It would seem that we have here evidence of the practice of a funeral rite, which consisted in first stripping the bodies of flesh, and then laying the bones in caves, where they were often left unnoticed by the living occupants of the same refuge.[2]
The caves of Baoussé-Roussé, near Mentone, give fresh proof of the extension of this rite, if we may so call it. The skeletons lay upon a bed of powdered iron ore, in some cases as much as two fifths of an inch thick, and this accumulation could not have taken place if the skeleton had not been deprived of its flesh before inhumation. The flesh must have been taken off by some rapid process, for the bones remain, as a general rule, in their natural positions, united by their tendons and ligaments. In Italy, says Issel, the cave men buried their dead in the caves they lived in, a thin layer of earth alone separating them from the living; the bodies, adds Pigorini,[3] generally lay on the left side, the head rested on the left hand, and the knees were bent. Beside the skeleton was placed a vase containing red chalk, to be used for painting the body in the new world it was supposed to be about to enter.
We could quote similar discoveries in Sicily, Belgium, and the southern Pyrenees. Beneath the tumulus of Plouhennec, in Brittany, bones were strewn about in the greatest disorder. Some archæologists are of opinion that the openings in certain dolmens were used for throwing in the bones of the dead who successively went to join their ancestors. In many of the Long Barrows of England the bones appear to have been flung in pell-mell; the space was too narrow to hold the complete body, so that before inhumation the flesh must have been separated from the bones. In no other way can we explain the confusion in which the human remains lay when they were discovered.[4] Pigorini thinks this is a proof that primitive races worshipped their dead, and held their bodies in veneration.[5] Perhaps they even carried them about in their migrations. However that may be, the custom of separating the flesh from the bones was continued until cremation became general. This would explain the huge ossuaries found in regions so widely separated.
Although, however, the mode of sepulture we have just described was practised for a long time in certain places, we cannot admit it to have been general. In certain megalithic tombs we find dispositions similar to those described in speaking of the Gendron Cave. Excavations beneath the Port-Blanc dolmen (Morbihan) brought to light a rough pavement on which lay numbers of skeletons, closely packed one against another, which skeletons were probably those of men who had been held in honor, and to commemorate whom the dolmen was set up. Separated from them by a layer of stones and earth rested another series of skeletons, not so closely packed as the first. The new-comers had respected their predecessors, and no one had violated the sanctuary of the dead. Similar facts were noted at Grand Compans, near Luzarches,[6] and it is evident that successive inhumations beneath dolmens often took place, and instances might, if necessary, be multiplied.
Another singular funeral rite was practised in remote antiquity. Many of the bones found in the various caves of Mentone were colored with red hematite.[7] As this was only the case with the bones of adults, those of children retaining their natural whiteness, it evidently had some special significance. In 1880, the opening of a cave of the Stone age in the district of Anagni, a short distance from Rome, brought to light the facial portion of a human cranium, colored bright red with cinnabar. Nor are these by any means exceptional cases, for similar coloration was noticed on bones picked up at Finalmarina and several other places in Liguria and Sicily. The custom had therefore become general in the Neolithic period in the whole of the Italian peninsula.[8] We also meet with it in other countries; at the Prehistoric Congress, when in session at Lisbon, Dolgado added to what was said about the discoveries in Italy the fact that the cave men of Furninha practised a similar rite. In the kurganes of the department of Kiev crania were found colored with a mineral substance, fragments of which were strewn about near the skeletons. The most ancient of the kurganes appear to date from the Stone age, for in them were found implements made of flint and reindeer-horn, mixed with the bones of rodents[9] long since extinct in that district. A similar practice is met with in the tombs of Poland, many bones being covered with a coating of red color, in some instances one fifth of an inch thick. Excavations in the Kitor valley (province of Irkutsk, Siberia have brought to light several tombs which appear to date from the sauce period as the kurganes of Kiew. The dead were buried with the weapons and ornaments they would like to use in the new life which had begun for them. The tomb was then filled in with sand, with which care was taken to mix plenty of red ochre. It is difficult not to conclude that this was a relic of a rite fallen into desuetude.
At the present day certain tribes of North America expose their dead on the tops of trees, and before burying the bones, when stripped of their flesh, cover them with a coating of a bright red color. In the island of Espiritu Santo many human bones have also been picked up painted with an oxide of argillaceous iron. These customs, strange as they may appear, were evidently practised in honor of ancestors; atavism is as clearly shown in customs and traditions as in physical structure.
