On the Track of Prehistoric Man by Herbert Kuhn

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good. 1955. Random House. 1st English Edition. Heavily Illustrated.

he caves of Spain and France and the prehistoric paintings they harbor are the exciting setting for a personal narrative that is also a journey into the ice age. Herbert Kuhn is professor of protohistory at the University of Mainz in Germany and an authority in his field. He also has a penchant for the most vivid things about man, prehistoric and present day, writing interestingly and conversationally about a dozen caves he visited. Stories of the journeys to Lascaux, Altamira, Les Trois Freres, etc. tell the history of their recent discoveries and are enlivened by his talks with the people who live nearby, some of whom, like the Abbe Breuil, have made extensive studies themselves. As Professor Kuhn visits the caves himself, he also relates the mystical quality of their extreme age and the exquisiteness of the cave paintings as their lines, their animation and their symbolism become clues to the life of man emerging as human 20,000 years ago.