The bronze age and the Celtic world - Universal History Library

20 THE BRONZE AGE AND THE CELTIC WORLD
a jaw, was found in close association with a unique troglodyte mandible has now,
I understand, definitely been abandoned.^
Thus Uttle or nothing is known of the first inhabitants of Celtic lands, beyond their
tools, but when we come to the middle palaeolithic period the case is different. While
some difference of opinion still exists, the view advanced by Obermaier^ and others seems
to be gaining ground, that in Celtic lands the industry of Le Moustier first appeared as
the climate was becoming colder on the approach of the last or Wiirm glaciation, though
it is thought by some that it had flourished in an earher and warmer time in the regions
lying to the east." This industry is believed by most authorities to have survived the
first Wiirm maximum and to have lasted through the temporary ameUoration of the
Laufen retreat. Whether it survived, too, the second maximum, and lasted until the
climate definitely improved is more doubtful, but many archaeologists of great repute
believe that it did so," and unless this was the case it will be difficult to explain certain
features of the Audi flints."
Though there is as yet no general agreement as to the duration of the Mousterian
industry, it is different when we come to consider the type of man who was responsible
for this work. Everyone is agreed that the authors of this culture were of the type
known as Neanderthal man, for several skeletons of this type, or parts of them, have
been found associated with flint implements of Le Moustier design, and none have as
yet turned up under conditions which make this correlation impossible.'^
A considerable number of skulls and skeletons, about two dozen in aU, of
Neanderthal man have been found, the great majority in Celtic lands ;
but, though there
is a general resemblance between aU the members of the series, sufficiently strong to
mark them off from the Piltdown skull on the one hand and from modern men on the
other, the t57pe is in many respects very variable. There are vast differences observable
8 Osborn (1921) 585, 6.
9 Obermaier (1906-7).
«> Burkitt (1921) 1. 95-97 ; Macalister (1921) I. 215-218, 255-259, 585-590.
" Obermaier (1906-7); Burkitt (1921) 1. 47; Macalister (1921) 1. 584, where other authorities are cited.
" Vid. infr. p. 6.
'3 Macalister (1921) 1. 285-314, where all authorities are fully cited ; Keith (1915) 118.