Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-10-17

16.-THE CAVE-MAN: AN EXTINCT RACE
In the time of the Third Interglacial period
the outline of Europe and Western Asia was
very different from what it is today. Vast
areas to the west and northwest which are
now under the Atlantic waters were then dry
land; the Irish Sea and the North Sea were
river valleys. Over these northern areas
there spread and receded and spread again a
great ice cap such as covers central Green
land today.
This vast ice cap, which covered both polar
regions OF the earth, withdrew huge masses
OF water from the ocean and the sea level
consequently fell, exposing great areas of
land that are now submerged again. The
Mediterranean area was probably great val
ley below the general sea level, containing
two inland seas cut off from the general
ocean.
The World $4,000 Years Ago
The climate of this Mediterranean basin
was perhaps cold temperate, and the region
of the Sahara to the south was not then a
desert Of baked rock and blown sand, but a
well-watered and fertile country. Between
the ice sheets to the north and the Alps and
Mediterranean Valley to the south stretched
bleak wilderness, whose climate changed
from harshness to a mild kindness and
then hardened again for the Fourth Glacial
Age.
Cross this wilderness, which is now the
great plain Of Europe, wandered a various
fauna At first there were hippopotamus,
saber-toothed tiger was diminishing toward
extinction. Then as tho air chilled the hip
popotamus and then other warmth-loving
creatures ceased to come so far north, and
the saber-toothed tiger disappeared alto
gether. The woolly mammoth the woolly
rhinoceros, the musk OK the bison, the
aurochs and the reindeer became prevalent
and the temperate vegetation gave place to
plants Of more arctic type. The glariers
spread southwark to the maximum of the
Fourth Glacial Age (about so, 900 years ago.
and then receded again.
In the earlier phase, the Third Intergla-
cial period, certain number of small family
groups of men (Home Neanderthalensis) and
probably of sub-men (Eoanthropus) wander
ed over the land, leaving nothing but their
flint implements to witness to their presence
They probably used /. multitude and variety
of wooden implements also; they had prob.
ably learned much about the shapes Of OBJ
jects and the use of different shapes from
wood, knowledge which they afterward ap-
piled to stone; but none Of this wooden ma
terial has survived We can only speculate
about its forms and uses.
AS the weather hardened to its maximum
of severity, the Neanderthal men, already ii
would seem acquainted with the use of fire
began to seek shelter under rock Lodges and
in caveS-and so leave remains behind them
Hitherto they had been accustomed to squat
in the open about the fire, and near their
water~supp1y. But they were sufficiently in
telligent to adapt themselves to the new
and harder conditions. CAS- for the submen
they seem to have succumbed to the stresses
of this Fourth Glacial Age altogether. AT
any rate, the rudest type of Palaeolithic i'm
plements presently disappears.)
Not merely man was taking 20 the caves
This period also had a cave lion, a cave bear,
and cave hyena> These creatures had to be
driven out of the caves and kept out of the
caves in which these early men wanted to
squat and hide; and no doubt fire was an
effective method of eviction and protection.
Probably early men did not go deeply into
caves, because they had no means of lighting
their recesses. They got in far enough to be
out of the weather. ard stored wood and
food in odd corners. Perhaps they barricad-
ed the cave mouths. Their only available