“As for the human remains, and the position they occupied in bed I, the following are the results of my careful inquiries in the matter. At the back of the cave was found an old man’s skull (b), which alone was on a level with the surface, in the cavity not filled up in the back of the cave, and was therefore exposed to the calcareous drip from the roof, as is shown by its having a stalagmitic coating on some parts. The other human bones, referable to four other skeletons, were found around the first, within a radius of about 1·50 metre. Among these bones were found, on the left of the old man, the skeleton of a woman, whose skull presents in front a deep wound, made by a cutting instrument, but which did not kill her at once, as the bone has been partly repaired within; indeed our physicians think that she survived several weeks. By the side of the woman’s skeleton was that of an infant which had not arrived at its full time of fœtal development. The other skeletons ([Fig. 70], d) seem to have been those of men.
“Amidst the human remains lay a multitude of marine shells (about 300), each pierced with a hole, and nearly all belonging to the species Littorina littorea so common on our Atlantic coasts. Some other species, such as Purpura lapillus, Turritella communis, &c., occur, but in small numbers. These are also perforated, and, like the others, have been used for necklaces, bracelets, or other ornamental attire. Not far from the skeletons, I found a pendant or amulet of ivory, oval, flat, and pierced with two holes. M. Laganne had already discovered a smaller specimen; and M. Ch. Grenier, schoolmaster at Les Eyzies, has kindly given me another, quite similar, which he had received from one of his pupils. There were also found near the skeletons several perforated teeth, a large block of gneiss, split and presenting a large smoothed surface; also worked antlers of reindeer, and chipped flints, of the same types as those found in the hearth-layers underneath.
“... The presence, at all levels, of the same kind of flint scrapers, as finely chipped as those of the Gorge d’Enfer, and of the same animals as in that classic station, evidently shows them to be relics of the successive habitation of the Cro-Magnon shelter by the same race of nomadic hunters, who at first could use it merely as a rendezvous, where they came to share the spoils of the chase taken in the neighbourhood; but coming again, they made a more permanent occupation, until their accumulated refuse and the débris gradually raised the floor of the cave, leaving the inconvenient height of only 1·20 metre between it and the roof; and then they abandoned it by degrees, returning once more at last to conceal their dead there. No longer accessible, except perhaps to the foxes above noticed, this shelter, and its strange sepulture, were slowly and completely hidden from sight by atmospheric degradation bringing down the earthy covering, which, by its thickness, alone proves the great antiquity of the burial in the cave.”
These conclusions as to the age of the burial do not seem to me to be supported by the facts of the case. That the cave was inhabited by a tribe of palæolithic hunters there can be no doubt, but no evidence has been brought forward that it was used by them for the burial of their dead. They “abandoned it by degrees,” but what proof is there that they “returned once more to conceal their dead”? The interments are at a higher horizon than the strata of occupation, and therefore later, and although palæolithic implements have been found “near” them, the value of the latter, in indicating the date, is destroyed by their occurrence throughout the old floors below. If we suppose that long after the cave had been inhabited by the hunters of the reindeer, it was chosen by a family as a burial-place, all the conditions of the discovery will be satisfied. The pre-existent strata would be disturbed in the process of burial, and the burrowing of foxes, and possibly of rabbits, might bring the palæolithic implements into close association with the human bones. Taking the whole evidence into account, I should feel inclined to assign the interment to the neolithic age, in which cave-burial was so common; but whatever view be held, the facts do not warrant the human skeletons being taken as proving the physique of the palæolithic hunters of the Dordogne, or as a basis for an inquiry into the ethnology of the palæolithic races.
The largest cranium (see Table, [p. 236]), belonging to an old man, had the frontal region well developed, is orthognathic, with upturned nasals, and dolicho-cephalic. The occipital protuberance, or probole, is small. The bones of the extremity imply a stature of not less than five foot eleven inches for the man; the femur is carinate, and the tibiæ platycnemic (see [Fig. 48]).
The Cave of Lombrive.
The human bones, obtained by MM. Garrigou, Filhol, and Rames, from the cave of Lombrive[169] in the Department of Ariège, are, equally with those cited above, of doubtful antiquity. They were discovered on the superficial sandy loam, passing in places into a calcareous breccia, which rests at various levels in the chambers, passages, and fissures, along with bones of the brown-bear, urus, small ox, reindeer, stag, horse, and dog. From the occurrence of the reindeer the deposit is assigned to the palæolithic age. But since this animal has been proved to have been eaten in Scotland by the neolithic men of Caithness, and to have inhabited Britain in the prehistoric age, it is by no means improbable that it may also have lived in the region of the Pyrenees in post-pleistocene times. The presence of the dog and the small domestic ox (Bos longifrons?) fixes the date of the accumulation as not being earlier than prehistoric; for both those animals were introduced into Europe by neolithic peoples.
The two human skulls, described by Professor Vogt, from this deposit confirm this conclusion, since they are of the broad type, and differ in no important character (Thurnam) from those of the neolithic brachy-cephali of France and Belgium.
The Cave of Cavillon, near Mentone.
The cave of Cavillon, explored by M. Rivière, in 1872, in the neighbourhood of Mentone, a few hundred yards on the Italian side of the frontier of France, is another case of the occurrence of human remains in association with those of the extinct animals. The floor is composed of dark earth, full of charcoal and fragments of bones, mingled with blocks of stone which have dropped from the roof. Below it, at a depth of six and a half metres, a skeleton was met with, as well as flint-flakes, rude instruments of bone, and a number of shells perforated for suspension. The skull was covered with a head-dress of more than 200 perforated sea-shells. It rested in an attitude of repose, with the legs and arms bent,[170] as may be seen in the admirable photo-lithograph given by M. Rivière in the volume of the “International Congress of Prehistoric Archæology,” published at Brussels, pl. 6. The teeth and bones of hyæna, lion, woolly rhinoceros, mammoth, and other pleistocene animals occurred both in the soil above and below, and for that reason both the discoverer and Sir Charles Lyell believe that the interment dates back to the time when those animals were living. If, however, neolithic savages, or those of a later age, had buried the skeleton in the earth containing the extinct animals, all the circumstances which have been noticed, either by Mr. Pengelly or Mr. Moggridge,[171] may be satisfactorily explained. There are no stalagmites to divide one stratum from another, and were an interment made in the cave at the present time, the discoverer two or three centuries hence might assert, with equal justice, that it took place in the pleistocene age, because of the association with the animals characteristic of that remote period.