Primitive Man

by Louis Figuier

"Sometimes, indeed, when the archæologist devotes especial care to his digging, he comes across a kind of layer of wrought flints which are, in fact, to be looked upon as refuse rather than wrought articles. Their position appears to indicate the surface of the soil during that epoch, a surface which has been covered up by the successive deposits of subsequent ages; and although some of these flakes may have been due to some of the objects which had been placed in the sepulchre having been chipped on the spot, there are many others which have not originated in this way, and have come from objects which have been deposited in other places.

"All these stones, which are common to three kinds of burial-places, have fulfilled, in my opinion, a votive function; that is to say, that they represent, as regards this epoch, the wreaths and coronals of immortelles, or the other objects which we in the present day place upon the tombs of our relations or friends; thus following out a custom the origin of which is lost in the night of time.

"And let not the reader treat with ridicule these ideas, which I hold to be not far from the truth. Men, as individuals, may pass away, and generations may disappear; but they always hand down to their progeny and those that succeed them the customs of their epoch; which customs will undergo little or no change until the causes which have produced them also disappear. Thus it is with all that concerns the ceremonies observed in bearing man to his last resting-place—a duty which can never change, and always brings with it its train of sorrow and regret. Nowadays, a small sum of money is sufficient to give outward expression to our grief; but at these remote epochs each individual fashioned his own offering, chipped his own flint, and bore it himself to the grave of his friend.

"This idea will explain the diversity of shape in the flints placed round and in the sepulchres, and especially the uncouthness of many of the articles which, although all manufactured of the same material, betray a style of workmanship exercised by numerous hands more or less practised in the work.

"It may, however, be readily conceived that during an epoch when stones were the chief material for all useful implements, every wrought flint represented a certain value. To deprive themselves of these objects of value in order to offer them to the manes of the dead was considered a laudable action, just as was the case subsequently as regards still more precious objects; and this custom, which was observed during many long ages, although sometimes and perhaps often practised with the declining energy inherent in every religious custom, was the origin of a practice adopted by many of the nations of antiquity, that, namely, of casting a stone upon the tomb of the dead. Thus were formed those sepulchral heaps of stones called gal-gals, some of which still exist.

"It is, without doubt, to this votive idea that we must attribute the fact that so many beautiful objects which ornament our museums have been found deposited in these sepulchres; but we must remark that the large and roughly-hewn hatchets, and also the knives of the second epoch, are replaced, in the third epoch, by polished hatchets often even fitted with handles, and also by knives of much larger size and finer workmanship.

"As an additional corroboration of my ideas, I will mention a curious fact which I ascertained to exist in two sepulchres of this kind which I searched; the significance of this fact can only be explained by a hypothesis which any one may readily develop.

"Each of them contained one long polished hatchet, broken in two in the middle; the other portion of which was not found in the sepulchre.

"One is now in the Museum at Cluny, where I deposited it; the other is still in my own possession. It is beyond all dispute that they were thus broken at the time of the interment.

"Numerous hatchets broken in a similar way have been found by M. A. Forgeais in the bed of the Seine at Paris, and also in various other spots; all of them were broken in the middle, and I have always been of opinion that they proceeded from sepulchres of a like kind, which, having been placed on the edge of the river, had been washed away by the flow of water which during long ages had eaten away the banks."