Tombs.
The true history of man will be found in his tombs, says Thucydides;
and as a matter of fact the sepulchre has ever occupied much of the
thoughts of man, the result of a religious sentiment, a conviction
that all does not end with the life which so quickly passes by.
From the very earliest times we meet with tokens of the hopes and
fears connected with a future existence; but, as I have already
stated, the human bones that can with certainty be said to date
from Palaeolithic times are very rare. We know but very few facts
justifying us in asserting that the contemporary of the mammoth and
of the cave bear had already learnt to respect the remains of what
had once been a man like himself. One of these few facts deserves,
I think, to be noticed with some detail.
In 1886, excavations in the cave of Spy[276] (Namur), or rather in a
terrace some thirty-six feet long by nineteen and a half wide giving
access to it, brought to light two human skeletons. One was that of
an individual already advanced in life, probably of the feminine sex,
the other of a man in the prime of life. These skeletons were imbedded
in a very hard breccia containing also fragments of ivory and numerous
flints of very small size. Some of them had very fine scratches on both
sides. From what I could learn on the spot, the skeletons when found
were in a recumbent position. The bones, few of which were missing,
were still in their natural position, and near to one of them were
picked up several arrow- or lance-heads, one of which, of phtanite,
some two and a half inches long, was of the purest Mousterien type. The
bones were those of short, squat individuals, and the skulls were of
the type of the Canstadt race, the most ancient of which anything is
known; the thickness of the crania was about one third of an inch. The
forehead, is low and retreating, the eyebrows are prominent, and the
lower jaws strong and well developed.
At the same level and in that immediately above it were picked up
the remains of the mammoth, the RHINOCEROS TICHORHINUS, the cave
bear, and the large cave hyena, the reindeer, and numerous other
mammals belonging to the Quaternary fauna. Everything points to the
conclusion that the man and woman whose remains have so opportunely
come to light were contemporary with these animals, and that their
bodies were placed after death in the cave in which they were found.
Belgium has furnished numerous examples of sepulchral caves, of a
date, however, less ancient than that we have been considering. Recent
excavations in the Chauvaux Cave revealed two skeletons leaning against
the walls in a crouching position, the legs tucked under the body. In
the Gendron Cave M. Dupont discovered seventeen skeletons lying in a
low, narrow passage, stretched out at full length with the feet toward
the wall, and arranged in twos and threes, one above the other. In the
middle of all these dead was the skeleton of one man placed upright,
as if to watch over the other bodies.
The Duruthy Cave at Sordes opens near the point of junction of the
waters of the Pan and Oloron, whence their united waters flow into
the Adour. At the northern extremity of this cave is a natural niche
in which lay more than thirty skeletons, some of men, some of women,
and some of children, mixed together in the greatest confusion. Worked
flints, bone stilettos, and ornaments lay around, all. of the forms
characteristic of Palaeolithic times.
It would seem that we have here evidence of the practice of a funeral
rite, which consisted in first stripping the bodies of flesh, and
then laying the bones in caves, where they were often left unnoticed
by the living occupants of the same refuge.[277]
The caves of Baousse-Rousse, near Mentone, give fresh proof of the
extension of this rite, if we may so call it. The skeletons lay upon
a bed of powdered iron ore, in some cases as much as two fifths of an
inch thick, and this accumulation could not have taken place if the
skeleton had not been deprived of its flesh before inhumation. The
flesh must have been taken off by some rapid process, for the bones
remain, as a general rule, in their natural positions, united by
their tendons and ligaments. In Italy, says Issel, the cave men
buried their dead in the caves they lived in, a thin layer of earth
alone separating them from the living; the bodies, adds Pigorini,[278]
generally lay on the left side, the head rested on the left hand, and
the knees were bent. Beside the skeleton was placed a vase containing
red chalk, to be used for painting the body in the new world it was
supposed to be about to enter.
We could quote similar discoveries in Sicily, Belgium, and the southern
Pyrenees. Beneath the tumulus of Plouhennec, in Brittany, bones were
strewn about in the greatest disorder. Some archaeologists are of
opinion that the openings in certain dolmens were used for throwing in
the bones of the dead who successively went to join their ancestors. In
many of the Long Barrows of England the bones appear to have been
flung in pell-mell; the space was too narrow to hold the complete body,
so that before inhumation the flesh must have been separated from the
bones. In no other way can we explain the confusion in which the human
remains lay when they were discovered.[279] Pigorini thinks this is
a proof that primitive races worshipped their dead, and held their
bodies in veneration.[280] Perhaps they even carried them about in
their migrations. However that may be, the custom of separating the
flesh from the bones was continued until cremation became general. This
would explain the huge ossuaries found in regions so widely separated.
Although, however, the mode of sepulture we have just described was
practised for a long time in certain places, we cannot admit it to have
been general. In certain megalithic tombs we find dispositions similar
to those described in speaking of the Gendron Cave. Excavations beneath
the Port-Blanc dolmen (Morbihan) brought to light a rough pavement on
which lay numbers of skeletons, closely packed one against another,
which skeletons were probably those of men who had been held in honor,
and to commemorate whom the dolmen was set up. Separated from them
by a layer of stones and earth rested another series of skeletons,
not so closely packed as the first. The new-comers had respected
their predecessors, and no one had violated the sanctuary of the
dead. Similar facts were noted at Grand Compans, near Luzarches,[281]
and it is evident that successive inhumations beneath dolmens often
took place, and instances might, if necessary, be multiplied.
Another singular funeral rite was practised in remote antiquity. Many
of the bones found in the various caves of Mentone were colored with
red hematite.[282] As this was only the case with the bones of adults,
those of children retaining their natural whiteness, it evidently
had some special significance. In 1880, the opening of a cave of
the Stone age in the district of Anagni, a short distance from Rome,
brought to light the facial portion of a human cranium, colored bright
red with cinnabar. Nor are these by any means exceptional cases, for
similar coloration was noticed on bones picked up at Finalmarina and
several other places in Liguria and Sicily. The custom had therefore
become general in the Neolithic period in the whole of the Italian
peninsula.[283] We also meet with it in other countries; at the
Prehistoric Congress, when in session at Lisbon, Dolgado added to
what was said about the discoveries in Italy the fact that the cave
men of Furninha practised a similar rite. In the KURGANES of the
department of Kiev crania were found colored with a mineral substance,
fragments of which were strewn about near the skeletons. The most
ancient of the KURGANES appear to date from the Stone age, for in
them were found implements made of flint and reindeer-horn, mixed
with the bones of rodents[284] long since extinct in that district. A
similar practice is met with in the tombs of Poland, many bones being
covered with a coating of red color, in some instances one fifth of
an inch thick. Excavations in the Kitor valley (province of Irkutsk,
Siberia have brought to light several tombs which appear to date
from the sauce period as the KURGANES of Kiew. The dead were buried
with the weapons and ornaments they would like to use in the new life
which had begun for them. The tomb was then filled in with sand, with
which care was taken to mix plenty of red ochre. It is difficult not
to conclude that this was a relic of a rite fallen into desuetude.
