N.B.—The horse, the bison (Bison Europæus), the great ox or aurochs (Bos primigenius), the ibex, the chamois, the great Irish deer (Megaceros), the large carnivors and others, appear throughout the middle and upper Pleistocene, but are more abundant at one period than at another, and in one locality than another. Thus the bison abounded in the north of Spain in late Magdalenian times, whilst the reindeer was rare or absent, and its place taken by the red deer, which later replaced the reindeer in France. The horse has been found in tens of thousands at Solutré, near Mâcon (Middle Pliocene), whilst the great Irish deer abounded at a very late period in Ireland (Azilian?), and is rare at any time elsewhere. I must clearly state that, whilst this table is practically that published by my friend Professor Marcelin Boule, he is not responsible for the recognition of the Eoliths of Prestwich, nor for the terms “Cromagnard” and “Neander.”
FOOTNOTES:
[7] So named after one Neumann, a religious enthusiast, who inhabited the cave.
[8] See, however, farther on as to the lower jaw found at Heidelberg.
[XLII]
THE CAVE-MEN’S SKULLS
A certain number of human skulls and a few complete skeletons have been found in the cave-deposits, and even in open ground (as at Predmost, in Moravia) associated with the bones of extinct animals, or with carvings and ornaments like those which occur abundantly in the caverns. The ancient cave-men of the Cromagnard type—often called “the Reindeer Men”—buried their dead sometimes in the caves, but more usually in the open. Sometimes the skeletons are found in a crouching position, as though tied up when buried; more rarely (as in some examples found in the caves at Mentone) they are stretched out and decorated with a necklace or wreath made of shells, or of the teeth or small bones of animals. In many cases the flesh was removed from the corpse, and red ochre was smeared on the bones (as by some recent savages). The “Reindeer” people used red ochre and charcoal to colour the engravings of animals ([Fig. 71]) which they made on the walls of their caves, and probably for painting or tattooing their own faces. The existence of these wall paintings, wonderful representations of bison, great ox, deer, and other animals, proves that these men had artificial light (lamps or torches) to send fitful gleams on to the paintings, and it is probable that the “wall pictures” had to do with some kind of witchcraft. Stone lamps have actually been discovered in the caves. Their ceremonial treatment of the dead shows that already the lines were laid for that worship of the “spirits of the departed,” which became general, and is especially familiar to us in the comparatively modern civilisation of Rome and the Etruscans. There is also evidence that they made simple musical instruments.
