The perfect state of preservation of these bones shows that they were neither broken to furnish food for man nor torn by carnivorous animals, particularly by hyænas, as is seen in a great many caverns. We must therefore conclude from this peculiarity, that the stone which closed the entrance to the cave was moved away for every interment and carefully put back into its place immediately afterwards.
In order to explain the presence of so many foreign objects by the side of the human skeletons—such as animals' bones—implements of flint and reindeers' horn—necklaces or bracelets—we must admit as probable that a funeral custom existed among the men of the great bear and mammoth epoch, which has been preserved in subsequent ages. They used to place in the tomb, close to the body, the weapons, hunting trophies, and ornaments of all sorts, belonging to the defunct. This custom still exists among many tribes in a more or less savage state.
In front of the cave, there was, as we have already said, a kind of flat spot which had afterwards become covered with earth which had fallen down from the top of the hill. When the earth which covered this flat spot was cleared away, they met with another deposit containing bones. This deposit was situated on a prolongation of the ground on which the skeletons were placed in the interior of the cavern. Under this deposit, was a bed of ashes and charcoal, 5 to 7 inches thick. This was, therefore, the site of an ancient fire-hearth.
In other words, in front of the sepulchral cave there was a kind of terrace upon which, after the interment of the body in the cavern, a feast called the funeral banquet was held.
Fig. 27.—Upper Molar of a Bison, found in the Ashes of the Fire-hearth of the Sepulchral Cave at Aurignac.
In this bed, situated in front of the cavern an immense number of the most interesting relics were discovered—a large number of the teeth and broken bones of herbivorous animals (fig. 27); a hundred flint knives; two chipped flints, which archæologists believe to be sling projectiles; a rounded pebble with a depression in the middle, which, according to Mr. Steinhauer, keeper of the Ethnographical Museum at Copenhagen, was used to flake off flint-knives; lastly, a large quantity of implements made of reindeers' horn, which exhibit the most varied shapes. We may mention, for instance, the arrow-heads fashioned very simply, without wings or barbs (fig. 28); some of these heads appear to have been subjected to the action of fire, as if they had been left in the body of the animal during the process of cooking; a bodkin made of roebuck's horn (fig. 29) very carefully pointed, and in such a good state of preservation that it might still be used, says M. Lartet, to perforate the skins of animals before sewing them; and this must, in fact, have been its use; a second instrument, similar to the preceding, but less finely pointed, which M. Lartet is inclined to consider as an instrument for tatooing; some thin blades of various sizes, which, according to Steinhauer, much resemble the reindeer-horn polishers still used by the Laplanders to flatten down the seams of their coarse skin-garments; another blade, accidentally broken at both ends, one of the sides of which is perfectly polished and shows two series of transversal lines at equal distances apart; the lateral edges of this blade are marked with deeper notches at almost regular intervals (fig. 30). M. Lartet considers that these lines and notches are signs of numeration, and Mr. Steinhauer has propounded the idea that they are hunting-marks. Both hypotheses are possible, and the more so as they do not contradict each other.