Atlanta Georgian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, August 10, 1912, HOME, Image 20

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Our Tun The “Clubman” Sneaking Home in the Wee Smell Hours . of a Primeval xffl Morning. f Jj|RX 'W > \ r ■'■ - ■ BF Ei *' HEy r ' : - ' ■ ¥ • L‘ & ■pl "'V T—iVFRY ° ,,e more <>r less 10,,k ’ Lback u|>ou our prehistoric in fancy as a time of terrific bloodshed and brutality. The cave-man has been depicted as constantly going about with a club In his hand anc murder in his heart. Men’s lives, and their wives, it has been understood, were then at the mercy of whomever was strong enough to take them. The condition of the cave-woman was particularly distressing, it has been thought, indeed, that Cupid’s t target in those days was the head k v ■ /;< ■ j- ' * MR •' d t . ■ 0 fliti B« SB ® I < -W ' Musician of the Cave-Age Stoned to Death, Possibly for Piaying “The Maiden’s Prayer.” / i ./•///// z Kii.\ ... / W . \ rather than the heart, and that the Current method of popping the ques tion was to club tlie chosen one into insensibility, the courtship compris ing tlie period between the time she fell and the time she was dragged into the cave of her captor. it Is a depressing picture that has been drawn of our naive and cloth less childhood. tlie only redeeming f s $ ISBYv J v-S. YV Vj bv-' - ■' . 3tjs $' . '■ ~. 'f* y -V\ “The cup that cheered when the world was young consi.ted of brain* .tewed with pottage in the original cup.’* ■ ,4’? ’V£ ■ ''’ ’ ;, i v- ■■' Ww Tk ■ ' n ■ »r? F Rich ("Yllr’) And W omen Wore i Just as Funny Hats as Now! feature about it being that it isn’t true! At least, according to a re markable series of analyses made by Professor De Foux, an eminent au thority on matters prehistoric, the ancient dwellings of the cave-dwell ers in Europe indicate that a mill ion years ago we lived and loved pretty much as we io now. M. De Foux has discovered that we were not shaggy, brutal people, of a color indeterminable, because we had not shed our ape like hair, and we did not have pointed ears. On the contrary, we were white, had smooth skins and ears very much like those of to-day. Incidentally, we all had red hair, a fact which In- dicates that those of us who to-day have rod hair are more or less a reversion to our cave-age type, and explains the illy governed tempers, the sudden tits of passion and the generally heated temperament which we have come to associate with auburn tresses. “Our skeletons and the shape ot our heads do not differ very much to-day from those of the old days. The Neanderthal skull and other human skulls of apparent ape-like formation were not representative of us at all,” Kays M. De Foux. “They were simply low elements in the clan, probably murderers or idiots, and wo can find men in all great Torturing the Mammoth, a Great Joke ( Ju ßuUßing hc ) Stoning Bad Musicians to Death w V a Favorite S T < 3 C e/' B ’ e stin E "\ A Had Actors ) ’-• T"> Buying F Fossil Shells the Delight of the citles whose heads are very much the same as those brutal looking skulls.'’ The cave-men even had a sense of humor The French scientist gives some extraordi nary Instances of our jokes of a million years ago. Ihoy have been perpetuated in the shape of bones, skeletons. pits, draw ings on the walls o caves and other fragnumts of those ancient days wnich have been found in the dwell- » Ings of the cave-men. The "ave-men, it is found, were fond of music. Instcnd of resorting to their dens nt night to escape the saber-toothed tiger or the unclad gentlemen with a stone, they sat around the tire and listened to their musicians It is true that their musical in struments were not exactly the kind favored by our symphony orchestras, .1, . Bt least tlley made a noise, wnich is as much as some of our twentieth century artists accomplish. rhe principal musical Instrument or this period consisted of a rein deer’s foot with a hole bored in it, which made a serviceable whistle. On the rude instrument a C’opvrfrhf 1!I1? hr Arrrrlran OrMt Britain R!rM« Br«*rveft, mm « f \wcfrjK H ■ ~~ ► rrw ••>■'• --7 •..«.< \ 7SIi •.'•>-^x ; • ' '/ZK\h •// B •■: v\ ./ A\A /?