The Caves of Paviland.—Engis.—Trou du Frontal.—Gendron.—Neanderthal.—Gailenreuth.—Aurignac.—Bruniquel.—Cro-Magnon.— Lombrive.—Cavillon, near Mentone.—Grotta dei Colombi in Island of Palmaria, inhabited by Cannibals.—General Conclusions.

There are many prehistoric caves in Britain and on the Continent which do not contain remains sufficiently characteristic to fix the date of their use, either for occupation or burial, unless the term neolithic be understood to cover the wide interval between the palÆolithic stage of the pleistocene on the one hand, and the bronze age on the other.

The Paviland Cave.

The Cave of Goat’s Hole155 at Paviland, in Glamorganshire, explored by Dr. Buckland in 1823, offers an instance of an interment having been made in a pre-existent deposit of the pleistocene age. It consists of a chamber facing to the sea, in a cliff of limestone 100 feet high, at a level of from 30 to 40 feet above the high-water mark. Its floor was composed of red loam, containing the remains of the woolly-rhinoceros, hyÆna, cave-bear, and mammoth. Close to a skull with tusks of the last animal a human skeleton (equalling in size the largest male skeleton in the Oxford Museum) was discovered; and in the soil, “which had apparently been disturbed by ancient diggings,” were fragments of charcoal, a small chipped flint, and the sea-shells of the neighbouring shore. Certain small ivory ornaments, found close to the skeleton, are considered by Dr. Buckland to have been carved out of the tusks of the mammoth near which they rested; and he justly remarks that, “as they must have been cut to their present shape at a time when the ivory was hard, and not crumbling to pieces, as it is at present at the slightest touch, we may from this circumstance assume for them a high antiquity.”

May we not also infer, from the fact of the manufactured ivory and the tusks from which it was cut being in precisely the same state of decomposition, that the tusks were preserved from decay, during the pleistocene times, by precisely the same agency as those now found perfect in the polar regions—namely, the intense cold; that after the skull of the mammoth had been buried in the cave, the tusks, thus preserved, were used for the manufacture of ornaments; and that, at some time subsequent to the interment of the ornaments with the corpse, a climatal change has taken place, by which the temperature in England, France, and Germany has been raised, and the ivory became decomposed that up to that time had preserved its gelatine? On this point it is worthy of remark that fossil tusks have been discovered in Scotland sufficiently perfect to be used as ivory. The ornaments may, however, not have been made from the fossil tusks. The presence of the bones of sheep underneath the remains of mammoth, bear, and other animals, coupled with the state of the cave earth, which had been disturbed before Dr. Buckland’s examination of the cave, would prove that the interment is not of pleistocene date. No traces of sheep or goat have as yet been afforded by any pleistocene deposit in Britain, France, or Germany.

Dr. Buckland’s conclusion, that the interment is relatively more modern than the accumulation with remains of the extinct mammalia, must be accepted as the true interpretation of the facts. The intimate association of the two sets of remains, of widely diverse ages, in this cave show that extreme care is necessary in cave exploration.

The Cave of Engis.

Human remains have been obtained from some of the caves of Belgium under circumstances which are generally considered to indicate that they are of the same antiquity as the skeletons of the animals with which they are associated. The possibility, however, of the contents of caves of different ages being mixed by the action of water, or by the burrowing of animals, or by subsequent interments, renders such an association of little value, unless the evidence be very decided. The famous human skull discovered by Dr. Schmerling156 in the cave of Engis, near LiÉge, in 1833, is a case in point. It was obtained from a mass of breccia, along with bones and teeth of mammoth, rhinoceros, horse, hyÆna, and bear; and subsequently M. Dupont157 found in the same spot a human ulna, other human bones, worked flints, and a small fragment of coarse earthenware. The discovery of this last is an argument in favour of the human remains being of a later date than the extinct mammalia, since pottery has not yet been proved to have been known to the palÆolithic races who co-existed with them, while it is very abundant in neolithic burial-places and tombs. The fact of all the objects being cemented together by calcareous infiltration is no test of relative age, which cannot be ascertained without distinct stratification, such as that in the caves of Wookey and Kent’s Hole.

