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A Newly-Discovered Transition Culture in North Spain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2013

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Extract

The story of humanity during the period that elapsed between Palæolithic and Neolithic times has proved an intriguing problem to prehistorians for a long time. The Azilian culture (discovered by Piette in the cave of Mas d'Azil) resting as it does on the older Palæolithic industries and covered in turn by layers of Neolithic and Eneolithic age, seemed to bridge the gulf. But the Azilian culture has only a limited distribution and is truly Palæolithic, as is shown by the absence of the remains of domestic animals and pottery. Again, the Tardenoisean culture, with its pigmy industries and typically pigmy burin seemed to supply a bridge, and here we find a culture of wide extent. As before, however, we are still dealing with a Palæolithic culture, and its age in Western Europe (as has been shown at the diggings of Valle) is contemporaneous with the latter part of the Azilian. After the Azilio-Tardenoisian culture came the early Neolithic of which little can be told except in certain localised areas. Now another chapter of the story of these times, mainly referring to Asturias on the North coast of Spain (but including the area further East as far as Biarritz and also embracing sites in North Catalonia) has been added through the perspicacity of the Count de la Vega del Sella, who has unearthed a new and most interesting post-Azilio-Tardenoisean but pre-real Neolithic culture.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1924

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References

page 42 note * Harpoons typical of this age occur in these Azilian layers.

page 43 note * Taken from “El Asturiense Nueva Industria Preneolitica,” by the Conde de la Vega, del Sella. Mem. Num. 32 (1923) of the Comision de Investigaciones Paleontologicas y Prehistoricas.

page 43 note † Existed in historical times in North Spain.

page 43 note ‡ Exists to-day in the Picos de Europa.

page 45 note * Possibly also there is a hint of it in North France.