human skeletons are rarely found in them. When this does occur, it generally shows that the corpse was buried in the fossil-bearing stratum long after its formation. M. Cartailhac, indeed, asserts that all the researches he has made justify him in declaring that every complete human skeleton found in the caves may be considered, à priori, as of later date than the fluviatile deposit in which it is contained.

This is, perhaps, too sweeping an assertion, but it should be remembered by those palæontologists who wish to avoid such mistakes as have been made, especially with regard to the human remains of Herm and Aurignac.

Schmerling, who has explored forty-eight Belgian caves, found human bones in only two or three of them. Lund, out of 800 Brazilian caves, which he examined, found only six containing human remains. These bones are always rather rare in the ossiferous caves belonging to the oldest stone age, but they become fairly common in the reindeer epoch, and still more so in the neolithic age.

If I am not mistaken, we possess hitherto only four or five authentic examples of the complete human skeleton, belonging undoubtedly to a very ancient epoch, the true palæolithic age. The first was discovered at Laugerie Basse (Dordogne) by MM. Massénat, Lalande, and Cartailhac, in a layer containing carved reindeer bones, an evidently undisturbed stratum, for it was covered with enormous blocks, detached from the rock which formed the vaulted roof of the shelter which served as a refuge to the troglodytes of the reindeer age, and which was preferred by them to other homes. The authors of this discovery rightly judged from these facts that they beheld the victim of a landslip, which occasionally took place at that remote epoch, as in our own day, and of which the traces still exist.

The skeleton of Laugerie Basse was lying on its side, and appeared to have originally been in a crouching posture. The left hand lay under the left parietal bone, the right the neck. The elbows fell nearly to the knees; one foot was close to the pelvis. The vertebral column had been

upon

ENTIRE SKELETONS.

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crushed by the corner of a great block, and the pelvis was broken; but all the bones retained their natural positions or were little removed from them. In a word, this skeleton presented exactly the appearance of a startled man, raising his hands to his head, and making himself suddenly as small as possible. Near the skeleton, and scattered in pairs, lay shells (Cypræa pyrum and Cypræa lurida) which had no doubt served to adorn some garment. Two pairs of these shells lay on the forehead, one pair nearly touching each humerus, four for the knees, and two at each foot.

The skeleton of Laugerie Basse is then a well authenticated example of human remains contemporary with the reindeer. Unfortunately, the authors of this important discovery have given us no detailed account of characteristics of the skeleton in question, which is so much the more to be regretted that it would have been of great interest to compare its skull with those of Bruniquel, of Furfooz, of Cro-Magnon, and with all those of the reindeer age, and even of earlier epochs.

Another entire skeleton, buried in the caves of the archæolithic epoch, was found on March 26, 1872, by M. Rivière, in one of the bone caves of Mentone,' at a depth of about twenty-one feet, along with numerous flint and bone implements,2 marine and land shells, and bones of mammalia, among others of Ursus spelæus, Hyæna spelaa, Felis antiqua, &c. This skeleton was lying on the left side, in the attitude of a man whom death had overtaken during sleep. A number of perforated shells of Nassa neritea, and a few stag's teeth, also perforated, were scattered here and there upon the skull, and it is probable that these teeth and shells were formerly part of some head ornament; other shells of the same species, symmetrically

In the cave of Cavillon, the fourth bone cave of the baoussé roussé (a patois word for red rocks).

2 These instruments belong to three different types, those of Moustier, of la Madelaine, and of polished stone. There is therefore reason to suppose that several epochs at once are represented in these In spite of several fractures the skull had preserved its form : it was dolichocephalous. The vertebral column, the ribs, and the bones of the limbs were nearly intact, and lay in their natural positions.

caves.

6

arranged, were probably also the ornaments of the dress. M. Rivière at the end of his report calls attention to the fact that the skeleton in question offers no characteristics which in any way proves it to be akin to monkeys, and that the human skulls which it most nearly resembles are those found at Cro-Magnon' (Périgord). Three other skeletons presenting the same characters as the above have since been found at Mentone.

If entire skeletons are rare in the caves of the palæolithic age, they are on the other hand fairly common in the burial caves of the neolithic period. As we shall have

occasion to speak of these caves where we treat of the burial grounds, we need only mention this fact in passing.

When isolated human bones, more or less entire, are intermixed with the remains of extinct species, when it is certain that the stratum in which they are found has not been disturbed, we may assume with certainty that these bones are really contemporary with the deposit in which they are imbedded. But these cases of indisputable synchronism are rare (jawbones of Arcy, of la Naulette, &c.).

Another criterion of the great age of human remains

WOUNDED HUMAN BONES.

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is furnished by the wounds made by stone weapons, of which some among them bear the marks or contain the fragments. Of this number is a human tibia found in the dolmen of Font Rial in Aveyron, which is pierced by a flint-headed arrow which had remained in the wound and had produced considerable exostosis. We may also cite as an example a female skull, discovered several years ago by M. Louis Lartet in the cave of Cro-Magnon, and of which the frontal bone showed a wound in process of healing, which was probably produced by a flint weapon (fig. 21).

The elder M. Lartet, in his remarkable work, 'Sur la coexistence de l'homme et des grands mammifères fossiles,' speaks of a Danish dolichocephalous skull of the stone age perforated by a lance-headed piece of the antler of an elk. Beside this skull lay thirty or forty skeletons also of a dolichocephalous race, and near them the stone weapons which the conquerors had used to slay their enemies.

Spring saw in the cave of Chauvaux, in Belgium, a human parietal bone in which the flint axe which had broken the victim's skull remained fixed. Nilsson, cited by Lubbock, says that in a tomb of the neolithic age attributed to Albus McGaldus, king of Scotland, a skeleton of extraordinary size was found in 1807, of which one arm had been almost separated from the trunk by a blow from an axe of diorite, of which a fragment still remained in the bone.

Lastly, M. Prunières discovered, in the caves of BaumesChaudes in Lozère, still more convincing proofs. These are human bones which still contain the flint heads of the arrows which wounded them. Often too these flint arrowheads are encased in a newly formed bony tissue, a clear proof that they had pierced the bone of the living subject and that the wounds had subsequently healed. Prunières has observed, moreover, that these flint arrow heads were not like those made by the inhabitants of the caves, but resembled those of the inhabitants of the See the Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie de Paris, p. 215, May 16, 1878.

M.

neighbouring dolmens, to whom therefore these wounds must be attributed.

Undoubtedly one of the most curious discoveries which has been made of late years, is that of pierced or rather

FIG. 22. TREPANNED SKULL TAKEN FROM A DOLMEN, AND PRESENTED BY M. PRUNIERES TO THE MUSEUM OF THE INSTITUT ANTHROPOLOGIQUE. (Half natural size.)

A B, Median line of the skull, passing the root of the nose at A, the crown of the head at c, the lambdoid suture at D, and the occiput at B; E, bone of the left eyebrow; F, bone of the right, fractured; a b, sickle-shaped edge of the surgical trepanning practised in childhood on the upper edge of the left parietal bone; dc, bd, edges of the posthumous trepanning. The suture, instead of following the median line CD, has been drawn considerably to the left.