The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1916-03-11

Inc NOIuIne, attractive though 1t Is
in letter-press and abundant illustra-
tions, is not one for so-called popular
reading, because it is written as a
scientific study in scientific terms. but
for one who cares to know what the
earliest type of man was doubtless
like in body, what degree of mental
development he had attained, by what
other animal forms he was attended.
and by what vegetable forms of tree
and plant life he was surrounded. its
careful reading is very much worth
while.
we get here, too, a suggestion of
the successive geological ages and of
the animals and vegetable life which
appeared in the intervals, centuries
long, between the several geologic
periods when the earth s crust
crumpled. Mountains were raised up.
lands were submerged, and the whole
country was covered during at least
four different periods by slow-moving
glaciers.
Equally interesting with such stud
les is the revelation made by these
researches OF the stages of mental
development Of our prehistoric fore
bears, not only as shown by the re
mains of their tools, implements and
weapons, but of their dawnino con
eeptlons Of art as they appear in the
drawings and rude sculptures found
IN great numbers on the walls and
ceilings of the caves and grottoes.
Especially notable among these ap-
pear to be the pictures and en-
cravings found in the cove of Alta
mira in the Pyrenees in northern
Spain, where, in the remote depths of
a cavern wonderful variety of ami
NAL life is portrayed. Some of the
later pictures are in colors, the bues
of which are as brilliant and as per
fectly preserved as when they were
first laid on hundreds of centuries
ago. What lured the artists through
the tortuous and perilous passages of
this and other caverns, and how light
was obtained to do this work in the
black darkness must always remain a
mystery. The motive may have sprung
from "a feeling partly religious
which regarded the caverns with a
special awe, or it may be that the
dark recesses were regarded as the
mysterious abode of deities or an
cestral shades. In line with this theory
rs the suggestion that the artists NAV
have been invited into the caverns
BY priests or medicine men to deco
rate the walls with the forms of all
the animals of the chase. The poly
ehromes ON the ceiling of Altamira,
the author says, frank in the crude
art of Paleolithic times much as the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel does in
modern art. -
These developments in handicraft
and in embryonic art do not repre-
sent the progress of a single race of
men but of a succession of races
races, the scientists believe, who did
not originate in the region where
their remains are found, but who
came most probably from the great
plains and valleys of central Asia.
What and where were the origin and
early development Of these successive
races can only be known. If ever
when the prehistoric archaeology of
eastern Europe and of Asia has been
investigated, as this book shows has
been done in western Europe.
The essential conclusions from this
study of the Men of the Old Stone
Age are of vital interest. The author
makes no dogmatic assertions. Oft
appears, - he simply says, ''that men
with faculties and powers like our
own, but in the infancy of education
and tradition, were living in this re-
glon of Europe $4,000 years ago
Back of these intelligent races were
others, also of eastern origin, but in
carrier stages of mental development.
all pointing to the remote ancestry
of man from earlier mental and
physical stages
Another great impression from
this region [of western Europel is
that 1t is the Oldest center of human
habitation Of which we have a com
plete, unbroken record of continuous
residence from a period as remote as
loo,OOO years corresponding with the
dawn of human culture.''
Out of this study we gain "a pro-
found impression of the very great
antiquity of the spirit of man and
the fundamental similarity between
the great steps of pre-history and Of
history That this mind of tho
Upper Paleolithic races was of
KIND capable of very high degree
OF education we entnr+aip - lla