It seems therefore to me, that the conditions of the discovery are too doubtful to admit of the conclusion of Sir Charles Lyell and other eminent writers, that the human remains are of palÆolithic age.

The skull is described by Professor Huxley158 as being of average size, its contour agreeing equally well with some Australian and European skulls; it presents no marks of degradation, “and is in fact a fair average human skull, which might have belonged to a philosopher, or might have contained the thoughtless brains of a savage.” Its measurements fall within the limits of the long-skulls described in the preceding chapter, and it certainly belongs to the same class. The following Table will show the variation in size and form of the skulls mentioned in this chapter:

Measurements of Skulls of doubtful antiquity.

Trou du Frontal.

The human skeletons in the Trou du Frontal, situated in a picturesque limestone cliff on the banks of the Lesse, near Furfooz, are considered by M. Dupont to be of the same age as the contents of the caves close by the Trou des Nutons and Trou Rosette, which have been inhabited by palÆolithic savages. The following is the section (Fig.69) which he gives of the deposits. Close to the river Lesse is the alluvium (No. 1), below which is a clay (No. 2), with angular blocks passing upwards under the rock shelter, and filling the cave. Under this is a stratum of loam (No. 3), resting on gravel (No. 4). Sixteen human skeletons were discovered in the sepulchral cavity (S), at the mouth of which was a large slab of rock (D), by which it was originally blocked up. A singular urn, with a round bottom and with the handles perforated for suspension, was found at the entrance, together with flint flakes, ornaments in fluorine, and eocene shells perforated for suspension. Outside, at the points H H, was an accumulation of broken bones, belonging to the lemming, tailless hare (Lagomys), beaver, wild cat, boar, horse, stag, urus, chamois, goat, and other animals, birds and fishes. From the occurrence of fragments belonging to two reindeer, it is considered by M. Dupont to belong to the reindeer age. The old hearth was close by, at F (Fig.69).

From this section we may infer, that the rock-shelter was used by man at the points H H and F before the formation of the stratum No. 2, which is probably merely subaerial rain-wash, due to the disintegration of the adjacent rocks, and that the sepulchral cavity was a place of burial either before, or while No. 2 was accumulated. Can we further conclude that there is any necessary connection between the refuse-heap and the sepulchre in point of time? M. Dupont holds that the contents of all the caves in the cliff are palÆolithic, and that the sepulchral cavity is therefore of that age.159 It seems to me, however, that the evidence in favour of this view is not conclusive. The burial place may have belonged to one people, and the refuse-heaps in the neighbouring caves and outside the slab in the rock-shelter of the Trou du Frontal to another. The form of the urn is remarkably like some of those which have been obtained from the neolithic pile-dwellings of Switzerland, and therefore may possibly imply that the interment is of that age.

The human remains were mixed pÊle mÊle with stones and yellow clay within the chamber. Two skulls, sufficiently perfect to allow of measurement, show that their possessors were broad-headed (brachy-cephalic), and of the same type as those of Sclaigneaux. They are considered by the late Dr. Pruner-Bey to belong to the “type Mongoloide,” and are believed by M. Dupont to prove that the palÆolithic inhabitants of Belgium were a Mongoloid race. They seem, however, to be of the same general order as the broad-skulls from the neolithic caves and tombs of France, and from the round barrows of Great Britain, as well as those from the neolithic tombs of Borreby and MoËn in Scandinavia. And they are looked upon by MM. de Quatrefages, Virchow, and Lagneaux,160 as presenting the same type as that which is to be recognized in the present population of Belgium, in the neighbourhood, for example, of Antwerp.

