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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2012
In the course of a conversation with the writer, the late Émile Cartailhac, of Toulouse, once expressed the opinion that, in localities where copper ore was plentiful and easily smelted, true Neolithic culture without the knowledge of the use of metal for purposes of tool-making was of brief duration as far as Europe and the Mediterranean basin were concerned. This applies to many parts of Spain, and we therefore should expect and do find a rich Aeneolithic culture flourishing over large areas of the country, while in neighbouring parts of Europe still only stone was employed for purposes of tool-making. It is important to study this culture, since it had its influence on the development of the early metal cultures elsewhere. Certainly a close connexion existed between parts of north-west Spain and Ireland from very early times, for certain engravings on rocks in Galicia recall some of those occurring in Ireland (e.g. those on the stone of Clonfin-lough). Further, a number of dolmens, resembling those found in many places in Ireland (e.g. those near Sligo), occur in very large numbers in many districts—notably in south-east Portugal, on the Spanish frontier.
page 134 note 1 The term Aeneolithic is used to denote the period when copper, but not yet bronze, was in use.
page 141 note 1 A fine engraved pot of this age is to befound in the Pitt-Rivers Museum at Oxford.
page 141 note 2 Paintings in this third group often occur in superposition with one another, but except in one locality (Las Batuecas) far to the north of the main focus of this art there is no superposition of styles, and therefore a study of the superpositions does not help us to determine any age sequence in the art. At Las Batuecas the earliest series is of rather peculiar and more naturalistic type, and indeed may be of a much earlier date. The occurrence at two widely separated localities of the naturalistic figures of animals—in one case a rhinoceros—among figures typical of the Spanish Group III is interesting. The fact that from their appearance and state of preservation they are clearly older than the surrounding figures, suggests the possibility of the existence of an older, widely distributed, possibly Palaeolithic series painted in rock-shelters which has not survived except in the east of Spain.