At the present day certain tribes of North America expose their dead on
the tops of trees, and before burying the bones, when stripped of their
flesh, cover them with a coating of a bright red color. In the island
of Espiritu Santo many human bones have also been picked up painted
with an oxide of argillaceous iron. These customs, strange as they
may appear, were evidently practised in honor of ancestors; atavism
is as clearly shown in customs and traditions as in physical structure.
At Solutre is a sepulchre formed of unhewn slabs of stone. The body
of the dead rested on a thick bed of the broken and crushed bones of
horses. The remains of reindeer were mixed with the human bones. Were
these too relics of funeral rites, and were the animal bones those
of the horses and reindeer that had belonged to their hunter? It
is impossible to say. Solutre, situated as it was on an admirable
site on a hill overlooking the valley of the Seine, protected from
the north winds and close to a plentiful stream, has also been a
favorite resort of man. In the tombs all ages are mixed together,
and if some do indeed date from Neolithic times, others are Roman,
Burgundian, Merovingian. There may be among them a certain number
dating from the Reindeer period; that is about all we can assert
with any certainty in the present state of our knowledge. The Abbe
Ducrost, however, in an important essay[285] asserts that he has found
incontrovertible proofs of the interment of Solutreens on the hearths
of their homes in Palaeolithic times. If this be so, the custom is
one of frequent occurrence, and has been continued for centuries;
for De Colanges, in his fine work on ancient cities, shows that at
Rome the earliest tombs were on the hearth itself of the dwelling. De
Mortillet, on the other hand, dwells very earnestly on the mode of
inhumation at Solutre, and sees in the juxtaposition of human remains
and the DEBRIS of hearths but the result of displacement, and of the
regular turning upside down of which the hill of Solutre has been
the scene. To this Reinach replied, to the effect that, whereas a few
years ago De Mortillet's authority led many archaeologists to suppose
that the men of the Reindeer period did not bury their dead, facts,
ever more important than theories, have now proved beyond a doubt
that this very decided opinion is a mistake. Not only did the men
of remote antiquity bury their dead; they laid them, as at Solutre,
on the hearths near which they had lived.[286]
The dead were often buried seated or bent forward, and it is
interesting to note the same custom beneath the mounds of America and
the tumuli of Europe. It is touching to see how in death men wished to
recall their life on earth; the cradle was, so to speak, reproduced
in the tomb, and man lay on the bosom of earth, the common mother
of humanity, like the child on the bosom of his own mother. Perhaps,
too, the seated position was meant to indicate that man, who had never
known rest during his hard struggle for existence, had found it at
last in his new life. The men of the rough and barbarous times of the
remote past were unable to conceive the idea of a future different
to the present, or of a life which was not in every respect the same
as that on earth had been.
Whatever may have been the motive, this mode of burial was practised
from the Madeleine period.[287] At Bruniquel, in Aveyron, the
dead were found crouching in their last home. This position is,
however, peculiarly characteristic of Neolithic times, and is met
with throughout Europe. Eight skeletons were recently discovered
bending forward in the sepulchral cave of Schwann (Mecklenburg). In
Scandinavia there are so many similar cases that it is difficult to
make a selection. Tit the sepulchral cave of Oxevalla (East Gothland)
the dead are all in crouching attitudes, and tumuli dating from the
most remote antiquity cover over a passage, formed of immense blocks
of stone, leading to a central chamber, in which are numerous seated
skeletons resting against the walls.
On the shores of the Mediterranean, excavations of the Vence Cave
(Alpes-Maritimes) brought to light a number of dead arranged in a
circle as if about to take a meal in common. The bodies were crouching
in the position of men sitting on their heels; the spinal column was
bent forward and the head nearly touched the knees. In the centre
of this strange group were noticed some fragments of pottery and the
remains of a large bird, a buzzard probably. Perhaps its death among
the corpses was a mere accident.[288] The dolmens of Aveyron yielded
some flint-flakes and arrow-heads, pieces of pottery, pendants,
and bone, stone, shell, and slate-colored schist beads. Beneath
one of these dolmens was found one small bronze object, quite an
exceptional instance of the occurrence of that metal. The skeletons
rested against the walls. In one of the tombs some human bones,
which bad been originally placed at the entrance to the cave, had
been moved to the back; the vanquished had here, as in life, to give
way before the conquerors. Excavations in the Mane-Lud tomb have
led explorers to suppose that here too the corpses were buried in a
crouching position. It is the same at Luzarches and in the Varennes
cemetery near Dormans.[289] In the last named were found traces of a
fire that had been lit above the tomb, and some pottery was picked
up ornamented with hollow lines, filled with some white matter not
unlike barbotine. M. de Baye says this mode of interment is confined
to the district of Marne; but for all that he himself gives an example
of its practice elsewhere.[290]
In the prehistoric tombs discovered at Cape Blanc-Nez, near Escalles
(Pas-de-Calais), the position in which the body had been interred
could be made out in four instances. The ends of the tibiae, humeri,
and .radii were united, the bones of the hands were found near the
clavicles, so that the bodies had evidently been bending forward with
the arms crossed and the fingers pointing toward the shoulders.[291]
Similar facts are quoted from a cave at Equehen on the plateau which
stretches along the seashore on the east of Boulogne. The bodies,
to the number of nine, were crouching with the face turned toward
the entrance of the cave, which was closed with great blocks of
sandstone. Two polished stone hatchets, broken doubtless in accordance
with some sepulchral rite, had been placed near the skeletons.
Numerous human bones were found in the Cravanche Cave near Belfort,
which probably dates from the close of the Neolithic period,
judging from the total absence of metal and the shape of the flint
and bone implements picked up. Here too the bodies were bent almost
double, the head drooping forward and the knees drawn up nearly
to the chin. Several of these skeletons were completely imbedded
in the stalagmite which had formed in the cave, the head and knees
alone emerging from the solid mass. The position in which they were
originally placed had thus of necessity been maintained.[292]
A similar rite, for rite we must call this mode of burial, was
practised in Italy, and the Chevalier de Rossi speaks of a tomb
of the Neolithic period at Cantalupo, near Rome, in which one of
the bodies wag placed in the crouching attitude, which he says is
familiar to all who have studied ancient tombs.[293] This practice
was still continued in protohistoric times; Schliemann noticed it
in the excavations he superintended at Mykenae, and Homer says that
amongst the Lybians the dead were buried seated.