These affinities may be explained by the view advanced by Dr. Thurnam, that the broad-heads of the British, French, and Scandinavian tombs are cognate with the modern Fin; or by the higher generalisation of Prof. Huxley, that the Swiss “Dissentis” skull, the South German, the Sclavonian, and the Finnish, belong to one great race of fair-haired, broad-headed, Xanthochroi “who have extended across Europe from Britain to Sarmatia, and we know not how much further to the east and south.”161

Besides these broad crania, M. Lagneaux162 calls attention to a fragment, sufficiently perfect to indicate a skull of the long type (trÈs dolicho-cÉphale), and that differed from them in many other particulars. In the Trou du Frontal, therefore, there is proof that a long and a short-headed race lived in Belgium side by side, just as a similar association in the cave of Orrouy establishes the same conclusion as to the neolithic dwellers in France. And since skulls of both these types have been discovered in the neolithic caves of Sclaigneaux and Chauvaux, the interment in the Trou du Frontal may probably be referred to that date.

The Cave of Gendron.

The sepulchral cave of Gendron163 on the Lesse, in which fourteen skeletons were discovered lying at full length, and in regular order, along with one flake and some fragments of pottery, is of uncertain age, since those articles were found at the entrance, and have no necessary connection with the interments. And if they were deposited at the same time, M. Dupont’s view that they stamp the neolithic age is rendered untenable by the fact that flakes and rude pottery were in use as late as the date of the Roman conquest of Britain, and are frequently met with in association with articles of bronze and of iron. And for the same reasons the neolithic age of the human bones in the Trou de Sureau and of the Trou de Pont-À-Lesse is open to considerable doubt. The contents, however, prove these caves to be post-pleistocene.

Cave of Gailenreuth.

The same uncertainty overhangs the age of the interments in the cave of Gailenreuth, in Franconia, from which Dr. Buckland164 obtained a human skull of the same broad type as that from Sclaigneaux, along with fragments of black coarse pottery, one of which is ornamented with a line of finger-impressions. The skull is remarkable for the great width of the parietal protuberances, and the flattening of the upper and posterior region of the parietal bone. Its measurements are given in the Table, p. 236, from which it will be seen that it belongs to the same class of skulls as those from the neolithic caves and tumuli of France.

Cave of Neanderthal.

The extraordinary skull found in 1857 in the cave of Neanderthal,165 by Dr. Fuhlrott, with some of the other bones of the skeleton, was not associated with any other animals from which its age could be inferred. “Under whatever aspect,” writes Professor Huxley, “we view this cranium, whether we regard its vertical depression, the enormous thickness of its supraciliary ridges, its sloping occiput, or its long and straight squamosal suture, we meet with ape-like characters, stamping it as the most pithecoid of human crania yet discovered. But Prof. Schaaffhausen states that the cranium, in its present condition, holds 1033·24 cubic centimetres of water, or about 63 cubic inches, and as the entire skull could hardly have held less than an additional 12 cubic inches, its capacity may be estimated at about 75 cubic inches, which is the average capacity given by Morton for Polynesian and Hottentot skulls.

So large a mass of brain as this would alone suggest that the pithecoid tendencies, indicated by this skull, did not extend deep into the organization, and this conclusion is borne out by the dimensions of the other bones of the skeleton, given by Prof. Schaaffhausen, which show that the absolute height and relative proportions of the limbs were quite those of a European of middle stature. The bones are indeed stouter, but this, and the great development of the muscular ridges noted by Dr. Schaaffhausen, are characters to be expected in savages. The Patagonians, exposed without shelter or protection to a climate possibly not very dissimilar from that of Europe at the time during which the Neanderthal man lived, are remarkable for the stoutness of their limb-bones.

In no sense, then, can the Neanderthal bones be regarded as the remains of a human being intermediate between men and apes; at most they demonstrate the existence of a man whose skull may be said to revert somewhat towards the pithecoid type—just as a carrier, or a poulter, or a tumbler may sometimes put on the plumage of its primitive stock, the Columba livia.”

