Cave Hunting

G HUMAN REMAINS

euth.-Aurignac.-Bruniquel.-Cro-Magnon.- Lombrive.-Cavillon, near Mentone.-Grotta

istic to fix the date of their use, either for occupation or burial, unless the term neolithic be understood to cove

viland

f the woolly-rhinoceros, hy?na, cave-bear,233 and mammoth. Close to a skull with tusks of the last animal a human skeleton (equalling in size the largest male skeleton in the Oxford Museum) was discovered; and in the soil, "which had apparently been disturbed by ancient diggings," were fragments of charcoal, a small chipped flint, and the sea-shells of the neighbouring shore. Certain small ivory

intense cold; that after the skull of the mammoth had been buried in the cave, the tusks, thus preserved, were used for the manufacture of ornaments; and that, at some time subsequent to the interment of the ornaments with the corpse, a climatal change has taken place, by which the temperature in England, Franc

e cave earth, which had been disturbed before Dr. Buckland's examination of the cave, would prove that the interment is not of

e extinct mammalia, must be accepted as the true interpretation of the facts. The intimate association of the tw

ve of

nce be very decided. The famous human skull discovered by Dr. Schmerling156 in the cave of Engis, near Liége, in 1833, is a case in point. It was obtained from a mass of breccia, along with bones and teeth of mammoth, rhinoceros, horse, hy?na, and bear; and subsequently235 M. Dupont157 found in the same spot a human ulna, other human bones, worked flints, and a small fragment of coarse earthenware. The discovery of this last is an argument in favour of

too doubtful to admit of the conclusion of Sir Charles Lyell and ot

ts no marks of degradation, "and is in fact a fair average human skull, which might have belonged to a philosopher, or might have contained the thoughtless b

he variation in size and form of th

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2), with angular blocks passing upwards under the rock shelter, and filling the cave. Under this is a stratum of loam (No. 3), resting on gravel (No. 4). Sixteen human skeletons were discovered in the sepulchral cavity (S), at the mouth of which was a large slab of rock (D), by which it was originally blocked up. A singular urn, with a round bottom and with the handles perforated for suspension, was found at the entrance, together with flint fla

of the Trou du

clude that there is any necessary connection between the refuse-heap and the sepulchre in point of time? M. Dupont holds that the contents of all the caves in the cliff are pal?olithic, and238 that the sepulchral cavity is therefore of that age.159 It seems to me, however, that the evidence in favour of this view is not conclusive. The burial place

to belong to the "type Mongoloide," and are believed by M. Dupont to prove that the pal?olithic inhabitants of Belgium were a Mongoloid race. They seem, however, to be of the same general order as the broad-skulls from the neolithic caves and tombs of France, and from the round barrows of Great Brit

odern Fin; or by the higher generalisation of Prof. Huxley, that the Swiss "Dissentis" skull, the South German, the Sclavonian, and the Finnish, belong to one great

n the Trou du Frontal, therefore, there is proof that a long and a short-headed race lived in Belgium side by side, just as a similar association in the cave of Orrouy establishes the same conclusion as to the ne

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ry connection with the interments. And if they were deposited at the same time, M. Dupont's view that they stamp the neolithic age is rendered untenable by240 the fact that flakes and rude pottery were in use as late as the date of the Roman conquest of Britain, and are freque

f Gail

ragments of black coarse pottery, one of which is ornamented with a line of finger-impressions. The skull is remarkable for the great width of the parietal protuberances, and the flattening of the upper and pos

f Nean

its vertical depression, the enormous thickness of its supraciliary ridges, its sloping occiput, or its long and straight squamosal suture, we meet with ape-like characters, stamping it as the most pithecoid of human crania yet discovered. But Prof. Schaaffhausen states that the cranium, in its present

affhausen, which show that the absolute height and relative proportions of the limbs were quite those of a European of middle stature. The bones are indeed stouter, but this, and the great development of the muscular ridges noted by Dr. Schaaffhausen, are ch

; at most they demonstrate the existence of a man whose skull may be said to revert242 somewhat towards the pithecoid type

cho-cephalic division, reaching the enormous length

mes so close to this one of Neanderthal, that were it flattened a little and elongated, and possessed of la

of France.

