For these reasons it seems to be doubtful whether the interment is of the same age as the occupation. The skull-shape, and the burial in the crouching posture, point rather in the direction of the long-headed race, that buried their dead in caves, in the neolithic age, in France, Spain, Belgium, and Great Britain.
The Cave of Cro-Magnon.
The human skeletons in the cave of Cro-Magnon, at Les Eyzies, a little village on the banks of the Vezère in Périgord, fall into the same doubtful category as those of Aurignac. The cave ([Fig. 71], f), situated at the base of a low cliff, was completely concealed by a talus of loose débris, four metres thick, which had fallen from above. ([Fig. 71], b.)
Fig. 71.—Section across the Valley of the Vezère, and through the rock of Cro-Magnon.
Level of the Vezère at low water, 58·25 metres above the sea.
Height of cave above the Vezère, 15 metres; above the sea-level, 73·25 metres.
Distance from the cave to the river, 177 metres.
| a | Railroad. |
| b | Talus. |
| c | Great block of stone. |
| d | Ledge of rock. |
| P | Limestone. |
| M | Detritus of the slopes and alluvium of the Valley. |
| e | Rock of Cro-Magnon. |
| f | Cave. |
| g | Château and Village of Les Eyzies, in the Valley of the Beaune. |
| h | Gatekeeper’s house. |
| i | Railway bridge over the Vezère. |
| j | Caves of Le Cingle. |
It forms one of a group of caves at various heights above the Vezère, which are very well represented in the preceding figure, which I am kindly allowed to borrow from the “Reliquiæ Aquitanicæ” (Fig. 39).