At Solutré is a sepulchre formed of unhewn slabs of stone. The body of the dead rested on a thick bed of the broken and crushed bones of horses. The remains of reindeer were mixed with the human bones. Were these too relics of funeral rites, and were the animal bones those of the horses and reindeer that had belonged to their hunter? It is impossible to say. Solutré, situated as it was on an admirable site on a hill overlooking the valley of the Seine, protected from the north winds and close to a plentiful stream, has also been a favorite resort of man. In the tombs all ages are mixed together, and if some do indeed date from Neolithic times, others are Roman, Burgundian, Merovingian. There may be among them a certain number dating from the Reindeer period; that is about all we can assert with any certainty in the present state of our knowledge. The Abbé Ducrost, however, in an important essay[10] asserts that he has found incontrovertible proofs of the interment of Solutréens on the hearths of their homes in Palæolithic times. If this be so, the custom is one of frequent occurrence, and has been continued for centuries; for De Colanges, in his fine work on ancient cities, shows that at Rome the earliest tombs were on the hearth itself of the dwelling. De Mortillet, on the other hand, dwells very earnestly on the mode of inhumation at Solutré, and sees in the juxtaposition of human remains and the débris of hearths but the result of displacement, and of the regular turning upside down of which the hill of Solutré has been the scene. To this Reinach replied, to the effect that, whereas a few years ago De Mortillet’s authority led many archæologists to suppose that the men of the Reindeer period did not bury their dead, facts, ever more important than theories, have now proved beyond a doubt that this very decided opinion is a mistake. Not only did the men of remote antiquity bury their dead; they laid them, as at Solutré, on the hearths near which they had lived.[11]
The dead were often buried seated or bent forward, and it is interesting to note the same custom beneath the mounds of America and the tumuli of Europe. It is touching to see how in death men wished to recall their life on earth; the cradle was, so to speak, reproduced in the tomb, and man lay on the bosom of earth, the common mother of humanity, like the child on the bosom of his own mother. Perhaps, too, the seated position was meant to indicate that man, who had never known rest during his hard struggle for existence, had found it at last in his new life. The men of the rough and barbarous times of the remote past were unable to conceive the idea of a future different to the present, or of a life which was not in every respect the same as that on earth had been.
Whatever may have been the motive, this mode of burial was practised from the Madeleine period.[12] At Bruniquel, in Aveyron, the dead were found crouching in their last home. This position is, however, peculiarly characteristic of Neolithic times, and is met with throughout Europe. Eight skeletons were recently discovered bending forward in the sepulchral cave of Schwann (Mecklenburg). In Scandinavia there are so many similar cases that it is difficult to make a selection. Tit the sepulchral cave of Oxevalla (East Gothland) the dead are all in crouching attitudes, and tumuli dating from the most remote antiquity cover over a passage, formed of immense blocks of stone, leading to a central chamber, in which are numerous seated skeletons resting against the walls.
On the shores of the Mediterranean, excavations of the Vence Cave (Alpes-Maritimes) brought to light a number of dead arranged in a circle as if about to take a meal in common. The bodies were crouching in the position of men sitting on their heels; the spinal column was bent forward and the head nearly touched the knees. In the centre of this strange group were noticed some fragments of pottery and the remains of a large bird, a buzzard probably. Perhaps its death among the corpses was a mere accident.[13] The dolmens of Aveyron yielded some flint-flakes and arrow-heads, pieces of pottery, pendants, and bone, stone, shell, and slate-colored schist beads. Beneath one of these dolmens was found one small bronze object, quite an exceptional instance of the occurrence of that metal. The skeletons rested against the walls. In one of the tombs some human bones, which bad been originally placed at the entrance to the cave, had been moved to the back; the vanquished had here, as in life, to give way before the conquerors. Excavations in the Mané-Lud tomb have led explorers to suppose that here too the corpses were buried in a crouching position. It is the same at Luzarches and in the Varennes cemetery near Dormans.[14] In the last named were found traces of a fire that had been lit above the tomb, and some pottery was picked up ornamented with hollow lines, filled with some white matter not unlike barbotine. M. de Baye says this mode of interment is confined to the district of Marne; but for all that he himself gives an example of its practice elsewhere.[15]