Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1914 — MOST ANCIENT DRAWING OF HUMAN FACE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MOST ANCIENT DRAWING OF HUMAN FACE

HAT is declared by its discoverers to be the oldest known depiction of a human being has just been unearthed in France. It is the rude figure of a man engraved on a prehistoric monster’s bone. According to those who dug it up it is at least

15,000 years old, dating back to the PO-caßed Anrignacian age. If they are right in their contentions and the etrange drawing was actually made by an artist In his prehistoric ‘‘studio/’ it materially strengthens the theory that our ancestors, instead of possessing the ape-like skulls of the type found at Neanderthal,, Spy, and La Chappellelaux-Salnts, were creatures with skulls resembling that found at Piltdown, England, last year, declared by some to have had a brain development greater than that of present-day man. This remarkable discovery was made on October 3 last in the cave of La Colombiere, beside

the River Ain, In southern France, by Dr. Lucien Mayet, professor of human palaeontology at the University of Lyon, and M. Jean Pissot of Poncin, a town close to the cave. The official report of the great find wae read to the Paris Academy of Sciences by M. Douville and summarized at length in L’lllustration. The cave of La Colombiere is situated on the right hank of the Ain, about 20 meters above the present level of that river,

between Poncin and Neuville-sur-Aln. As long tion to it as having been inhabited in prehistoric times. Ever since inumerous Investigators have visited it. They conducted their investigations so assiduously that the levdl of the cave formed during the Neolithic age—comparatively recent, In the eyes of geologists and anthropologists—was dug away, also the contiguous level -of the earlier Magdalenian age. This lowered the level of the cave by 75 centimeters and brought to light rich fields of Neolithic and .Magdalenian relics. But the richest find of all was yet to come. Beginning last May, the latest investigators began to dig deeper into the soil forming the floor of the cave, and after they had penetrated about one meter further down they found a stratum of fine gravel, showing unmistakable signs of dating from the still earlier Aurignacian age. This proved to be a Veritable treasure trove. In it were uncovered the “studio” of a prehistoric artist, containing a number of different sorts of engraver’s tools, pieces of mammoth, rhinoceros, and reindeer bones, pieces of stone ready for engraving, and stones and bones with engravings already cut into them. One of the. latter represents a horse of a remarkably finished type; another shows a bison, still another a wild sheep. But the prize of the whole collection, the prize which, it is confidently expected, will make this an epoch-making find In the annals of anthropology, is the piece of mammoth’s bone on which is cut the figure of a human being. This, in the words of those who have unearthed it, “is the first document representing, in engraved form* .the man of the Middle Quaternary age, the minimum age of which is 15,000 years.” As those who delve into the remote history of our race are aware, picturings of himself by prehistoric man are extremely rare. He delighted in drawing and carving the strange beasts which he saw' about him—bisons, reindeer, mammoth, horseß and the like—but when it came to giving us an idea of what he looked like himself he was strangely coy. Especially rare are depictions of man in the form of drawings or engravings. Rude carvings of human beings, dating far beyond the dawn of history, have been dug Villendorf, in‘Austria; at Brassempouy, the Laussel cave, aud the grottoes of Grimaldi in France and other places. Owing to this paucity of first-hand information, reconstructions of prehistoric man from the various skulls and bones found at different times have been largely a matter of conjecture. It has been a case of every one guessing for himself, legion. One group of savants, endeavoring to build up our ffemote ancestor from the famous relics found in the Neanderthal, near Dusaeldorf; Germany; at Spy, in Belgium, and at La Chapelle-aux-Saints, in France, have shown us something materially strengthening the Darwinian theory that man is descended from the ape. Another group, basing Its deductions on the “man” reconstructed from the Piltdown skull, has endeavored to prove that prehistoric man, from whom we are descended, never became so bestial as the possessors of the Neanderthal-Spy-La Chappelle-aux-Saints skulls, and that the latter belonged to a branch of the race which gradually degenerated until it finally became extinct, while the other and superior branch kept on improving until man as we know him was gradually evolved. This latter theory, it is expected by the discoverers of the prehistoric “studio” in the cave of La Colombiere, will be greatly bolstered up by wbat they have brought to light. To begin with, the best known depictions of human beingsof a similar sort—notably the sculptured forms of women found at Azil and elsewhere in France, as well as the sketches of the human face unearthed in the cave of Marsoulas—were produced in the Magdalenian age, according to the theory generally accepted by Frenchmen, and, therefore, are supposed to be much more recent than anything dating from the Aurignacian age. : Granting, then, that the pictures in the cave of La Colombiere really date from the Aurignacian age—and the report read by M. Douville shows pretty conclusively that they do—and that those similar to them discovered up to now are of a more recent date, the character of the work done by the 6avp artiat of Lai Colombiere is such as Immediately to rivet the closest attention on it. Fbr the “man" here shown, the man of the