The necropolis near Constantine contains numerous megalithic
monuments. These are either round or square cromlechs surrounding
sarcophagi, or circular ENCEINTES, in which the dead were laid in a
trench. In the former there are always a great many funeral objects
in the tomb, and the body of the dead is in a crouching posture;
in the latter there are few things beside the corpse itself, and
that is in a recumbent position. Do these peculiarities denote
different races? Do the tombs all date from the same period, or are
these arrangements but fresh indications of the difference everywhere
maintained between social classes? It is difficult to decide, and we
must be content with enumerating facts. We may add, however, that the
crouching position of corpses is constantly met with in Africa[294]
and in North and South America, from Canada to Patagonia.[295]
The funeral rites of which we have spoken necessarily imply burial;
man did not abandon to wild beasts or birds of prey the bodies of
those who had once been like himself. At Aurignac, at Bruniquel,
and in the Frontal Cave, the cave man bad taken the precaution of
closing with the largest stones he could find the entrances to the
last resting-places of those belonging to him. The caves of L'HOMME
MORT, and of Petit-Morin which date from Neolithic times, retain
traces of similar blocking up. There were five entrances to the cave
of Garenne de Verneuil (Marne) in which was a regular ossuary; the
floor was paved and the roof kept up with eleven upright stones. The
objects in the tomb with the dead were a clumsy earthenware vase,
a few flint knives, and some shell necklace beads.
The sides of the almost inaccessible mountains of Peru are pierced, at
a height of several hundred feet, with numerous caves which have nearly
all been artificially enlarged. It was in them that the Peruvians
placed their dead, and the people of the country still call them
TANTAMA MARCA or abodes of desolation. The entrances were concealed
with extreme care, but this care did not save the tombs from violation;
the greed for the treasures supposed to be concealed in the tombs was
too great for respect to the unknown dead to hold curiosity in check.
In other cases, the dead was laid near the hearth which had been
that of his home when living, and his abode during life became his
tomb. The dolmens, CELLA, and GANGRABEN in Germany, and the barrows in
England, appear to bear witness to the prevalence of a similar custom
in those countries; and we find the same idea perpetuated even when
cremation became general. At Alba, in Latium, at Marino, near Albano,
at Vetulonia and Corneto-Tarquinia were discovered urns with doors,
windows, and a roof imitating human dwellings.[296]
Later, other modes of sepulture came into use. In Marne M. Nicaise
made out seven funeral pits[297] resembling in shape, he tells
us, long-necked bottles with flat bottoms. One of these pits at
Tours-sur-Marne contained at least forty skeletons, and among the
bones were found thirty-four polished stone hatchets, fifty knives,
two flint lance-heads and a great many arrows with transverse edges,
a necklace of little round bits of limestone, several fragments of
coarse pottery which had been mixed with grains of silica and baked
in the fire, and lastly three little flasks made of stag-horn hollowed
out in a curious manner and with stoppers of the same material. These
quaint little flasks doubtless contained the coloring matter with which
the dead had painted their bodies when alive. All the objects of which
we have spoken belonged to the Neolithic period; but a flat bronze
necklace bead made by folding a thin slice of metal, a radius, and a
bit of rib bearing green marks resulting from long contact with metal,
appear to fix the date of this pit at the transition period between
the Stone and Bronze ages. If this be so it is quite an exceptional
case of a sepulchral pit dating from this time, for most of those known
are of much later origin. Those for instance of Mont-Beuvray, Bernard
(La Vendee), and Beaugency are not older than Gallo-Roman times.[298]
According to Count Gozzadini, those of Manzabotto in Italy, which
are twenty-seven in number, date from the IVth century after the
foundation of Rome, and are of Etruscan origin. They are constructed
with small pointed pebbles, with no trace of cement, and resemble
in shape a long amphora vase, or perhaps, to be more accurate, the
clapper of a bell. They are from six and a half to thirty-two and a
half feet deep, with an opening varying in diameter from one foot to
nearly two and a half feet.[299]
We have said so much in preceding chapters on monuments erected in
memory of the dead, that but little remains to be added here. Doubtless
there are many distinctions to be noted at different times and in
different countries, but everywhere the aim remains the same, and the
means used for attaining that end are radically the same all the world
over. Take for example the Aymaras, the most ancient race of Bolivia
and Callao; they laid their dead sometimes beneath megalithic monuments
(Fig. 58, p. 178) resembling the dolmens of Europe, sometimes beneath
towers or CHULPAS, which are however probably of more recent date.
FIGURE 105
Chulpa near Palca.
CHULPAS, generally of square or rectangular form, consist of a mass
of unhewn stones faced outside with blocks of trachyte or basalt,
painted red, yellow, or white. A very low door, always facing east,
as if in honor of the rising sun, gives access to a cist in which the
dead was laid. The CHULPA of our illustration (Fig. 105) is situated
near the village of Palca; it rises from an excavation four feet deep;
its height is about sixteen feet, and the cornice consists of ICHU, a
coarse grass which grows in abundance on the mountains, and which after
being firmly compressed was cut with the help of sharp instruments. The
human bones, which were mixed together in the greatest confusion,
made a heap in the sepulchral chamber more than a foot high.
The mounds of Ohio also cover over sepulchral chambers of a peculiar
construction, being often formed of round pieces of wood, five to
seven feet long by five to six inches in diameter; near the bodies
were placed a few ornaments, chiefly copper ear-rings, shell beads,
and large flint knives. Most of the skeletons lay on the bare earth;
but one exception is mentioned in which the ground was paved with
mussel shells. A remarkable discovery has quite recently been made
at Floyd (Iowa), the account of which in Nature for January 1, 1891,
we will give in the words of Clement Webster: "In making a thorough
exploration of the larger mound ... the remains of five human bodies
were found, the bones even those of the fingers, toes, etc., being,
for the most part in a good state of preservation. First, a saucer
or bowl-shaped excavation has been made, extending down three and
three-quarter feet below the surface of the ground around the mound,
and the bottom of this macadamized with gravel and fragments of
limestone. In the centre of this floor five bodies were placed in a
sitting posture with the feet drawn under them, and apparently facing
the north. First above the bodies was a thin layer of earth and ashes,
among which were found two or three small pieces of fine-grained
charcoal. Nearly all the remaining four feet of earth had been changed
to a red color by the long-continued action of fire." Mr. Webster
goes on to describe the various skeletons and says of one of them,
that of a woman: "The bones in their detail of structure indicated a
person of low grade, the evidence of unusual muscular development being
strongly marked. The skull of this personage was a wonder to behold,
it equalling if not rivalling in some respects and in inferiority
of grade, the famous Neanderthal skull. The forehead, if forehead it
could be called, is very low, lower and more animal-like than in the
Neanderthal specimen.... The question has been raised how was it that
these five bodies were all buried here at the same time, their bodies
being still in the flesh." ... Webster adds that the probability is
that all but one of them had been sacrificed at the death of that one,
who had most likely been a chief.
FIGURE 106
Dolmen at Auvernier near the Lake of Neuchatel.