This skull, like the preceding, belongs to the dolicho-cephalic division, reaching the enormous length of twelve inches, with a parietal breadth of 5·75.

A long-skull found near Ledbury Hill in Derbyshire, and belonging to the river-bed type of Prof. Huxley, comes so close to this one of Neanderthal, that were it flattened a little and elongated, and possessed of larger supraciliary ridges, it would be converted into the nearest likeness which has yet been discovered.166

The Caves of France.—Aurignac.

In the cave of Neanderthal, the question of the antiquity of the human remains is not complicated by the juxtaposition of extinct pleistocene animals or of palÆolithic implements. Those caves, however, in France which claim especial attention, Aurignac, Bruniquel, and Cro-Magnon, are equally famous for their interments, and the palÆolithic implements which they have furnished, along with the remains of the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, and other extinct animals.

They have both been inhabited by palÆolithic man, and been used some time for burial. Does the period of habitation coincide with that of the burial? This important question has been answered almost universally in the affirmative, and the interments are viewed as evidence of a belief in the supra-natural among the most ancient inhabitants of Europe, as well as offering examples of their physique. The famous cave of Aurignac, near the town of that name, in the department of the Haute Garonne, was explored and described by the late M. Ed. Lartet, and his conclusions were adopted by Sir Charles Lyell in the first three editions of the “Antiquity of Man.” In the fourth edition,167 however, the latter author, after a reconsideration of all the circumstances, qualifies his acceptance of the palÆolithic age of the interments, and shares the doubts which have been expressed by Sir John Lubbock and Mr. John Evans. The evidence is as follows:—

M. Lartet’s account falls naturally into two parts: first, the story which he was told by the original discoverer of the cave; and, secondly, that in which the results of his own discoveries are described. We will begin with the first. In the year 1852, a labourer, named Bonnemaison, employed in mending the roads, put his hand into a rabbit-hole (Fig.70, f), and drew out a human bone, and having his curiosity excited, he dug down until, as his story goes, he came to a great slab of rock. Having removed this, he discovered on the other side a cavity seven or eight feet in height, ten in width, and seven in depth, almost full of human bones, which Dr. Amiel, the Mayor of Aurignac, who was a surgeon, believed to represent at least seventeen individuals. All these human remains were collected, and finally committed to the parish cemetery, where they rest to the present day, undisturbed by sacrilegious hands. Fortunately, however, Bonnemaison in digging his way into the grotto, had met with the remains of extinct animals, and works of art; and these were preserved until, in 1860, M. Lartet accidentally heard of the discovery, and investigated the circumstances on the spot. He found that Bonnemaison, and the sexton who had buried the human remains, had taken so little note of the place where they were interred, that it could not be identified, and on examining the cave he found that the interior had been ransacked, and the original stratification to a great extent disturbed. M. Lartet’s exploration showed that a stratum containing the remains of the cave-bear, lion, rhinoceros, hyÆna, mammoth, bison, horse, and other animals, and palÆolithic implements, like those of PÉrigord, extended from the plateau (d) outside into (b) the cave. On the outside he met with ashes, and burnt and split bones, which proved that it had been used as a feasting-place by the palÆolithic hunters; within he detected no traces of charcoal, and no traces of the hyÆnas, which were abundant outside. Inside he met with a few human bones in the earth which Bonnemaison had disturbed, which were in the same mineral condition as those of the extinct animals, and he, therefore, inferred that they were of the same age. Such is the summary of the facts which M. Lartet discovered. He has, of his own personal knowledge, only proved that Aurignac was occupied by a tribe of hunters during the palÆolithic age, and that it had been used as a burial-place.

