Those who lived in caves buried their dead in caves. It is, also, a fact to be remarked, that man often uses the same type for both his burial-places and dwelling-places.
The burial-places of the Tartars of Kasan, says M. Nilsson, are exact likenesses, on a small scale, of their dwelling-places, and like them, are constructed of beams placed close to one another. A Circassian burial-place is perfectly similar to a Circassian dwelling. The tombs of the Karaite Jews, in the valley of Jehoshaphat, resemble their houses and places of worship, and the Neo-Grecian tombs, in the Crimea, are likewise imitations of their churches.[10]
We shall not, therefore, be surprised to learn that man during the reindeer epoch buried his dead in caves, just in the same way as was done by his ancestors during the epoch of the great bear and the mammoth, that is to say, the dead were interred in the same kind of caves as those which were then generally used as places of abode.
Fig. 75 represents a funeral ceremonial during the reindeer epoch.
Fig. 75.—A Funeral Ceremony during the Reindeer Epoch.
The corpse is borne on a litter of boughs, a practice which is still in use among some modern savages. Men provided with torches, that is branches of resinous trees, preceded the funeral procession, in order to light the interior of the cavern. The cave is open, ready to receive the corpse, and it will be closed again after it is deposited there. The weapons, ornaments, and utensils which he had prized during his lifetime, are brought in to be laid by the side of the dead.
We will sum up the principal facts which we have laid before our readers in this account of the condition of mankind during the reindeer epoch, by quoting an eloquent passage from a report addressed by M. Édouard Dupont to the Belgian Minister of the Interior, on the excavations carried on by this eminent Belgian geologist in the caves in the neighbourhood of Furfooz.
"The data obtained from the fossils of Chaleux, together with those which have been met with in the caves of Furfooz, present us," says M. Dupont, "with a striking picture of the primitive ages of mankind in Belgium.