We have seen that men began by placing the bodies of their dead in
caves, and only later took to burying them underground when caves were
not to be had. Very often the corpse was placed between large unhewn
stones to keep off from it the weight of the tumulus above. Such were
the last resting-places alike of the men of Solutre and of those of
Merovingian times. In the necropolis of Vilanova, which is supposed to
date from times prior to the foundation of Rome, the tombs enclosed a
chest, the walls of which consisted of slabs of sandstone set on edge
and connected by a conglomerate of small stones. At Marzabotto, the
chests are made of bricks, and placed beneath a heap of pebbles. We
reproduce a chest discovered near the Lake Dwellings of Auvernier in
Switzerland (Fig. 106)[300] and another (Fig. 107) brought to light
by MM. Siret in the south of Spain. These drawings will help us better
than long descriptions to form an idea of this mode of burial.
FIGURE 107
A stone chest used as a sepulchre.
In other cases the dead body was enclosed in earthenware jars. At
Biskra in Algeria, two of these jars were found together; the one
containing the head, the other the feet of the departed. In some
instances the jar was replaced by a large clumsy earthenware basin,
some six and a half feet long by three feet wide. Such basins are
mentioned as having been found near Athens, but there is nothing
to help us to determine their date. The ancient Iberians used one
large jar only (Fig. 108) in which the dead was placed in a crouching
position, still wearing his favorite ornaments. The vase was closed
with a stone cover and placed in the tomb. We meet with the practice
of a similar mode of interment in historic times. The Chaldeans
placed their dead in earthenware vases; two jars connected at the
neck serving as a coffin. Excavations in Nebuchadnezzar's palace
brought to light bodies bent nearly double and enclosed in urns
not more than three feet in height by about two feet in width. On
the western coast of Malabar, as far as Cape Comorin, we find near
megalithic tombs large jars four feet high by three feet in diameter
filled with human bones. This mode of sepulture was practised at Sfax,
in the Chersonesus of Thracia, and at the foot of the hill on which
Troy was built. The tumulus of Hanai-Tepeh covered over a huge amphora
in which crouched a skeleton, and the wealthy Japanese loved to know
they would rest in huge artistically decorated vases, masterpieces
of native pottery. If we cross the Atlantic, we meet with the same
custom in Peru, Mexico, and on the shores of the Mississippi. At
Teotihuacan, the bodies of children were placed head downwards in
funeral urns,[301] and excavations in the alluvial deposits of the
Mississippi yielded, among immense quantities of pottery, two huge
rectangular basins glued together with clay and containing the body
of a young child. It is indeed interesting to meet with the same
practice in so many different places and to find the genius of many
races expressing itself in the same way in so many diverse inventions,
produced at times so widely separated.
FIGURE 108
Example of burial in a jar.
It is probable that early man also turned to account the trees he
saw growing around him, using them as coffins for his dead. But the
rapid decay of this fragile case led to its total disappearance. A
few exceptions must, however, be mentioned. In 1840 some dredgers took
from the bed of the Saone, at Apremont, from beneath a bed of gravel
five feet thick, the trunk of a tree which still contained the bones
that had been placed in it. Similar discoveries were made in the Cher,
and in the celebrated cemetery of Hallstadt, near Salzburg. The cairns
of Scania covered over split trunks of oak and birch trees, which had
been hollowed out to receive the dead. At Gristhorpe, near Scarborough,
in England, a coffin was found made of scarcely squared planks roughly
put together; and another very like it was discovered at Hove, in
Sussex, the latter containing a splendid amber cup, evidence of the
wealth of the man who had been buried in this primitive coffin.[302]
The ancient Caledonians sewed up their dead in the skins of oxen before
burying them. The Egyptians also embalmed the ibis, the ox, the cat,
the crocodile, and other animals deified by them, and the bodies of
these creatures were then placed in vast subterranean chambers, where
they have been discovered in the present day in great numbers. The
Guanches of Teneriffe, the last representatives of the Iberians, and
probably the most ancient race of Europe, took out the intestines of
the corpse, dried the body in the air, painted it with a thick varnish,
and finally wrapped it in the skin of a goat. This last custom was
evidently a relic of the original idea of embalming, with a view to
rendering the mummy as nearly as possible indestructible and, to use a
happy expression of Michelet, to compel death to endure (FORCER LA MORT
DE DURER). Our own contemporaries are thus able to look upon the very
features of those who preceded them on the earth some forty centuries
ago; and but yesterday photography reproduced in every detail what
was once Ramses the Great, one of the most glorious kings of history.
FIGURE 109
Aymara mummy.
Embalming was also practised in America. Recent travellers report[303]
having seen in Upper Peru tombs of the shape of beehives, made of
stones cemented with clay, each tomb containing one mummy or more
in a crouching position (Figs. 109 and 110). This custom was still
practised for many centuries; Garcilasso de la Vega tells us that
the dead Incas were seated in a temple at Cuzco, wearing their royal
ornaments as if they were still alive; their hands were crossed upon
their breasts, and their heads were bending slightly forward.[304]
The facts enumerated above prove that burial was long practised, though
it is impossible to say when it first cattle into use. About the time
of the beginning of the Bronze age, or perhaps even earlier, however, a
remarkable change took place in the ideas of man, and the dead instead
of being buried intact were consumed by fire on the funeral pile.
What can have been the origin of this custom? What race first
practised it? It has long been supposed by many archaeologists that
it was the Aryans from the lofty Hindoo Koosh Mountains who first
introduced into Europe a civilization more advanced than that which
had hitherto obtained there, and taught the people to cremate instead
of bury their dead. This theory was accepted for a considerable time
without question, but of late years a new school, headed by Penka,
has arisen who claim that the reformers came not from the East but
from the North. The Marquis de Saporta had indeed before suggested
that the primitive races who were the contemporaries of the mammoth
and the rhinoceros came originally from the polar regions, where the
remains of a luxuriant vegetation prove that climatic conditions
prevailed in remote times of a very different character to those
of the present day. The lignites of Iceland are made up of tulip,
plantain, and nut-trees, even the vine sometimes occurring. In the
ferruginous sandstones, associated with the carboniferous deposits of
Spitzberg, the beech, the poplar, the magnolia, the plum tree, the
sequoia, and numerous coniferous trees can be made out. The sturdy
sailors who dare the regions of perpetual ice come across masses of
fossilized wood in Banks, Grinnell, and Francis Joseph's Lands, at
88[degree] N. Lat. Among this fossil wood Heer made out the cypress,
the silver pine, the poplar, the birch, and some dicotyledons with
caducous leaves. These were not relics of wood which had drifted where
it was found on floating ice, but of an actual local vegetation,
as proved by trunks still erect in their original positions, buds,
leaves, and flowers in every stage of growth, fruits in every stage of
ripening. The very insects that had lived on honey from the flowers or
on the leaves themselves could be identified. In those remote days,
life, abundant life, similar to that now only found in the temperate
countries farther south, flourished in those polar regions, so long
supposed to have never been anything but lifeless deserts.
FIGURE 110
Peruvian mummies.