Is he further justified in concluding that the period of palÆolithic occupation coincides with that in which the burial took place? Bonnemaison’s recollections may be estimated at their proper value by the significant fact, that, in the short space of eight years intervening between the discovery and the exploration, he had forgotten where the skeletons had been buried. And even if his account be true in the minutest detail, it does not afford a shadow of evidence in favour of the cave having been a place of sepulchre in palÆolithic times, but merely that it had been so used at some time or another. If we turn to the diagram constructed by M. Lartet to illustrate his views (“Ann. des Sc. Nat. Zool.,” 4^e sÉr., t. xv., pl. 10), and made for the most part from Bonnemaison’s recollections; or to the amended diagram (Fig.70) given by Sir Charles Lyell (“Antiquity of Man,” 1st ed., Fig. 25), we shall see that the skeletons are depicted above the stratum (b) containing the palÆolithic implements and pleistocene mammalia; and therefore, according to the laws of geological evidence, they must have been buried after the subjacent deposit was accumulated. The previous disturbance of the cave-earth does away with the conclusion, that the few human bones found by M. Lartet are of the same age as the extinct mammalia in the deposit. The absence of charcoal inside was quite as likely to be due to the fact that a fire kindled inside would fill the grotto with smoke, while outside the palÆolithic savage could feast in comfort, as to the view that the ashes are those of funereal feasts in honour of the dead within, held after the slab had been placed at the entrance. The absence of the remains of hyÆnas from the interior is also negative evidence, disproved by subsequent examination.

The researches of the Rev. S.W. King, in 1865, complete the case against the current view of the palÆolithic character of the interments, since they show that M. Lartet did not fully explore the cave, and that he consequently wrote without being in possession of all the facts. The entrance was blocked up, according to Bonnemaison, by a slab of stone, which, if the measurements of the entrance be correct, must have been at least nine feet long and seven feet high, placed, according to M. Lartet, to keep the hyÆnas from the corpses of the dead. It need hardly be remarked, that the access of these bone-eating animals to the cave would be altogether incompatible with the preservation of the human skeletons, had they been buried at the same time. The enormous slab was never seen by M. Lartet, and it did not keep out the hyÆnas. In the collection made by the Rev. S. W. King from the interior there are two hyÆnas’ teeth, and nearly all the antlers and bones bear the traces of the gnawing of these animals. The cave, moreover, has two entrances instead of one, as M. Lartet supposed when his paper in the “Annales” was published. The bones of the sheep, or goat, also obtained from the inside, and preserved in the Christy Museum, afford strong evidence that the interment is not palÆolithic; and a fragment of pottery, agreeing exactly with that used in the neolithic age, probably indicates its relative antiquity. This conclusion has also been arrived at by the two most recent explorers, MM. Cartaillac and Gautier.

The skeletons, therefore, in the Aurignac cave cannot be taken to be of the same age as the stratum on which they rested; but, so far as there is any evidence, may probably be referred to the neolithic age, in which the custom of burial in caves prevailed throughout Europe.

Cavern of Bruniquel.

The famous cavern of Bruniquel, explored by the Vicomte de Lastic in 1863–4,168 and described by Professor Owen, is also one of the class which has furnished human bones, along with the remains of the extinct mammalia. It penetrates a cliff in the Jurassic limestone, opposite the little village of Bruniquel (Tarn and Garonne), about forty feet above the level of the river Aveyron. The bottom was covered with a sheet of stalagmite, resting on earth and blocks of stone, for the most part finely cemented into a breccia, that is black with the particles of carbon constituting the “limon noir” of the workmen, four or five feet thick, beneath which is the “limon rouge,” or red earth without charcoal, from three to four feet thick. Every part of the breccia is charged with the broken remains of the wolf, rhinoceros, horse, reindeer, stag, Irish elk and bison, and palÆolithic implements of flint and bone; some of the latter having well-executed designs of the heads of horses and reindeer, which prove that the cave had been used as a place of habitation by the hunters of those animals. Imbedded in the breccia at a depth of from three to five feet human bones were met with, and in two recesses several individuals, including a child, were found, one of which Professor Owen and the Vicomte de Lastic disinterred with sufficient care to prove that the body had been buried in the crouching posture. The only calvarium sufficiently perfect to allow of a comparison belonged to the dolicho-cephalic type, and was very fairly developed.