••■• \Xk ••' '■ \W3£A \z V' , ( itfl omM&s !' ■ Z'fkL- ,y y.'' .. ••• > ■••;■ e^s., -■ / X' v < \. ■■ '-i - .'’’r .;-z / ■--' r ;■■'«. ■ V- ; ’'*•■> '» f ' ■ -ww' Mobbing the Mammoth’’ One of the Principal Pastimes of the Cave-Men. range of five notes and two octaves was possible. One can imagine the cave-man musician stand ing before the tire, sur rounded by a horde of ad miring music-lovers, toot ing away on the whistle, accompanied by another who thumped two large pieces of wood together, while the birds, monkeys and other denizens of the forest primeval supplied an active if somewhat dis cordant chorus. And woe betide the un lucky performer whose toots were not shrill enough or whose thumps were not loud enough to satisfy his critical audi ence. for in those days, it would seem, ft was garded as a huge joke to pelt the incompetent mu sician with boulders weigh ing anywhere from three to twenty pounds. By the time the shower of stones ceased the footer had tooted his last toot Ha would never offend again. In this custom of the cave-man doubtlessly we have the origin of our own penchant for throwing eggs, de clining fruit and similar messages of regard at the actors who fail to please us. and the baseball fan who attracts the attention of an offend ing umpire by hurling a bottle at his head is only doing just what we ad were doing a million years ago How do we know this? Because M. De Foux has found in the valley of the Vezere, in south western France, which seems to have been the site of a huge colony of cave-men, an amphitheatre contain ing the skeleton of one of those prim eval musicians. The poor fellow must have been a very bad musician, indeed, for his skeleton was simply covered with the boulders. Beside him lay ids little reindeer whistle, while a few feet away lay the chunks of wood with which a more fortunate musician no doubt accom panied him. From the position of his body there Is no doubt that he was stoned to death, the only question remain ing to be settled being the nature of his particular offense. It has been suggested that lie may have been unwise enough to have rendered 'The Maiden's Prayer,” In which event, of course, even a modern jury would have returned a verdict of justifiable homicide. That these early ancestor, of ours found amusement in vaudeville performances of a sort not very different from those of to-day <s in dicated by numerous drawings rudely carved on the wails of their caves, on the antlers and bones of reindeer, mammoth ivory and stones. The main attraction of these per formances seems to have been the torturing of the mammoth. Pic tures of the huge beast safely con- •' . ./i M A fined in a pit just big enough to bold him. with cave-men assailing him with stones and arrowheads are numerous. . This pastime of “mobbing the mammoth” evidently filled our early ancestors with as much de light as the modern bull fight affsrds our Spanish and Mexican friends, for the carvings show that the ’unction was well attended by spectators of both sexes. According to M. De Foux. our troglodytic ancestors were club men in more senses than one. There is plenty of evidence of their convivial gatherings, and though the cup that cheered their prehis toric souls was nothing more invit ing than the skulls of their enemies, containing a brew of brains and pottage, it seems to have answered the purpose very well. In a cave at Gourdan, France, have been dug up several of these broken skills bearing the marks of flint knives. It 13 thought likely that (after the manner of some modern savages) these skulls were used as drinking cups, and the brains they had con tained were mixed in pottage and partaken of as a great delicacy. This is a common practise among the head-hunters of the Philippines. That this concoction had an in tox’cating effect is quite probable, for rente of the pictures on the cave walls portraying groups of these early bon vivants imbibing from the skulls Indicate that some of the participants in the orgy were dec’dedly “under the weather.’’ How our inebriated forebears managed to find their way home after a celebration ot this kind may better be imagined than described, it could not have been the easiest as - under the most favorable cir cumstances to make one’.-: way over the enormous boulders which “ rked the path to their crude ” ve dwellings, but with a cargo of hraivstew aboard in the bargain h ( t journey must have been diffl cult ‘in the extreme. One can imrrine. . perhaps. the enraged snouse in the cave lying in wait for her erring chief, with a boulder in one band and the jawbone of a cn ve bear in the other, peering through the small opening which formed the entrance at the con vivlal cave man directing hl* zig rac rootsteps toward his humble dwni.ing in the wee. small hours of a i rimeval morning! Recent research reveals .too, that onr cave-dwellers were not unfa miliar with the pains of various diseases which afflict the present generation. One may well imagine that they became more or less im mune to colds by reason of their