All this, plausible as it is, does not, however, appear to be
conclusive on the point under discussion; and though ,we may have to
abandon the idea of the Aryans having introduced cremation, we are
scarcely, I think, in a position to say that races from the North were
the first to practise it. I have dwelt more fully on the question of
the origin of races and the evidence which language seems to give
of a common source in two papers called "Les Premiers Populations
de l'Europe," which appeared in the CORRESPONDENT for October 1 and
November 25, 1889. Whatever may be the final decision on the much
contested points involved in this controversy, one thing is certain
that cremation, involving though it does a complete revolution in
manners and customs, spread with very great rapidity. We meet with
it from Greece to Scotland and Scandinavia, from Etruria to Poland
and the south of Russia, in China as in Yucatan and certain parts of
Central America.
In the early days of history, cremation was practised all over
Europe. The Greeks attribute its inauguration to Hercules, and the
funeral pile of Patrokles is described in the Iliad. The Pelasgians
and the Proto-Etruscans burned their dead,[305] and we are told of
the incineration of contemporaries of Jair, the third judge of Israel.
On the other hand, the earliest inhabitants of Latium buried their
dead. Visitors, who probably came by way of the valley of the Danube,
introduced the new custom, and for a long tune the two rites were
practised side by side. At Felsina and at Marzabotto we find instances
alike of inhumation and cremation, and at Vilanova only half the
tombs are those of corpses that had been cremated. In 365 of the
tombs excavated in the Certosa, near Bologna, only 115 show signs of
cremation having been practised. At Rome, the two rites were long
both performed, probably, however, by the two distinct peoples who
formed the primitive population of the town of Romulus. We know that
Numa Pompilius forbade the burning of his corpse; Cicero relates that
Marius was buried, and that Sulla, his fortunate rival, was the first
of the Cornelia GENS whose body was committed to the flames. We do
not know how early cremation was introduced in Gaul; we can only say
that Caesar found it generally practised when be made his triumphal
march across the country.[306] The celebrated excavations of Moreau
prove that inhumation and incineration were both practised among
the Gallo-Romans established in the eastern provinces of France. We
may even assert that the two rites were practised long before the
introduction of the use of metals. One thing is certain, the custom
of cremation was but slowly abandoned as Christianity spread, for
Charlemagne, in an edict dated 789, ordered the punishment of death
for those who dared to burn dead bodies.
What we have just said about historic times applies equally to more
remote epochs. Thanks to the learned researches of Dr. Prunieres[307]
we are able to trace for a great length of time the modes of sepulture
adopted in Lozere. The cave men of the eroded limestone districts of
Les Causses took their dead to the caves in which their ancestors
had been laid, and the invaders, who were probably more civilized
than those they dispossessed, placed theirs beneath the dolmens which
they erected in their honor. In the sepulchral caves of Rouquet and
of L'HOMME MORT we find inhumation; beneath the megalithic monuments
dating from the end of the Neolithic period, we meet with the first
traces of cremation, but so far of a very incomplete cremation;
the action of the funeral fire had not been intense, and the bones
were hard and resisted the heat. Noting beneath certain dolmens a
few bones blackened by fire mixed with large quantities unaffected
by it, one is inclined to think with the learned Doctor, that after
practising cremation men had reverted to the old mode of burial. In
the tumuli of the Bronze age, on the other hand, where the date can
be determined with the aid of the ornaments and trinkets scatered
about, the ustion was more complete; the bones are friable and porous,
crumbling into dust when touched, and there is nothing to indicate
that inhumation and cremation were both practised.
It is strange indeed to find that incineration was practised from
Neolithic times in the wild mountains of Lozere. There can be no
doubt on the point, however, and excavations beneath the dolmen
of Marconnieres strikingly confirm the earlier discoveries of
Dr. Prunieres. Beneath a layer of broken stones and a very thin
pavement, was found a mass of human bones in the greatest confusion;
some still retaining their natural color, others blackened and charred
by. fire. Among these bones was picked up an arrow of rock foreign to
the country, three admirably polished lance-heads, and some finely
cut flint-darts. The dolmen contained no metal objects, and there
was no trace of metal on any of the bones.
At the same period the two rites appear to have been practised
simultaneously in Armorica, but there incineration was the dominant
custom. In one hundred and forty-five megalithic monuments supposed to
date from the Neolithic period, seventy-two give proof of incineration
and twenty of inhumation only. The others yielded a few cinders, but
it was impossible to come to any definite conclusion. In many cases,
as we have seen, the megalithic monument was surrounded by a double
or triple ENCEINTE of stones without mortar. Inside these ENCEINTES
were some small circular structures made of stones reddened by the
action of heat. In the lower part of these structures were openings to
admit a current of air to fan the flames. These strange structures,
full of cinders and black greasy earth, bear the significant name of
RUCHES DE CREMATION.[308] Of thirty-nine sepulchres of the Bronze
age twenty-seven gave evidence of incineration, two of inhumation,
whilst ten decided nothing one way or the other.[309] The dolmen of
Mont St.-Michel and that of Tumiac are separated by a short distance
only; they were erected by the same race and probably about the same
period, yet at Mont St.-Michel we find incineration, while inhumation
was practised at Tumiac. How explain this difference in funeral
customs? Does it imply a diversity of race, of caste, of religion,
or of social position, or may it not rather be explained as being
merely the result of those later displacements which upset the most
careful reasoning?
Whatever may have been the cause of the different modes of burial,
we meet with them in every country.
In Scandinavia, during the Bronze age, cremation and burial were
practised in about equal proportions. Similar facts are noticed in
Germany, but in the North incineration predominates, while in the
West it is inhumation. Beneath the cairns of Caithness in Scotland,
we find some bodies lying at full length, while others are in a bent
position, and large jars of coarse pottery filled with cinders and
calcined bones which had belonged to men of medium height. One of the
largest of these jars is fifteen or sixteen inches high by forty-nine
wide at its largest part.[310] In excavating the barrows of the Orkney
Islands, Petrie noted the practice of both modes of burial[311];
but were those buried in manners so different contemporaries? This
is what we are not told, and what we have to find out.
At Blendowo in Poland, beneath a cromlech was found an urn filled
with calcined bones, and thirty centimetres lower down a skeleton
was discovered buried in the sand. Near this body was found a coin
of Theodosius, and we wonder in vain whether both the individuals,
whose remains are thus within a common tomb, lived at the same
time. Throughout Prussia and in tire Grand Duchy of Posen skeletons
and jars containing human ashes. are met with in the same tombs.[312]
We must not forget to note, especially, the necropolis of Hallstadt,
which was situated in the heart of the district of Bohemia occupied by
the Boii. The most ancient of the tombs in these vast burial-places
date from about two thousand years before the Christian era, and the
Hallstadtian period, as it is sometimes called, culminated during
the first half of the millennium immediately before the coming of
Christ.[313] Nine hundred and ninety-three tombs have been excavated;
all, to judge by the objects found with the human remains, belonging
to the Bronze age; of these five hundred and twenty-seven contained
buried bodies, and four hundred and fifty-three cremated relics.[314]
This is a larger proportion than in the primitive necropoles of Italy.
