Primitive Man

by Louis Figuier

The Grotte des Fées, at Arcy (Yonne), has been searched and described by M. de Vibraye, who ascertained the existence of two distinct beds, the upper one belonging to the reindeer epoch, the lower one to the great bear epoch. These two beds were divided from each other by matter which had formed a part of the roof of the cave, and had fallen down on the earlier deposit. In the more ancient bed of the two, M. de Vibraye collected fractured bones of the bear and cave-hyæna, the mammoth, and the Rhinoceros tichorhinus, all intermingled with flints wrought by the hand of man, amongst which were chips of hyaline quartz (rock-crystal.) His fellow-labourer, M. Franchet, extracted from it a human atlas (the upper part of the vertebral column).

The cave of Vergisson (Saône-et-Loire), explored by M. de Ferry, furnished the same kind of bones as the preceding cave, and also bones of the bison, the reindeer, the horse, the wolf, and the fox, all intermixed with wrought flints and fragments of rough pottery. The presence of this pottery indicated that the cave of Vergisson belonged to the latter period of the great bear epoch.

The cave of Vallières (Loir-et-Cher), was worked, first by M. de Vibraye, and subsequently by the Abbé Bourgeois. There was nothing particular to be remarked.

The cave of La Chaise, near Vouthon (Charente), explored by MM. Bourgeois and Delaunay, furnished bones of the cave-bear, the rhinoceros, and the reindeer, flint blades and scrapers, a bodkin and a kind of hook made of bone, an arrow-head in the shape of a willow-leaf likewise of bone, a bone perforated so as to hang on a string, and, what is more remarkable, two long rods of reindeer's horn, tapering at one end and bevelled off at the other, on which figures of animals were graven. These relics betray an artistic feeling of a decided character as existing in the men, the traces of whom are found in this cave.

Among the caves in the south of France, we must specify those of Périgord, those of Bas-Languedoc, and of the district of Foix (department of Ariége).

The caves of Périgord have all been explored by MM. Lartet and Christy, who have also given learned descriptions of them. We will mention the caves of the Gorge d'Enfer and Moustier, in the valley of the Vézère, and that of Pey de l'Azé, all three situate in the department of Dordogne (arrondissement of Sarlat).

The two caves of the Gorge d'Enfer were, unfortunately, cleared out in 1793, in order to utilise the deposits of saltpetre which they contained in the manufacture of gunpowder. They have, however, furnished flints chipped into the shapes of scrapers, daggers, &c., a small pebble of white quartz, hollowed out on one side, which had probably been used as a mortar, and instruments of bone or reindeer's horn, three of which showed numerous notches. Bones of the great bear clearly indicated the age of these settlements.

The cave of Moustier, situated about 80 feet above the Vézère, is celebrated for the great number and characteristic shapes of its stone implements, which we have before spoken of. Hatchets of the almond-shaped type, like those of the diluvium of Abbeville and Saint-Acheul, were very plentiful. Bi-convex spear-heads were also found, of very careful workmanship, and instruments which might be held in the hand, some of them of considerable dimensions; but no pieces of bone or of reindeer's horn were discovered which had been adapted to any purpose whatever. The bones were those of the great bear and cave-hyæna, accompanied by separate laminæ of molars of the mammoth, the use of which it is impossible to explain. Similar fragments were met with in some of the other Périgord settlements, and M. Lartet also found some at Aurignac.

Next to the cave of Pey de l'Azé, on which we shall not dwell, come the caverns of Bas-Languedoc, which we shall only enumerate. They consist of the caves of Pondres and Souvignargues (Hérault), which were studied in 1829 by M. de Christol, who recognised, from the data he derived from them, the co-existence of man and the great extinct mammals; also those of Pontil and La Roque, the first explored by M. Paul Gervais, the second by M. Boutin.

We shall now consider the caves of the department of Ariége, some of which furnish objects of very considerable interest. They consist of the caves of Massat, Lherm, and Bouicheta.