EACH STRATUM AN EPOCH

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 146, 21 June 1924, Page 16

EACH STRATUM AN EPOCH

PREHISTORIC PERIODS OF THE • STONE AGE. '

In an .article describing" Les Eyzies, "tlie capital of pre-history," in the cliffbordered valley of the Zezere, in the Department of Dqrdogne, Southern France, M. Jean Fourgois, a well-known Frpiich archaeologist of that' district, writes •in the "Illustrated London iSews" : '"The neighbourhood of Lea .pyzies, 25 miles south" of Perigueux, is one of the centres of the earliest civilisations on our soil, one of the homes of the world's most primitive culture. Its origins take us back, perhaps. 100,000 years, while it is 10,000 or 15,000 years since the great period of the Stone Age, when the clever Magdalenian hunters appeared, a race of advanced intelligence, nearer to us in that respect than certain primitive races of the modern world. Whatever their an: fjquity, it is a fact that man first estaolkned himself in the country on the plateaux; then, when the cold became too acute, on the exposed terraces or the bases of the hills which bordered the actual valleys of the Vezere and the Beune. These valleys, the formation of which had ended during the flood period, afforded, in the shelter of their rocks, refuges and caves well suited to human habitation. And it is thanks .to the excavations which have revealed the tools, industry, and art of the occupiers that we can imagine what the life and social conditions in those ages were like. In order to assist imagination as well as to preserve irrefutable evidence for science, in certain parts of the. country strata- of earth have been.left intact, where each stratum represents a civilisation. Quo of the' most curious of these is at Laugerie Basse, on the left hank of the Vezere, near the station at Les Eyzies. l n primitive times there existed pn that spot, at the foot of a 'cliff 300 feet high, on a wide terrace considerably above the actual river level, one of the most important encampments of the region. Behind a mound of rubbish—several thousand cubic metres thick—which obstructed the front of a huge overhanging cliff, can he seen: one of its shelters, that of Les Marseilles. U is in this shelter of Les- Marseilles, near a streamlet which runs amid ivy and lycopodium (club moss) a. few yards away from a cavity,in' the overhanging cliff, where the troglodyte may also have taken refuge, that this stratum lias been preserved as it was found at the time of tho excavation. Varied natural characteristics make the strata, which are sometimes tortuous, throw out the different archaeological levels where different objects have ' been left visible ; carved Hints, the antlers of a reindeer, hunting weapons, animals' jaws; and various bones, which wore probably the remains of a meal. The oldest stratum carries us back twelve or fifteen.thousand years. It belongs to the beginning of the Magdaloiiian period; engraved objects, very frequent later <in., were very rare then. light blackish stratum obviously represents remains of hearth fires. Our ancestors knew the use of fife a very long time ago. Let its picture them standing beside the cinders, cooking between two stones a fish from the Vezere, or placing on the hot slabs a. slice of horse. Next conies evidence of nil interruption of habitation: a barren :■*.;.l.im, containing no objects. Where did' the inhabitants of tho district go? Did they emigrate to some other part of the country? Perhaps they merely established, themselves temporarily in some neighbouring part of the same shelter, Be that as it may, when tjie inhabitants came back to the same place their civilisation had advanced. A notable discovery made close by, in Hie first levej that represents the return, was the head of ;j, reindeer' sculptured in the round, which is a real masterpiece. There were other delightful objects, which were perhaps aniuii'ts : also tlilil, graving tool,'; which wove, used in. those clayt lo make various useful übjects."