f pal?olithic implements. Those caves, however, in France which claim especial attention, Aurignac, Bruniquel, and Cro-Magnon, are equally famous for thei

t of the burial? This important question has been answered almost universally in the affirmative, and the interments are viewed as ev

pted by Sir Charles Lyell in the first three editions of the "Antiquity of Man." In the fourth edition,167 however, the latter author, after a reconsideration of all the circumstances

itted to the parish cemetery, where they rest to the present day, undisturbed by sacrilegious hands. Fortunately, however, Bonnemaison in digging his way into the grotto, had met with the remains of extinct animals, and works of art; and these were244 preserved until, in 1860, M. Lartet accidentally heard of the discovery, and investigated the circumstances on the spot. He found that Bonnemaison, and the sexton who had buried the human remains, had taken so little note of the place where they were interred, that it could not be identified, and on examining the cave he found that the interior had been ransacked, and the original stratification to a great extent disturbed. M. Lartet's exploration showed that a stratum containing the remains of the cave-bear, lion, rhinoceros, hy?na, mammoth, bison, horse, and

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ram of the Ca

another. If we turn to the diagram constructed by M. Lartet to illustrate his views ("Ann. des Sc. Nat. Zool.," 4e sér., t. xv., pl. 10), and made for the most part from Bonnemaison's recollections; or to the amended diagram (Fig. 70) given by Sir Charles Lyell ("Antiquity of Man," 1st ed., Fig. 25), we shall see that the skeletons are depicted above the stratum (b) containing the pal?olithic implements and pleistocene mammalia; and therefore, according to the laws of geological evidence, they must have been buried after the subjacent deposit was accumulated. The previous disturbance of the cav

he hy?nas from the corpses of the dead. It need hardly be remarked, that the access of these bone-eating animals to the cave would be altogether incompatible with the preservation of the human skeletons, had they been buried at the same time. The enormous slab was never seen by M. Lartet, and it did not keep out the hy?nas. In the collection made by the Rev. S. W. King from the interior there are two hy?nas' teeth, and nearly all the antlers and bones bear the traces of the gnawing of these animals. The c

stratum on which they rested; but, so far as there is any evidence, may probably be referr

of Br

breccia, that is black with the particles of carbon constituting the "limon noir" of the workmen, four or five feet thick, beneath which is the "limon rouge," or red earth without charcoal, from three to four feet thick. Every part of the breccia is charged with the broken remains of the wolf, rhinoceros, horse, reindeer, stag, Irish elk and bison, and pal?olithic implements of flint and bone; some of the latter having well-executed designs of the heads of horses and reindeer, which prove that the cave had be

dence, however, does not seem to be altogether conclusive. If the interment had been made after the pal?olithic inhabitants had forsaken the cave, the association of the human bones with the refuse bones in their old refuse-heap must inevitably have taken place. And if, further, water charged with carbonate of lime percolated the mass, it would be converted into a hard breccia, and ultimate

skull-shape, and the burial in the crouching posture,249 point rather in the direction of the long-headed

e of Cr

, fall into the same doubtful category as those of Aurignac. The cave (Fig. 71, f), situated at the base of a low cli

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Valley of the Vezère, and th

at low water, 58·25

ezère, 15 metres; above th

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which are very well represented in250 the preceding figure, which I

tractors MM. Bertoú-Meyroú and Delmarés, the entrance was exposed, and human remains and worked flints revealed, which were carefully exhumed in the presence of MM. Laganne, Galy, and Simon. At this stage of the explora

s with Rhynchonella vespertilio, which is a type fossil, fixing the geological horizon. The débris of this marly and micaceous limestone had accumulated on the original floor of the cavern to a great thickness, at least for 0·70 metres (see Fig. 72, A), when the hunters of the rein

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on of the Cave of Cro-M

(1 centimetr

is of soft

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reddened by fire under th

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fallen from the roo

all of them containing, in different proportions,252 charcoal, bones (broken, burnt, and worked), worked flints (of different types, but chiefly scrapers), flint cores, and pebbles of quartz, granites, &c. from the bed of the Vezère, and bearing numerous marks of hammering. Altogether these layers seem to have reference to a period during which the cave was inhabited, if not continuously, at least at intervals so short as not to admit of intercalations

ckness of 0·30 metre; at the edges it is only 0·10 metre thick; but in the centre, where it cuts into the subjacent deposits, which were excavated by the inhabitants in making the principal hearth, it attains a depth of 1·60 metre. This bed, being

ts of bone, as well as amulets or pendants.253 This appears to be limited upwards by a carbonaceous bed (J), very thin, and of l

with; and all of them were found in the calcareous débris (K), except in a small space in the furthest hollow at the back of the cave. This last deposi

