The Omaha Sunday Bee Magazine Page Copyright, 1912. by American-Examiner. Great Britain Rights Reserved. Ourfun iDOOjQOOarsAflQ The 'Clubman" Sneaking Home of a.Primeval , .VV C I wy vf wwlr n "L 7 EVERY one more or less looks . back upon our prehistoric in fancy as a time, of terrific V-strife,", bloodshed and brutality. ; . The cave-man has been depicted as ' constantly going about with a club in his hand and 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 target in those days was the head rather than the heart, and that the , current method of popping the ques tion was to club the chosen one into Insensibility, the courtship compris ing the period between the time sbe fell and the time she was dragged into the cave of her captor. It is a depressing picture that has heen drawn of .our naive and cloth less childhood, the only redeeming Jink mummYWfJwdUVKq STVi WW- Hf'W V ' wn.i mi mm mj. j u,1-:fi FvL 1 AT ViT X?A a. ... fiTifT tVJi i Hi lllfmlirMlilill ifffiifrlittfrn Jif ltlfiffftllltllliMrt----J-w-T11llllli-T'ni 1J 1 "The cup thai cheered when the world waa young conswied of bmat ttew with pottage Joke to Death a Favorite ifWf Stm Egg JCSl Bad Actors ) Buying Fossil Shells the Delight of the IV s Antiques A 4 s To-day ) r.U.X Women Wore 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-dwellers in Europe indicate that a mill ion years .ago we lived and loved pretty much as we Co 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- A Musician of the Cave-Age Stoned to Death, Possibly, for Playing "The Maiden's Prayer." dicates that those of us who "to-day have red hair are more or less a reversion to our-cave-age type, and explains the illy governed tempers, the sudden fits of passion and the generally heated temperament which we have come to associate with auburn tresses. , "Our skeletons and the shape of 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." says M. De Foux. "They ' were simply low elements -in the ; clan, probably murderers or idiots, . and we can find men la all great in the original cup." Torturing tlie Just Like the ; V Pull Ring J, cities 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. They have been perpetuated in the shape of bones, skeletons, pits, draw ings on the walls o caves and other fragments of : those ancient days which have been found In the dwell ings of the cave-men. The "ve-mn, it 'is found, were fond of music. Instead of resorting to their dens at night' to escape the saber-toothed tiger or 'the -unclad gentlemen with a stone, they sat around the fire and listened to their musicians. . : ' It is true that their '.musical In struments were not exactly the kind favored by our symphony orchestras, but at . least they made; a noise, which is as much as some of ; our . twentieth century artists accomplish. The principal musical Instrument of 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 range of five notes and two octaves was possible. One i can imagine the cave-man musician stand ing before he fire, 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 hlB critical : audi ence, for In those days, it would seem, it was re garded as a huge joke to pelt the incompetent mu sician with boulders weigh ing anywhere from three - 1 Stoning Bad Musicians ' i S " ll .. - ft' Ml S. I "Mobbing the Mammoth'' One of the Principal to twenty pounds. By the time the shower of stones ceased the tooter had tooted his last toot. He 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 fall to please us, and the baseball, fan who . attracts the attention of an off end . ing. umpire by hurling a bottle at his head is only doing Just, what, we all 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 his 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-. ; lng to be settled being the nature of bis particular offense. It has been suggested that he may have : been unwise enough to have rendered "The Maiden's Player," 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 is in dicated . by numerous drawings rudely carved on the walls 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 fined in a pit just big enough to hold 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 affords our Spanish and Mexican friends, for the carvings show that the function 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 1b plenty of evidence of their convivial gatherings, and though the cup that cheered their prehis toric souls waa 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 skulls bearing the marks of flint knives. It la thought likely that (after the manner of some modern savages) thes? 