Professor Owen infers, from the intimate association of the human bones with the palÆolithic implements and mammalia, that the cave of Bruniquel was used as a burial-place by the same people who had used it for habitation, and advances, in support of this, that the bones of man and of the animals are exactly in the same state of preservation, having lost the same amount of gelatine. The evidence, however, does not seem to be altogether conclusive. If the interment had been made after the palÆolithic inhabitants had forsaken the cave, the association of the human bones with the refuse bones in their old refuse-heap must inevitably have taken place. And if, further, water charged with carbonate of lime percolated the mass, it would be converted into a hard breccia, and ultimately covered with a sheet of stalagmite. This calcification may have taken place in modern times. A modern bone, as Mr. Evans has observed in the case of Aurignac, may lose its gelatine in a comparatively short time, and become chemically identical with those which have been imbedded in the same matrix for long ages. The mineral condition, therefore, is an uncertain test of relative antiquity.

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.)

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).

At the time of its discovery in 1868, in the course of making an embankment for the railway close by, and of obtaining material for mending the roads, it was completely blocked up. On the removal of this (b), by the contractors MM. BertoÚ-MeyroÚ and DelmarÉs, the entrance was exposed, and human remains and worked flints revealed, which were carefully exhumed in the presence of MM. Laganne, Galy, and Simon. At this stage of the exploration M. Louis Lartet was deputed, by the Minister of Public Instruction, to superintend the work, and from his report the following account is taken (Lartet and Christy, “Rel. Aq.,” p. 66) by the courtesy of the editors.

“The cave of Cro-Magnon is formed by a projecting ledge of cretaceous limestone (rich with fossil corals and polyzoans), having a thickness of 8 metres and a length of 17 metres (Fig.72, P). The bed which it overlies, and the destruction of which has given rise to the cave, abounds with Rhynchonella vespertilio, which is a type fossil, fixing the geological horizon. The dÉbris of this marly and micaceous limestone had accumulated on the original floor of the cavern to a great thickness, at least for 0·70 metres (see Fig.72, A), when the hunters of the reindeer stopped here for the first time, leaving as a trace of their short stay a blackish layer (Fig.72, B), from 0·05 to 0·15 metre thick, containing worked flints, bits of charcoal, broken or calcined bones, and in its upper portion the elephant tusk before alluded to (Fig.72, a).

“This first hearth is covered by a layer (C), 0·25 metre thick, of calcareous dÉbris, detached bit by bit from the roof, during the temporary disuse of the shelter. Then follows another thin layer of hearth-stuff (D), 0·10 metre thick, also containing pieces of charcoal, bones, and worked flints. This bed is in its turn overlain by a layer of fallen limestone rubbish (E), 0·50 metre thick. Lastly, there is over these a series of more important layers, all of them containing, in different proportions, charcoal, bones (broken, burnt, and worked), worked flints (of different types, but chiefly scrapers), flint cores, and pebbles of quartz, granites, &c. from the bed of the VezÈre, and bearing numerous marks of hammering. Altogether these layers seem to have reference to a period during which the cave was inhabited, if not continuously, at least at intervals so short as not to admit of intercalations of dÉbris falling from the roof between the different hearth-layers which correspond with the successive phases of this (the third) period of habitation. The first (lowest) of these layers (F) is full of charcoal, and has a thickness of 0·20 metre; it does not touch the back of the cave, but extends a little further than the earlier layers. At its line of contact with the calcareous dÉbris beneath, the latter is strongly reddened with the action of fire.

