From the fractured and burnt bones of the animals it is clear that they had been accumulated in the cave daring the time that it was inhabited by man. Dr. Spring[136] inferred that the broken human bones proved that human beings, as well as the animals, formed the food of the cave-dwellers, and further, since all the human remains belong to young individuals, that the cannibalism was not accidental, or caused by famine, but the result of a deliberate selection.
The facts which induced Dr. Spring to come to this conclusion are interpreted by M. Dupont[137] in a different manner. He holds, that the proportion of young individuals is not greater in Chauvaux than that which he has observed in other sepulchral caves in Belgium, and that there is nothing which forbids the supposition that this also was used as a place of interment. The human bones may have been broken by the foxes and badgers, which are so abundant in the district, and have been mixed, by their continual burrowing, with the remains of the animals in the old refuse-heap accumulated on the floor during the habitation of man. Such a mixture of remains we have already observed in the caves of North Wales and Gibraltar. The recent researches of M. Soreil[138] leave no room for doubting the truth of M. Dupont’s interpretation. Two perfect human skeletons were discovered along with flint flakes, pottery, a barbed arrow-head, and many scattered human bones not broken by design, while the long bones of the associated animals bore unmistakeable traces of having been split for the sake of the marrow. On one long bone, for example, of the ox, there were cuts made by a flint implement, as well as the mark of the blow by which it had been split longitudinally; and another ox-bone, and the canine of a boar, bore marks of burning. The bones of the animals were very abundant, and belonged to the following species: beaver, hamster, and other small rodents, hare, badger, fox, boar, stag, roe, ox, and goat. In this case, as in the caves of Perthi-Chwareu, and of l’Homme Mort, the inhabitants had used the hare for food, as well as the other animals, and did not share the prejudice against the use of its flesh for food, which Cæsar remarks of the inhabitants of Britain (Comm. 1, xii.).
The cave must, therefore, be viewed as a place of sepulture for a neolithic people, whose implements abound in the neighbourhood, and not as having been inhabited by a race of cannibals.
The bodies had been interred in the crouching posture, with their thighs bent, their heads resting on their arms, and their faces turned towards the valley. They rested side by side in two small holes, which had been dug in the deposit containing the bones of the animals, and the skeletons were cemented to the rock by stalagmite, and surrounded by large stones. They belonged to individuals far past the prime of life.
Both skulls were dolicho-cephalic, and the most perfect of them is described by Professor Virchow as presenting a parietal flattening, which is probably analogous to the “tête annulaire,” so commonly present in the long skulls of the neolithic age. It possesses a cephalic index of ·72 (·718 Virchow). The sutures in both the skulls were very nearly obliterated. The measurements are given in the Table in page 199.
The crania, in all these characters, are to be classified with the long skulls from the caves and chambered tombs of France, Britain, and Spain. They belong to people in the same stage of culture, and practising the same mode of burial in a crouching posture. Chauvaux is the furthest cave to the east on the continent of Europe, in which traces of this long-headed race have been observed.
The Cave of Sclaigneaux.
The cave of Sclaigneaux,[139] explored by M. Arnould, near the hamlet of that name, fourteen miles from Namur, has been proved to contain human bones, lying mixed with those of the animals in the refuse-heap on the floor, as in the cave of Chauvaux. The animals belonged to existing species:—
Hedgehog.
Badger.
Beech-marten.
Weazel.
Fox.
Dog.
Wild Cat.
Hare.
Rabbit.
Ox.
Goat.
Stag.
Boar.
Horse.
Rodents.
Bones of birds, frogs, and fishes were also met with. Intermingled with these were human skeletons, disposed in a rude sort of order, and belonging to bodies which had been interred at different times. From the lower jaws M. Arnould calculates that the number of bodies interred was not less than sixty-two, of which twelve belonged to aged individuals, twenty-one to those in the prime of life, sixteen to young adults, and thirteen to children.