Honour to whom honour is due. In mentioning these localities, we must place in the first class the settlements of Périgord, which have contributed to so great an extent towards the knowledge which we possess of primitive man. The four principal ones are, the cave of Les Eyzies and the rock-shelters or caverns of La Madelaine, Laugerie-Haute, and Laugerie-Basse. All of them have been explored by MM. Lartet and Christy, who, after having directed the excavations with the greatest ability, have set forth the results of their researches in a manner no less remarkable.[11]
The settlement of Laugerie-Basse has also been explored by M. de Vibraye, who collected there some very interesting specimens.
We have no intention of reverting to what we have before stated when describing the objects found in these various localities. We will content ourselves with mentioning the lumbar vertebral bone of a reindeer found in the cave of Eyzies, of which we have given a representation in fig. 55; it was pierced through by an arrow-head, which may still be seen fixed in it. If any doubts could still exist of the co-existence, in France, of man and the reindeer, this object should suffice to put an end to them for ever.
We will mention, as next in importance, the cave and rock-shelters at Bruniquel (Tarn-et-Garonne). They have been carefully examined by a great many explorers, among whom we must specify M. Garrigou, M. de Lastic (the proprietor of the cavern), M. V. Brun, the learned Director of the Museum of Natural History at Montauban, and M. Peccadeau de l'Isle.
It is to be regretted that M. de Lastic sold about fifteen hundred specimens of every description of the relics which had been found on his property, to Professor Owen, for the British Museum. In this large quantity of relics, there were, of course, specimens which will never be met with elsewhere; which, therefore, it would have been better in every respect to have retained in France.
The cave of Bruniquel has also furnished us with human bones, amongst which are two almost perfect skulls, one of which we have previously represented; also two half jaw-bones which resemble those found at Moulin-Quignon. M. V. Brun has given, in his interesting work, a representation of these human remains.[12]
We will now mention the Cave of Bize near Narbonne (Aude); the Cave of La Vache in the valley of Tarascon (Ariége), in which M. Garrigou collected an immense quantity of bones, on one of which some peculiar characters are graven, constituting, perhaps, a first attempt in the art of writing; the Cavern of Massat in the same department, which has been described by M. Fontan, and is thought by M. Lartet to have been a summer dwelling-place, the occupiers of which lived on raw flesh and snails, for no traces of a hearth are to be seen, although it must have been used for a considerable time as a shelter by primitive man; the Cave of Lourdes, near Tarbes (Hautes-Pyrénées), in which M. Milne-Edwards met with a fragment of a human skull, belonging to an adult individual; the Cave of Espalungue, also called the Grotto of Izeste (Basses-Pyrénées), where MM. Garrigou and Martin found a human bone, the fifth left metatarsal; the Cave of Savigné (Vienne), situated on the banks of the Charente, and discovered by M. Joly-Leterme, an architect of Saumur, who there found a fragment of a stag's bone, on which the bodies of two animals are graven with hatchings to indicate shadows; the Grottos of La Balme and Bethenas, in Dauphiné, explored by M. Chantre; lastly, the settlement of Solutré, in the neighbourhood of Mâcon, from which MM. Ferry and Arcelin have exhumed two human skulls, together with some very fine flint instruments of the Laugerie-Haute type.
These settlements do not all belong to the same epoch, although most of them correspond to the long period known as the reindeer epoch. It is not always possible to determine their comparative chronology. From the state of their débris it can, however, be ascertained, that the caves of Lourdes and Espalungue date back to the most ancient period of the reindeer epoch; whilst the settlements of Périgord, of Tarn-et-Garonne, and of Mâconnais are of a later date. The cave of Massat seems as if it ought to be dated at the beginning of the wrought stone epoch, for no bones have been found there, either of the reindeer or the horse; the remains of the bison are the sole representatives of the extinct animal species.
In concluding this list of the French bone-caves which have served to throw a light upon the peculiar features of man's existence during the reindeer epoch, we must not omit to mention the Belgian caves, which have been so zealously explored by M. Édouard Dupont. From the preceding pages, we may perceive how especially important the latter have been in the elucidation of the characteristics of man's physical organisation during this epoch.
France and Belgium are not the only countries which have furnished monuments relating to man's history during the reindeer epoch. We must not omit to mention that settlements of this epoch have been discovered both in Germany and also in Switzerland.