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 bad an in toxicating effect Is quite probable, for feme of the pictures on the cave walls portraying groups of ' thesi early bon vlvants imbibing from the skulls indicate that some of the participants in the orgy were decidedly "under the weather." How our inebriated forebears managed to find their wayv home after a celebration of this kind may better be imagined than described. It could not have been the easiest task under the most favorable cir cumstances to make one's way over the enormous boulders which marked the path to their crude cave dwellings, but with a cargo of brain-stew aboard in the bargain the Journey must have been diffi cult In the extreme. One can imagine, perhaps, the' enraged spouse in the cave lying in wait for her erring chief, with a boulder in ond hand and the jawbone of a cave bear In the other, peering through the small opening . which formed the ' entrance at the con- vlvial cave man directing his zig- zag footsteps toward his humble dwelling In the wee, small hours ; of a primeval morning! Recent research reveals ,tco, that -our cave-dwellers were not unfa miliar with the pains of various ; dis'issea which afflict the present generation. One may well imagine that they became more or less lm- i mune to colds by reason of their constant exposure to the elements, . but that they suffered from dyspep sia, tout and rheumatism is amply ' confirmed by the thickened condl- ' tion of their Joints and similar sig nificant symptoms presented by their skeletons. And if one Imagines that the mandates of Dame Fashion are all of modern origin, the investiga tions of M. De Foux would seem to indicate that the idea is quite , erroneous. : . , It may have been modesty which j irapalled the cave-woman to clothe j her nakedness. but ' it was cer-'. tainly vanity which suggested the elaborate costumes in which she at-! tired herself at times. .. . ... , :,t These garments would hardly do : credit to a Paquin or a Lucile, out they must have appeared really wonderful to the primitive minds of the time. They were made of the Pastimes of the Cave-Men. skins of reindeer, made supple by rubbing them with marrow, and after being scraped and smoothed were cut in accordance with the prevailing fashion of the moment and sewed together with bone neequ'S and tendon threads. Many of the scrapers and smoothers em ployee In preparing the hides have been found in the caves and marks of flint knives on reindeer leg-, bones . show where the tendons wer detached for the purpose mentioned. The bone needles have boon found In large numbers. They wen 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 died in the sun and colored with ' various pigments. Fragments of necklaces and brace lets have been dug up in a number of places. On a skeleton in the The "Latest Mode" as Worn by a Cave Woman of Fashion. cavern at . Laugerie Basse were found twenty pierced shells in pai'-s on different parts of the body. Evid'iutly they had been arranged In a symmetrical manner on the clothing. But strangest of all the recent discoveries along these l'nes is the fact that our early ancestors of the paleolithic age were antiquarians! Fossil shells dating bask to even paleozoic days, millions of years before the advent of the cave-men, have been found among the bones of 'Ihe cave-dwellers. Many of them could have come only from the isle ; of , Wight. They were doubtless regarded as precious jewels "in- those days, and were "Fond thellt dating back million jewels by the Cave-Maa. Hero ia LiwiftaHWiriln'rirr'W mm t j-a-w j,i.m i t-yww.'i wim ujnummi iiiu miu-.ijn i-,nBi.-,iiimji-.i lip 1 X i r passed in exchange from tribe to tribvj until they reached the valleys of Perlgord. Only such traffic coull account for an oyster shell from the Red Sea dug up in an othr French cave, Ii these days when the chief occupation of the men was hunting and fishing, the Implements it the chads must have been the principal artiu es of wealth. The man who pos3cssed a dozen assorted 'lint heads may have been considered ' in moderate circumstances, while the ownership of a dozen reindeer horn daggers would mark a man as being comfortably "fixed." What thea must be thought of the prehis toric Morgan who owned 20,000 flint hatchets and reindeer dag gers? His cave has been found fit Chaleux, while that of the paleo lithic Rockefeller, recently revealed at Ferigord, contained an equally large number of flint spearheads and various tools made of reindeer antler. Ia these two caves, too, is plenty St evidence that the Morgans and :ockefellers of the cave age were just as much lovers of art as the magnates of the present day. The caves are covered with drawings (often in color) and with engrav ing, 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 aa 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 de veloped some notion of religion and a future life, for they invaria bly burled 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 in many respects their mode of life, their foibles and their fail ings were not very different from thos.a of the present day, 13 of years -were regarded as precious the Piorpoat Morgan of that day,"-