In the tombs in which burial was practised, the bodies were laid in
the trench without covering, and the remains of anything in the way
of slabs or coffins or protecting planks are very rare; in those
tombs in which cremation had been the rule, ustion had often been
very incomplete, sometimes the head and. sometimes the feet having
escaped the flames.
Similar facts are noted at Watsch, at San Margarethen, and at Vermo
in Styria, at Rovesche in Southern Carniola, and at Rosegg in the
valley of the Drave. At Watsch, but ten skeletons were found, among
two hundred examples of incineration. In the cremation sepulchres, if
we may so call them, the cinerary urn was protected by large slabs;
while in those where burial was practised, the bodies were simply
confided to the earth as at Hallstadt; but by a singular contrast, the
latter tombs contained much more important relics, the objects with
the dead being more valuable and of finer workmanship. At Rovesche,
the urn was placed in a square chest made of unhewn stones. The buried
bodies lay with the head turned toward the east, an urn was placed at
their feet, and their shrouds were kept in place by bronze fibulae,
while on the fingers were many rings of the same metal.
Lastly, to conclude this gloomy catalogue, excavations in the mounds
of Ohio and Illinois[315] have shown that there too cremation and
inhumation are met with in sepulchres which everything tends to
assign to the same race and the same period.[316] The sepulchral
crypts of Missouri contain several skeletons which had been subjected
to intense heat. The human bones were mixed with the remains of
animals, fragments of charcoal, and pieces of pottery, with sortie
flint weapons. In a neighboring mound excavations revealed no trace
of cremation; the bodies were stretched out upon the ground, and
those who discovered them picked up near them a valuable collection
of flints and of carefully made pottery. There is however nothing to
show whether those who buried and those who burnt their dead belonged
to the same race or lived at the same time. Cremation long survived
among the most savage tribes of Alaska and California, where it is
still practised, and the Indians of Florida preserve the ashes of
their fathers in human skulls. In California, the relations of the
deceased covered their faces with a thick paste of a kind of loam
mixed with the ashes of the dead, and were compelled to wear this
sign of their grief until it fell off naturally.
Although we meet with the burial of the dead either in a recumbent
or a crouching position, everywhere the minor ceremonies connected
with death are innumerable; each people, each race, indeed, having
its own custom, handed down from one generation to another, and
piously preserved intact by each successive family. Feasting was from
the earliest times a feature of the funeral ceremonies. An edict of
Charlemagne forbids eating and drinking on the tombs of the deceased,
and Saint Boniface, the apostle of Germany, complains bitterly that
the priests encouraged by their presence these feasts of death. We meet
with the same kind of thing among the lower classes at the present day,
and the cemeteries of Paris are surrounded with cafes and wine shops,
where too often grief is drowned in wine. The custom of holding these
feasts really comes down from the earliest inhabitants of Europe,
and the savage cave man gorged himself with food upon the tombs of
those belonging to him. At Aurignac, in the cave of L'HOMME MORT,
in the Trou du Frontal, broken bones and fragments of charcoal bear
witness to the repast. Similar traces of feasts are met with beneath
the dolmens and the tumuli. From the Long Barrows have been taken
the skulls and feet of bovidae, and it is probable that the other
parts of the body had been devoured by the assistants, and that
the head and feet were placed in the tomb as an offering either to
the dead or to the divinities who are supposed to have presided at
the death. In the ancient sepulchres of Wiltshire Sir R. Colt Hoare
picked up the bones of boars, stags, sheep, horses, and dogs; which
he too considered were the remains of funeral feasts.
Were feasts the only ceremonies connected with interments? We think
not. The body was often placed in the centre of the sepulchral
chamber, and around it were ranged the wives, servants, and slaves
of the deceased, condemned to follow their chief into the unknown
world to which he had gone. Beneath a dolmen of Algeria was found a
crouching skeleton with two crania lying at his feet, which crania had
doubtless belonged to victims immolated in his honor. The barrows
of Great Britain preserve traces of human sacrifices, and Caesar
says in speaking of the Gauls: "Their funerals are magnificent
and sumptuous. Everything supposed to have been dear to the defunct
during his life was flung upon the funeral pile; even his animals were
sacrificed, and until quite recently his slaves and the dependants
he had loved were burnt with him."[317]
The facts we have been noticing prove that early man cherished
hopes of immortality. All was not ended for him with death; a new
life commences beyond the tomb, marked -- for his ideas could go no
farther -- by joys similar to those he had known on earth, and events
such as had occurred during his life. What else could be the meaning
of the weapons, the tools of his craft, the vases filled with food
placed near the defunct, the ornaments and colors intended for his
adornment, the wives, slaves, and horses flung into the same tomb
or consumed upon the same pile? It is pleasing to find this supreme
hope among our remote ancestors; and clumsily as it was expressed,
it implies a belief in a being superior to man, a protecting divinity
according to some, but according to some few others a malignant
and tyrannical spirit. The proofs so far to hand are not enough to
justify us in seriously asserting that ancestors were worshipped by
prehistoric man. But the subject is too important for us to refrain
from putting before the reader such indications of this worship as
have been collected, and which are necessarily connected with the
moral and material condition of our remote ancestors.
The radius of a mammoth was discovered at Chaleux, occupying a place
of honor on a large sandstone slab near the hearth. The Chaleux Cave
dates from the Reindeer period; at which time the mammoth had long
since been extinct in Belgium, so that there can be no doubt that
the cave man had taken this bone from the alluvial deposits of the
preceding epoch, and this huge relic of an unknown creature had been
the object of his veneration, a lar or protective divinity of his
home. A somewhat similar fact was discovered at Laugerie-Basse and,
by a strange coincidence, certain tribes of North America of the
present clay preserve the bone of a mastodon or of a cetacean in
their buts as a protection to their homes.
From Paleolithic times men were in the habit of cutting celts or
hatchets in chalk, bitumen, and other fragile substances, which were
certainly of no practical use. Thousands of similar objects in harder
rock, but showing no sign of wear or tear, have also been found,
and there is little doubt that they all alike served as amulets. This
superstitious respect for certain objects lasted for many centuries,
and was handed down from one generation to another. The tombs of
the Bronze and Iron ages are often found to contain flint hatchets,
some of them broken intentionally, a proof, as I have already said,
that they were connected with funeral rites of the nature of which
we are ignorant.
