CAVES CONTAINING HUMAN REMAINS OF DOUBTFUL AGE.
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 Hole[155] 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. Schmerling[156] 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. Dupont[157] 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 Huxley[158] 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._
+-------------------------+-------+--------+-------+--------+--------+-------+
| | | | |Circum- |Cephalic|Altitu-|
| |Length.|Breadth.|Height.|ference.| index. | dinal |
| | | | | | | index.|
+-------------------------+-------+--------+-------+--------+--------+-------+
|Engis (Huxley) | 7·7 | 5·4 | -- | 20·5 | ·700 | -- |
|Trou du Frontal | | | | | | |
| (Pruner-Bey) | 6·9 | 5·6 | -- | 21·55 | ·811 | ·704 |
|Gailenreuth (Dawkins) | 6·82 | 5·5 | -- | 21·55 | ·813 | ·813 |
|Neanderthal | | | | | | |
| (Schaaffhausen) | 12·0 | 5·75 | -- | 23· | ·720 | -- |
|Cro-Magnon, No. 1 (Broca)| 7·95 | 5·86 | -- | 22·36 | ·730 | -- |
| ” ” 2 ” | 7·52 | 5·39 | -- | 21·26 | ·71 | -- |
| ” ” 3 ” | 7·94 | 5·94 | -- | 22·24 | ·74 | -- |
+-------------------------+-------+--------+-------+--------+--------+-------+
_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).
[Illustration: FIG. 69.--Section of the Trou du Frontal. (Dupont.)]
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. Lagneaux[162] 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 Gendron[163] 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. Buckland[164] 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.
[Illustration: FIG. 70.--Diagram of the Cave of Aurignac.]
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_.)
[Illustration: 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).
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_).
[Illustration: FIG. 72.--Detailed Section of the Cave of Cro-Magnon,
near Les Eyzies. Scale = 1/100 (1 centimetre to 1 metre).
A Débris of soft limestone.
B First layer of ashes, &c.
C Calcareous débris.
D Second layer of ashes, &c.
E Calcareous débris, reddened by fire under the next layer of
ashes, &c.
F Third layer of ashes, &c.
G Red earth, with bones, &c.
H Thickest layer of ashes, bones, &c.
I Yellowish earth, with bones, flints, &c.
J Thin bed of hearth-stuff.
K Calcareous débris.
L Rubbish of the Talus.
N Crack in the projecting ledge of rock.
P Projecting shelf of hard limestone.
Y Place of the pillar made to support the roof.
_a_ Tusk of an elephant.
_b_ Bones of an old man.
_c_ Block of gneiss.
_d_ Human bones.
_e_ Slabs of stone fallen from the roof at different times.
]
“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 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.
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.
[Illustration: FIG. 73.--Thigh-bone of child from Grotta dei Colombi
(Capellini). _a_, Cuts; _b_, Outline of corresponding thigh-bone from
cavern at Cefn.]
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]