constant exposure to the elements, but that they suffered from dyspep sia. tout and rheumatism is amply confl-med by the thickened condi tion of their joints and similar sig nificant symptoms presented by thei’ skeletons. And if one imagines that the mandates of Dame Fashion are all of modern origin, the investiga tions cf M. De Foux would seem to lnd’’ate that the idea is quite erroneous. It may have been modesty which I imp.’lled the cave-woman to clothe i he’- nakedness but It was cer- > tninly vanity which suggested the 1 elaborate costumes In which she at tired herself at times. Tnese garments would hardlv do ■ credit to a Paquin or a Lucile, but the' must have appeared really worii. rful to the primitive minds of the time. They were made of the skins of reindeer, made supple by rubbing them with marrow, and afte- being scraped and smoothed were cut in accordance with the preva'iing fashion of the moment and sewed together with bone needles and tendon threads. Many of the scrapers and smoothers em ployea in preparing the hides have beep, .ound in the caves and marks of hint knives on reindeer leg bone; show where the tendons were detached for the purpose mentioned. The bone needles have been found in large numbers. They were not much longer than the steel needles used to-day, and were pierced with eyes. For ornamentation these gowns were decorated with various Kinds of marine shells, the teeth of bears and tigers, plates of ivory and beads of clay dried in the sun and coloied with various pigments. Fragments of necklaces and brace lets have been dug up in a number of places On a skeleton tn the 7 V ”■ 1 i Ine ’Latest Mode” as Worn by a Cave- Woman of Fashion. cavern at Lav.gerie Basse were found twenty pierced shells in pai'-s in different parts o( the body. Evidently they had been arranged in a symmetrical manner on the clo;u>i,g But strangest ot all the recent disci/, eries along these Pnes is the fact that our early ancestors of the pa't-oiithic age were antiquarians’ Fossa shells dating back to even pai-izoic days millions of years before the advent of the cave-men, have been found among the oones of itu cave-dwellers ‘ Many of them could have come only from the Isle of Wight. They were doubUess regarded as precious je.ve'r in those days and were .'S “Fossil shells dating back million* of year* were regarded «i preciou* jewels by the Cave-Man. Here is the Pierpont Morgan of that day.’’ ' paos; o in exchange from trios to I trioe until they reached the vaileys of Perigord. Only such traffic i could account for an oyster shell from the Red Sea dug up in an- > oth French cave. In these days when the chief occupation of the men was hunting > and fishing, the implements - I the i chasa must have been the principal artic es of wealth. The man who i pos leased a dozen assorted flint i heads may have been nonsioered ’ in moderate circumstances, while ' the ownership of a dozen reindeer hor.i daggers would marl, a man as i being comfortably “fixed.” What theu must be thought of the prehis i torio Morgan who owned 20,000 ■ flint hatchets and reindeer dag i gej-s? His cave has been found at Chaleux, while that of the paleo ! lithic Rockefeller, recently revealed at t erigord, contained an equally large number of flint spearheads and various tools made of reindeer i ant'er. In these two caves, too, is plenty of ev-dence that the Morgans and Rockefellers of the cave age w-ere just as much lovers of art as the magnates of the present day. Ths caves are covered with drawings (often in color) and with engrav ing-i, which may be considered as representing the very best speci mens of primitive sculpture. They are carved and engraved with flint tools on bone and reindeer antler, and on the walls represent all sorts of animals The pictures include whales and seals, and the likenesses of the species we know are so ex cellent that there is no reason to doubt the accuracy of those of ex tinct creatures, such as the cave bear and the mammoth. Altogether, these recent discov eries indicate that the general ideas prevailing regarding life among the cave-dwellers are entirely errone . ous. Although primitive in point of civilization, there is evidence, indeed, that they had even veloped some notion of religion and a future life, for they invaria bly buried food, arms and orna ments with their dead. The picture of the human race in this early stage, as science now presents it to view, is wonderfully vivid and striking, and indicates that it many aspects their mode of lite, their foibles and their fall ings were not very different from those of the present day.