We also find votive hatchets beneath dolmens. By the side of some
skeletons at Cissbury lay flint celts. A hatchet one and a quarter
feet long was found in a Lake Station of Switzerland. It was of such
friable rock that it can have been of no use but as a symbol; perhaps,
indeed, it may have been a badge of office. Lastly, Merovingian tombs
contain hundreds of small flint celts, the last pious offerings to
the departed.[318]
We find hatchets engraved on the megalithic monuments of Brittany,
on the walls of the caves of Marne, and we meet with them again on the
other side of the Atlantic, evidently bearing the same signification,
implying respect for them as. means of protection. De Longperier
has published a description of a Chaldean cylinder, on which was
represented a priest presenting his offering to a hatchet lying on a
throne, and a ring was picked up at Mykenae, on the stone of which
was engraved a double-bladed celt. We find the same idea in many
different mythologies. The word NOUTER (God) is translated in Egyptian
hieroglyphics by a sign resembling a celt, and the hatchet of Odin is
engraved on the rocks of Kivrik. On a number of Gallo-Roman CIPPI, we
find a hatchet beneath which we read the words, DIS MANIBUS, and lower
down the dedication, SUB ASCIA DEDICAVIT. At all times and everywhere
the hatchet appears as the emblem of force, and is the object of the
respect of the people. The tradition of its value and importance is
handed down from ancestors to descendants throughout many generations.
FIGURE 111
Erratic block from Scania, covered with carvings.
May we give a religious interpretation to the basins and cups hollowed
out on rocks and erratic blocks and on the so-called Roches Moutonnees,
with other monuments that have endured for many centuries (Figs. 111
and 112)? Or must we attribute them merely to passing caprice? Their
number and importance we think forbid the latter idea. We find
such blocks in Switzerland, in England, France, Italy, Portugal,
and on the frozen shores of the Baltic. They are no less numerous
in India, and they figure in the curious pictographs of the two
Americas. There is no doubt that we have here a common idea, and
one it is impossible not to recognize. How. else can we account for
the similarity of arrangement in the cup-shaped sculptures from the
tumuli of Schleswig-Holstein and those on the Indian rocks of Kamaou,
or between those of Algeria and of England?
FIGURE 112
Engraved rock from Massibert (Lozere).
In Brittany and in Scotland these cup-like sculptures are found on
rocks and menhirs, on the walls of sepulchral chambers, on stones
forming the sides of KISTVAENS, accompanied in many instances with
radiated circles, which do not, however, help us to understand them
better. In Scandinavia they are known as ELFEN STENAVS, or elf stones,
and the inhabitants come and place offerings on them for the LITTLE
PEOPLE. According to a touching tradition, these little people are
souls awaiting the time of their being clothed once more in human
flesh. In Belgium these strangely decorated stones are attributed to
the NUTONS, dwarfs who are very helpful to mortals. In every country
there is some legend sacred to the sculptured stones.
Such are the only facts we have been able to collect respecting the
religious feeling of prehistoric races. They are not sufficient to
authorize any final conclusion on the subject. At every turn we are
compelled to admit our helplessness. But yesterday this past without a
limit was absolutely unknown to us, and to-day we are but beginning to
be able to obtain a glimpse into its secrets. We have been the laborers
of the first hour, it will be for those who come after us to complete
the task we have been able but to begin. May a genuine love of truth
be to them, as we may justly claim it has been to us, the only guide.
WORKS BY MARQUIS DE NADAILLAC.
Prehistoric America. By the Marquis de Nadaillac. Translated, with
the permission of the Author, by Nancy Bell (N. D'Anvers), author
of "History of Art." Edited, with notes, by W. H. Dall. Popular
edition. $2 25
CHIEF CONTENTS. -- Man and the Mastodon -- The Kjokkenmoddings and
Cave Relics -- Mound-Builders -- Pottery Weapons and Ornaments of
the Mound-Builders -- Cliff-Dwellers and Inhabitants of the Pueblos
-- People of Central America -- Central American Ruins -- Peru --
Early Race -- Origin of the American Aborigines, etc., etc.
"The best book on this subject that has yet been published, ... for the
reason that, as a record of facts, it is unusually full, and because it
is the first comprehensive work in which, discarding all the old and
worn-out nostrums about the existence on this continent of an extinct
civilization, we are brought face to face with conclusions that are
based upon a careful comparison of architectural and other prehistoric
remains with the arts and industries, the manners and customs, of
"the only people, except the whites, who, so far as we know, have
ever held the regions in which these remains are found." -- NATION.
The Customs and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples. By the Marquis de
Nadaillac. Translated, with the permission of the Author, by Nancy Bell
(N. D'Anvers). Fully illustrated. 8vo. $3 00
CHIEF CONTENTS. -- The Stone Age, its Duration, and its Place in Time
-- Food, Cannibalism, Mammals, Fish, Hunting and Fishing, Navigation
-- Weapons, Tools, Pottery; Origin of the Use of Fire, Clothing,
Ornaments; Early Artistic Efforts -- Caves, Kitchen-Middings, Lake
Stations, "Terremares," Crannoges, Burghs, "Nurhags," "Talayoti,"
and "Truddhi" -- Megalithic Monuments -- Industry, Commerce, Social
Organization; Fights, Wounds and Trepanation -- Camps, Fortifications,
Vitrified Forts; Santorin; the Towns upon the Hill of Hissarlik --
Tombs -- Index.
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, PUBLISHERS,
NEW YORK AND LONDON.
NOTES
[1] -- M. Gaston.
[2] -- Pliny calls them CERAUNIA GEMMA ("Natural History," book ii.,
ch. 59 book xxxvii., ch. 51).
[3] -- S. Reinach proves clearly enough that the collections of the
Emperor Augustus were from Capri.
[4] -- This skeleton was discovered in 1726 by Scheuchzer, a doctor
of OEningen, and by him placed in the Leyden Museum, with the
pompous inscription HOMO DILUVII TESTIS (PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS,
vol. xxxiv.). Cuvier, by scraping away the stone, revealed the true
nature of the fossil.
[5] -- "Ossium Fossilium Docimasia."
[6] -- "Mem. Acad. des Inscriptions," 1734, vol. x., p. 163.
[7] -- ARCHAEOLOGIA, vol. ii., p. 118.
[8] -- "The Antiquities of Warwickshire," vol. iv., 1656.
[9] -- ARCHAEOLOGIA, vol. xiii., p. 105.
[10] -- Castelfranco: REVUE D'ANTHROPOLOGIE, 1887.
[11] -- ANNALES DES SCIENCES NATURELLES, vol. xvii.,
p. 607. Cartailhac: MATERIAUX, 1884.
[12] -- "Recherches sur les Ossements Fossiles de la Province de
Liege."
[13] -- ATHENAEUM, 16 July, 1859.
[14] -- "Discours sur les Revolutions du Globe," third edition, p. 13,
Paris, Didot, 1861.
[15] -- ACAD. DES SCIENCES, 18th and 23d May, 1863.
[16] -- Lubbock: "On the Evidence of the Antiquity of Man Afforded
by the Physical Structure of the Somme Valley" (NAT. HIST. REVIEW,
vol. ii.). Prestwich: "On the Occurrence of Flint Implements Associated
with the Remains of Extinct Species in Beds of a Late Geological
Period" (PHIL. TRANS., 1860). Evans: "Flint Implements in the Drift"
(ARCH., 1860 -- 62).