(four to six metres thick), sufficient in itself, according to what we have said above about its mode

rom the roof, as is shown by its having a stalagmitic coating on some parts. The other human bones, referable to four other skeletons, were found around the first, within a radius of about 1·50 metre. Among these bones were found, on the left of the old man, the skeleton of a woman, whose skull presents in front a deep wound, made by a cutti

d, like the others, have been used for necklaces, bracelets, or other ornamental attire. Not far from the skeletons, I found a pendant or amulet of ivory, oval, flat, and pierced with two holes. M. Laganne had already discovered a smaller specimen; and M. Ch. Grenier, schoolmaster at Les Eyzies, has kindly given me anot

where they came to share the spoils of the chase taken in the neighbourhood; but coming again, they made a more permanent occupation,255 until their accumulated refuse and the débris gradually raised the floor of the cave, leaving the inconvenient height of only 1·20 metre between it and the roof; and then they abandoned it by degrees, returni

e later, and although pal?olithic implements have been found "near" them, the value of the latter, in indicating the date, is destroyed by their occurrence throughout the old floors below. If we suppose that long after the cave had been inhabited by the hunters of the reindeer, it was chosen by a family as a burial-place, all the conditions of the discovery will be satisfied. The pre-existent strata would be disturbed in the process of burial, and the burrowing of foxes, and

h upturned nasals, and dolicho-cephalic. The occipital protuberance, or probole, is small. The bones of the extremity imply a

e of Lo

nd fissures, along with bones of the brown-bear, urus, small ox, reindeer, stag, horse, and dog. From the occurrence of the reindeer the deposit is assigned to the pal?olithic age. But since this animal has been proved to have been eaten in Scotland by the neolithic men of Caithness, and to have inhabited Britain in the prehistoric a

s conclusion, since they are of the broad type, and differ in no important chara

Cavillon,

s covered with a head-dress of more than 200 perforated sea-shells. It rested in an attitude of repose, with the legs and arms bent,170 as may be seen in the admirable photo-lithograph given by M. Rivière in the volume of the "International Congress of Prehistoric Arch?ology," published at Brussels, pl. 6. The teeth and bones of hy?na, lion, woolly rhinoceros, mammoth, and other pleistocene animals occurred both in the soil above and below, and for that reason both the discoverer and Sir Charles Lyell believe that the interment dates back to the time when those animals were25

Mr. Pengelly concludes that the interment is of pal?olithic age from its analogy with that of Cro-Magnon and Paviland, which we have seen to be of equally doubtful antiquity. It seems to me tha

strongly carinate, and the tibi? are platycnemic as in the case

Island of Palmaria,

loam, composing the floor, were numerous flakes and scrapers, a rounded "striker" of Saussurite, quartz, pebbles, fragments of pottery, a bone needle, a whistle made of the first phalange of a goat's foot, shells pe

. This identification is forbidden by the spongy texture, the rounded contour, and the absence of epiphyses that imply that the bone was very young, and that in the adult it would be far larger than any thigh-bone of the apes. On comparing his figures with eight femora belonging to young children, from the cairn at Cefn, and the caves at Perthi-Chwareu, I find that they agree in every particular with two, the flattening of the inferior extremity, considered by Pr

Colombi (Capellini). a, Cuts; b, Outline of

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fessor Capellini to fix its date, are common both to the pal?olithic and the bronze ages. Nevertheless, since the inhabitants have left behind no trace of any metal, and since their food was wholly supplied by the existing animals, they we

no mere idle tale or poetical dream. But we have no proof that cannibalism was universally practised at any stage in the history of man. All the caves of Europe, explored up to the present time, merely afford some three or four examples in the neolithic and bronze ages. In the pleistocene there is no

sions as to Pr

te time. The two races of men, the remains of which they contain, are represented by the modern Basque and Berber on the one hand, and on the other by the Celt, and in Russia and Germany by the cognate Finn, Sclave, and Wend. And since all the human remains described in the present chapter, those of Cro-Magnon and possibly of

out leaving any clue as to their identity. But in the present state of our knowledge we are justified only in concluding, that the oldest population in prehistoric times was

to the elk, bison, urus, stag, megaceros, and wild boar, as well as to innumerable wolves. They arrived from the east with cereals and domestic animals, some of which, such as the Bos longifrons and Sus palustris, reverted to

they came into contact with the pal

ne forests of the south of England, and by Mr. James Geikie in those of Scotland. The area of Great Britain was greater then, than now, since a plain extended seawards from the coast-line, nearly everywhere, supporting a dense forest of Scotch fir, oak, birch, and alder, th

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