“On the last-mentioned hearth-layer is a bed of unctuous reddish earth (G), 0·30 metre thick, containing similar objects, though in less quantities. Last in succession is a carbonaceous bed (H), the widest and thickest of all, having an average thickness of 0·30 metre; at the edges it is only 0·10 metre thick; but in the centre, where it cuts into the subjacent deposits, which were excavated by the inhabitants in making the principal hearth, it attains a depth of 1·60 metre. This bed, being by far the richest in pieces of charcoal, in bones, pebbles of quartz, worked flints, flint cores, and bone implements, such as points or dart-heads, arrowheads, &c., may be regarded as indicative of a far more prolonged habitation than the previous.

“Above this thick hearth-layer is a bed of yellowish earth (I), rather argillaceous, also containing bones, flints, and implements of bone, as well as amulets or pendants. This appears to be limited upwards by a carbonaceous bed (J), very thin, and of little extent, 0·05 metre thick, which M. Laganne observed before my arrival, but of which only slight traces remained afterwards.

“It was on the upper part of this yellow band (I), and at the back of the cave, that the human skeletons and the accessories of the sepulture were met with; and all of them were found in the calcareous dÉbris (K), except in a small space in the furthest hollow at the back of the cave. This last deposit also contains some worked flints, mixed up with broken bones, and with some uninjured bones referable to small rodents and to a peculiar kind of fox.

“Lastly, above these different layers, and all over the shelter itself, lay the rubbish of the talus (four to six metres thick), sufficient in itself, according to what we have said above about its mode of formation, to carry back the date of the sepulture to a very distant period in the prehistoric age.

“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 foetal 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 Lombrive169 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.

The superficial portions of the cave-earth had certainly been disturbed, and there is no evidence that the disturbance did not extend down to the horizon where the skeleton rested. Nevertheless, Mr. Pengelly concludes that the interment is of palÆolithic age from its analogy with that of Cro-Magnon and Paviland, which we have seen to be of equally doubtful antiquity. It seems to me that this conclusion, which is almost universally accepted, is not warranted by the facts, and that it cannot be used in support of any speculation as to the condition of man in the pleistocene age.

The skull is described by M. RiviÈre as long, the thigh-bones are strongly carinate, and the tibiÆ are platycnemic as in the case of those from Cro-Magnon, Gibraltar, Sclaigneaux, and North Wales.

Grotta dei Colombi in Island of Palmaria, inhabited by Cannibals.

We are indebted to Professor Capellini for an account of the exploration of the Grotta dei Colombi, a cave in a vertical cliff in the island of Palmaria,172 overlooking to the south the Gulf of Spezzia. In the red loam, composing the floor, were numerous flakes and scrapers, a rounded “striker” of Saussurite, quartz, pebbles, fragments of pottery, a bone needle, a whistle made of the first phalange of a goat’s foot, shells perforated for suspension, Natica mille-punctata, Pectunculus glycimeris, and Patella cÆrulea, together with bones of goat, hog, ox, wolf, wild cat, and broken and cut human bones belonging to children and young adults.

Among the remains Professor Capellini draws attention in particular to the thigh-bones, scorched by fire, one of which bears incisions on its posterior face made by a flint implement in cutting away the flesh (Pl. 73, a), and is also marked by scraping. He considers that they belong to an ape, closely allied to the Macacus innuus of Gibraltar and North Africa, and concludes, therefore, that the animal was living in Palmaria at the time that the cave was inhabited. This identification is forbidden by the spongy texture, the rounded contour, and the absence of epiphyses that imply that the bone was very young, and that in the adult it would be far larger than any thigh-bone of the apes. On comparing his figures with eight femora belonging to young children, from the cairn at Cefn, and the caves at Perthi-Chwareu, I find that they agree in every particular with two, the flattening of the inferior extremity, considered by Prof. Calori to be a non-human character, being equally met with in all, and being relatively greater in the younger than the older. They offer, therefore, unmistakeable proof that the inhabitants of the cave were cannibals (Fig.73). I am informed by my friend, Prof. Busk, that the bone figured belonged to a child about eight years old. The outline b in the figure represents the contour of one of the femora from the cavern at Cefn, described in the fifth chapter.

