In the Trou des Nutons, which is situated about 164 feet above the level of the Lesse, M. Van Beneden recognised a great many bones of the reindeer, the urus, and many other species which are not yet extinct. These bones were indiscriminately mixed up with bones and horns of the reindeer carved into different shapes, knuckle-bones of the goat polished on both sides, a whistle made from the tibia of a goat, from which sounds could still be produced, fragments of very coarse pottery, some remains of fire-hearths, &c.
The Trou du Frontal was thus named by M. Édouard Dupont, from the fact of a human frontal-bone having been found there on the day that the excavations commenced. This was not the only discovery of the kind that was to be made. Ere long they fell in with a great quantity of human bones, intermixed with a considerable number of the bones of reindeer and other animals, as well as implements of all kinds. M. Van Beneden ascertained that the bones must have belonged to thirteen persons of various ages; some of them are the bones of infants scarcely a year old. Among them were found two perfect skulls which are in good preservation; these remains are also very valuable, because they afford data from which deductions may be drawn as to the cranial conformation of the primitive inhabitants of the banks of the Lesse.
M. Édouard Dupont is of opinion that this cave was used as a burial-place. It is, in fact, very probable that such was the purpose for which it was intended; for a large flag-stone was found in it, which was probably used to close up the mouth of the cave, and to shield the dead bodies from profanation. If this be the case, the animal bones which were scattered around are the remains of the funeral banquets which it was the custom to provide during the epoch of the great bear and the mammoth.
It is interesting to establish the existence of such a similarity between the customs of men who were separated by vast tracts of land and an interval of many thousands of years.
Immediately above the Trou du Frontal there is a cave called Trou Rosette, in which the bones of three persons of various ages were found intermingled with the bones of reindeer and beavers; fragments of a blackish kind of pottery were also found there, which were hollowed out in rough grooves by way of ornamentation, and merely hardened in the fire. M. Dupont is of opinion that the three men whose remains were discovered were crushed to death by masses of rock at the time of the great inundation, traces of which may still be seen in the valley of the Lesse.
By the falling in of its roof, which buried under a mass of rubbish all the objects which were contained in it at the time of the catastrophe and thus kept them in their places, the cave of Chaleux escaped the complete disturbance with which the above-mentioned caverns were visited. The bones of mammals, of birds, and of fish were found there; also some carved bones and horns of the reindeer, some fossil shells, which, as we have before observed, came from Champagne, and were used as ornaments; lastly, and chiefly, wrought flints numbering at least 30,000. In the hearth, which was placed in the middle of the cave, a stone was discovered with certain signs on it, which, up to the present time, have remained unexplained. M. Dupont, as we have previously stated, collected in the immediate vicinity about twenty-two pounds' weight of the bones of the water-rat either scorched or roasted; this proves that when a more noble and substantial food failed them, the primitive inhabitants of this country were able to content themselves with these small and unsavoury rodents.
The two skulls which were found at Furfooz have been carefully examined by MM. Van Beneden and Pruner-Bey, who are both great authorities on the subject of anthropology. These skulls present considerable discrepancies, but Pruner-Bey is of opinion that they are heads of a male and female of the same race. In order to justify his hypothesis the learned anthropologist says, that there is often more difference between the skulls of the two sexes of the same race, than between the skulls of the same sex belonging to two distinct races.
