STONE AGE STATUETTE

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 September 1934, Page 2

STONE AGE STATUETTE

REMARKABLE FIND IN SCOTLAND Ludovic Mann, President Glasgow Archaeological Society, writes in the London “Daily Telegraph”: A female torso, well-proportioned, and skilfully cut out of a large, hard, reddish-brown pebble of igneous rock has just been unearthed in Scotland. It comes from a deep-seated ancient gravel-bed in the Kelvin Valley, 7 miles east of Glasgow. It is thought to be a representation of some goddess, perhaps the Mother Divinity of Fertility. The arms, hands, and even fingers are accurately portrayed, and are laid across the chest, while the waist recalls that of the Venus of Milo. It is one of the most remarkable relics of the Older Stone Age and is more elegantly fashioned than the female figurines found in the Palaeolithic rock-shelters on the Continent. It can scarcely be younger than some 30,000 years. The valley gravels referred to have been the scene of research work during the last five years by a body of Scots prehistorians. They have been richly rewarded, as the beds have yielded many ancient relics, all waterworn, and often ice-scratched, such as fragments of mammoth tusks and rhinoceros bones and teeth. The thigh-bone of a young rhino has been recovered skilfully carved into shape for use as a smoothing tool, it strengthens the evidence of the joint presence at a remote period of man and the great mammalia in North Britain. x Moreover, scores of finely-outlined symmetrically fashioned stone implements have also been found in the same deposit. They are made of native Scottish rock material, and none is of flint, which is so rare in Scotland.

FORMER THEORY DISPROVED'. All the relics belong to the Older Stone Age, and some date from the pre-Palaeolithic stage. They seem to disprove the conventional dictum of the archaeological text-books, that Scotland knew nothing of Palaeolithic man because he was excluded from the territory by a. smothering ice-sheet. Many students, however, now believe that Northern areas, such as Scotland and Scandinavia, were in habited by Palaeolithic man in no scanty numbers during numerous interglacial epochs which intervened between the glacial periods. It is also believed that he used within those areas the native rocks and pebbles (excluding flint) for the fashioning of tools and weapons, of which he had an extensive kit. In Scotland some 50 different types of implement have been noted. 1 have found this year in nonglaciated areas in southern Europe weapons and tools identical with those from Scotland and made from native rocks. I have brought to London some 500 specimens from Italy, the Balearic Islands and Morocco. Both the Scottish and Italian artifacts conform precisely to the newly elucidated scale of linear measures, of which many gauges have been found recently in both territories. This most revolutionary discovery is well brought out by the exhibition, as the objects are laid out in rows according to the length of the long axis of the relic.