In this cave, as in those quoted above, there are no polished stone implements, or works of art, that establish that these feasts were carried on in the cave by neolithic cannibals, for the rude flint-flakes and bone articles, taken by Professor Capellini to fix its date, are common both to the palÆolithic and the bronze ages. Nevertheless, since the inhabitants have left behind no trace of any metal, and since their food was wholly supplied by the existing animals, they were probably in the neolithic stage of culture, if this be taken to cover the wide interval extending from the pleistocene to the age of bronze. They are proved, by the rudeness of their implements, to have been savages of a very low order. We may gather from various allusions, and stories scattered through the classical writers, such for example as that of the Cyclops, that the caves on the shores of the Mediterranean were inhabited by cannibals in ancient times. In the island of Palmaria we meet with unmistakeable proof that it was no mere idle tale or poetical dream. But we have no proof that cannibalism was universally practised at any stage in the history of man. All the caves of Europe, explored up to the present time, merely afford some three or four examples in the neolithic and bronze ages. In the pleistocene there is no instance which is devoid of doubt. This atrocious practice is therefore to be viewed as abnormal, and it probably became ingrafted into the religious ideas of the nations of antiquity from the horror by which it was surrounded, ultimately surviving in the form of human sacrifices to the offended gods.

General Conclusions as to Prehistoric Caves.

We have seen in the fifth and sixth chapters that the prehistoric caves which are so unimportant in the ages of bronze and iron, were used in the neolithic age throughout western Europe both for habitation and burial, and that they therefore offer us most valuable materials for working out the ethnology of Europe at that remote time. The two races of men, the remains of which they contain, are represented by the modern Basque and Berber on the one hand, and on the other by the Celt, and in Russia and Germany by the cognate Finn, Sclave, and Wend. And since all the human remains described in the present chapter, those of Cro-Magnon and possibly of the Grotta dei Colombi being exempted, belong to one of other of these types, they may be referred to the neolithic age with a high degree of probability. In the present stage of the inquiry, it is much safer to put them into a distinct class, apart from those to which we can assign a relative age with tolerable certainty.

In the long ages which elapsed between the close of the pleistocene period and the dawn of history other races than these may have occupied Europe, and have passed away without leaving any clue as to their identity. But in the present state of our knowledge we are justified only in concluding, that the oldest population in prehistoric times was non-Aryan, the traces of which are left behind not merely in the caves and tombs, but in language,173 and in the small dark-haired inhabitants of western and southern Europe.

The prehistoric peoples lived under physical conditions very different from those of central and western Europe at the present time; the surface of the country being covered with rock, forest, and morass, which afforded shelter to the elk, bison, urus, stag, megaceros, and wild boar, as well as to innumerable wolves. They arrived from the east with cereals and domestic animals, some of which, such as the Bos longifrons and Sus palustris, reverted to their original wild state. From the very exigencies of their position they lived partly by hunting, and they gradually pushed their way westward, carrying with them the rudiments of that civilization which we ourselves possess. It is an open question whether they came into contact with the palÆolithic races which preceded them.

The climate which they enjoyed was sufficiently severe to allow the reindeer to inhabit the district on which now stands the city of London, and its severity may also be inferred from the thickness of the bark of the Scotch firs, observed by Mr. Godwin-Austen in the submarine forests of the south of England, and by Mr. James Geikie in those of Scotland. The area of Great Britain was greater then, than now, since a plain extended seawards from the coast-line, nearly everywhere, supporting a dense forest of Scotch fir, oak, birch, and alder, the relics of which are to be seen in the beds of peat, and the stumps of the trees, near low-water mark on most of our shores. And it may be inferred that the forest extended a considerable distance from the present sea margin, from the large size of the trunks of the trees.174