Aurignacian age, bears a most striking resemblance to him of the Magdalenian age, supposedly a much more developed individual. Compare this -man of La Colombiere with the middle one of the three human faces from the cave of Marsoulas, shown on this page. He has the same respectable skull development, much ,more like that of the possessor of the Piltdown skull than that of the ape-like “Neanderthal man” and his congererp- The nose, it will also be noted, is very situUkr to that of the Marsoulas man, likewise the heavy chin. So much for the contentions of the Frenchmen who have made this remarkable find. Backed up though they are by> good arguments, it is not likely that they will be swallowed without a struggle. On the contrary, they will probably be the cause of still another controversy to a add to the already stormy annals of anthropology. For there is undoubtedly another side to the question. First, as to the pictures just found of La Colombiere. In spite of the fact that those similar to them—-Including the human faces of the cave of Marsoulas —are generally ascribed by Frenchmen not to the Aurignacian but to the later Magdalenian age, others think them productions of Aurignician artists; If this latter theory is accepted, the “man” of La Colombiere Is simply one more to add to the scanty gallery cf Aurignacian depictions of human beings. Even if he proves to be that and nothing more, he will be accounted a precious find, but naturally his value Will not be so enormous as those who have found him and those who share their views would have us believe. , '"'v ’ .Second, as to whether the “man” of La Colombiere proves that we are descended from' the Neanderthal-Spy-La Chapelle-aux-Saints race or the race represented by him of the Piltdown skull. There, too, matters are by no means as easy as they look to the sanguine Frenchmen. Plenty of learned men who have studied the subject of the descent of man are of the opinion that man may be descended from neither of these Interesting groups they contend that both of these raceß may have become extinct and that mankind sprang, possibly, from some race which appeared later. . The latest Views from abroad shows that the man of La Colombiere hab already set learned tongues to wagging against each other. Already Messrs. Mayet and Plssot, the savants who found him, have a hornet's nest about their ears. In London Mr. J. Leon Williams, writing in the Illustrated London News, has placed himself on record as a foe to the belief that he of La Colombiere is the earliest picture of a man. Mr. Williams’ idea Is that we have to do here not with a faithful delineation of the human form but with a caricature. He writes: “As Messrs. Mayet and Plssot say, the drawing is very clear, especially the face and upper part of the head. The back of the head and the neck do not seem to me very well defined in the photograph. “The discoverers speak of this drawing as having none of the characteristics represented by the Neanderthal, Spy, or La Chapelle aux-Saints skulls. In their opinion, the head resembles the fossil skull of Chancelade. They Bay: “ ‘The head Is large, the forehead round and prominent (boinbre), rising slightly obliquely. The face is long, as though pulled out from below upward, and is distinctly projected forward; the chin Is prominent, and has a short beard Indicated by small lines; the nose is long and very thick; the eye is indicated by two curved lines, and has an indefinable expression.’ “In this detailed description it Is quite evident that Dr. Mayet and M. Plssot believe that we have here something in the nature of a realistic drawing of Aurignacian man. This is confirmed by their further statement that we have not previously found any engraved figures that teach us anything definite about the exaet form of contour of the human face of the Aurignacian or Bolutrian periods, anq that this want has now been filled by their discoveries. “With these statements and conclusions I find it to afferee. At least two other engravings of the humap face have been previously discovered, one In the Grotte dee Fees in the Gironde, and the other in the Font-deGaume at Lee Eyziea (Dordogne.).. ... “t think It will be oiearly Been that the great interest in this new discovery lies not in the be-

lief that it is unique, but in the fact that it is not unique. It is a matter of the deepest interest to find in these three drawings certain - identical conventions. The general shape of the head, nose, and chin is the same In all of them. The way In which the mouth is placed is the same in the two which show the mouth, and what our discoverers speak of as the ‘indefinable expression of the eye’ is produced by identical lines in all three engravings. All of this suggests several things, among which we may mention that Colombiere drawing can hardly be means to represent any particular individual; it is hardly possible that it waß intended as a realistic .production. It may be a rude outline effort, sqcb as a child would make, or it may be a deliberate convention with a meaning of which we arc ignorant. If the drawing from the Font-de-Gaume cave was made by the artist who drew the figures of bison and other animals on the rock walla of that cavern, then there Is something curious and mysterious in the fact that the drawings of the wild animals are wonderfully realistic, while the one intended to represent a human face is vastly inferior to the others. “We have probably not yet quite fathomed prehistoric man’s ideas and intentions in all this work. Another proof that this Colombiere engraving cannot be intended as a realistic drawing is seen in the photograph and outline drawing of the skull of the Combre Capelle man. This is generally accepted as the typical Aurignacian skull. But by no possible arrangement of the soft parts around that Aurignacian skull could we produce a representation of a face resembling any one of the conventionalized prehistoric drawings shown.”