Past Perfect: When the Reindeer-Hunters Came to Cro-Magnon

Edouard Lartet (1801–1871), a French magistrate who retired from the practice of law when he was just 33 to devote himself to paleontology, is today known as “the father of prehistory.” Together with his English friend and financial backer, Henry Christy (who, like Lartet, was fascinated by Charles Darwin’s theories of human evolution), he explored the caves and rock shelters of southern France in search of the archaeological traces of prehistoric man. In numerous locations throughout the Pyrenees and Dordogne regions, the two men found ancient hand-held stone tools and exquisitely decorated bone antler fragments from long-extinct animals. (Modern […]