigantic pachyderms and formidable beasts of prey, our most remote ancestors, the contemporaries of the mammoth and the lion, already developed those artistic tendencies which are the glory of their descendants.

FIGURE 40

Fragment of a bone with regular designs. Fragment of rib on which is engraved a musk-ox, found in the Marsoulas Cave.

FIGURE 41

Head of a horse from the Thayngen Cave.

FIGURE 42

Bear engraved on a bone from the Thayngen Cave.

I referred above to ail exceptional example of prehistoric art found beyond the borders of France. In excavations in the Thayngen Cave, on the borders of Switzerland and Wurtemberg, twenty most remarkable examples were found, in which it is easy to recognize the horse (Fig. 41), the bear (Fig. 42), and the reindeer grazing (Fig. 43).[107]

All, especially the last named, are rendered with such perfection, that it was at first supposed that they were the work of a forger. A searching inquiry has proved that they are nothing of the sort; a skilful zoologist would have been needed to represent the OVIBOS MOSCHATUS (Fig. 44), which retired many centuries ago towards the extreme north. If we do find a few rare attempts at art in other districts, they are absolutely rudimentary. The staff of office found in the Goyet Cave is of very rude workmans.h.i.+p. The Brussels Museum contains a few other specimens, of which the most important is a fragment of sandstone from the Frontal Cave, on which a few uncertain scratches represent what looks like a stag. Some indistinct traces of engraving have been made out on the bones found in the Altamira Cave, near Santander, and recently a bone on which a kind of horse was engraved, was picked up at Cresswell's Crags, Derbys.h.i.+re, in a cave known in the district as MOTHER GRUNDY'S PARLOR. This specimen, as were those of Thayngen, was a.s.sociated with numerous bones of Quaternary animals, amongst which those of the hippopotamus were the most curious.

FIGURE 43