[17] -- ACAD. DES SCIENCES, 1859, 1863.
[18] -- Cartailhac: "L'Age de Pierre dans les Souvenirs et les
Superstitions Populaires."
[19] -- A short time before his tragic end, the noble and patriotic
Gordon sent to Cairo three hatchets or stone wedges found amongst the
Niams-Niams, who said they had fallen from Heaven, and who worshipped
then with superstitious rites (BULL. INSTITUT EGYPTIEN, 1886, No. 14).
[20] -- "Museo Moscardo," Padova, 1656.
[21] -- According to M. Pitre de Lisle, the Bretons think that these
stones vibrate at every clap of thunder.
[22] -- Roulin: ACAD. DES SCIENCES, December 28, 1868.
[23] -- "Congres d'Anthropologie et d'Archeologie Prehistorique,"
Paris, 1889.
[24] -- Council of Arles in 452, of Tours in 567, of Nantes in 658,
of Toledo in 681 and 692, and of Leptis in 743.
[25] -- Baluze: "Capitularia Regum Francorum," vol. i., pp. 518,
1231, 1237.
[26] -- Steenstrup, Forchammer, Thomsen, Worsaae, and Nillsson. The
commission appointed by the Copenhagen Academy of Sciences presented
six reports on the subject between 1850 and 1856.
[27] -- "Die Anfang des Eisens Cultur," Berlin, 1886.
[28] -- "Archeologie Celtique et Gauloise," p. 46.
[29] -- Dr. Much: "L'Age de Cuivre en Europe et son Rapport avec la
Civilisation des Indo-Germains," Vienna, 1886. Pulsky: "Die Kupfer
Zeit im Ungarn," Budapest, 1884. Cartailhac: "Ages Prehistoriques
de l'Espagne et du Portugal," p. 211. E. Chantre: MAT., June, 1887;
and Berthelot: JOURNAL DES SAVANTS, September, 1889.
[30] -- Irenee Cochut: "These presentee a la Faculte de Theologie
Protestante de Montauban."
[31] -- See my translation of the author's admirable and exhaustive
work on "Prehistoric America," chapters i. and iv. -- Nancy Bell.
[32] -- ACADEMIE DES SCIENCES, May 23, 1881; "Antiquites du Musee de
Minoussink," Tomsk, 1886 -- 7.
[33] -- "Les Ages Prehistoriques en Espagne et en Portugal."
[34] -- "Stone Implements from the Northwestern Provinces of India,"
JOURNAL OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF BENGAL, Calcutta, 1883.
[35] -- LITERARY JOURNAL OF MADRAS, vol. xiv.
[36] -- "L'Age de Pierre et la Classification Prehistorique d'apres
les Sources Egyptiennes," Paris, 1879.
[37] -- Pitt Rivers: "On the Discovery of Chert Implements in the
Nile Valley," British Association, York, 1881.
[38] -- Belluci: "L'Eta della Pietra in Tunisia," Roma, 1876,
BOL. DELLA SOC. GEOG. ITALIANA, 1876.
[39] -- "The Stone Age of South Africa," JOURN. ANTH. INSTITUTE, 1881.
[40] -- REVUE DES DEUX-MONDES, march 1, 1878.
[41] -- De Quatrefages: REV. D'ETHNOGRAPHIE, 1883, p. 97, etc.
[42] -- Sir J. Lubbock: "Prehistoric Times," pp. 483, 549.
[43] -- ASS. FRANCAISE, le Havre, 1877. DISCOURS D'OUVERTURE.
[44] -- "Prehistoric America," Paris, New York, and London.
[45] -- See my translation of "L'Amerique Prehistorique," chap. i.,
"Man and the Mastodon." -- Nancy Bell.
[46] -- Many interesting details respecting the Cliff Dwellers are
given in De Nadaillac's "L'Amerique Prehistorique," chap. v. --
Nancy Bell.
[47] -- CONGRES DES NATURALISTES ALLEMANDS, Innsbruck, Sept., 1869,
[48] -- "Quaternary man is always man in every acceptation of the
word. In every case in which the bones collected have enabled us
to judge, he has ever been found to have the hand and foot proper
to our species, and that double curvature of the spinal column has
been made out, so characteristic that Serres made it the distinctive
attribute of his human kingdom. In every case with him, as with us,
the skull is more fully developed than the face. In the Neanderthal
skull so often quoted as bestial, the cranial capacity is more than
double that ever found in the largest gorilla." De Quatrefages:
"Hommes Fossiles et Hommes Sauvages," p. 60.
[49] -- In this cave were found the bones of 45 bears. In the Goyet
Cave (which bears the number 3), were found complete sets of the bones
of 12 mammoths, 8 rhinoceroses, 57 bears, 57 horses, 24 hyaenas,
35 reindeer, 6 uruses, 2 lions, with the bones of a great number
of goats, chamois, and boars. Dupont: "L'Homme pendant l'Age de la
Pierre," p. 86.
[50] -- These birds belonged to the rapaces, passeres, gallinaceous,
wading, and web-footed groups. Every order is represented, and nearly
all the bones were those of edible species, which had certainly served
as food to man.
[51] -- Richard Andree: "Die Anthropophagie eine Ethnographische
Studie," Leipzig, 1887.
[52] -- "Les Hommes de Chavaux et d'Engis" BUL. ACAD. ROY. DE BELGIQUE,
vol. xx., 1853; vol. xviii. (new series), 1863; vol. xxii., 1866;
MATERIAUX, 1872. p, 517.
[53] -- "L'Homme pendant les Ages de la Pierre," p. 225.
[54] -- "Compte Rendu," p. 363.
[55] -- "Hist. Nat.," book vii., sec. 2.
[56] -- Belgrand: "Le Bassin Parisien," vol. i., p. 232.
[57] -- BULL. SOC. ANTH., 1869, p. 476. -- AC. DES SCIENCES, 1870,
first week, p. 167.
[58] -- ARCHIVES DU MUSEE NATIONAL DE RIO DE JANEIRO, vol. i., 1876.
[59] -- See my translation of De Nadaillac's "Prehistoric America,"
pp. 53, 58, and 59." -- N. D'Anvers.
[60] -- "Geography," book iv.
[61] -- "Opera," vol. ii., Migne edition, p. 335. Richard, of
Cirencester, says that the Attacotes lived on the shores of the Clyde,
beyond the great wall of Hadrian.
[62] -- Schweden's "Urgeschichte," p. 341.
[63] -- The felidae were very numerous in Europe in Quaternary
times. We may mention two species of lions, LEO NOBILIS and LEO
SPELAEUS, the latter often confounded with the DELIS SPELAEUS of
such frequent occurrence in French caves, two species of tigers,
TIGRIS EDWARDSIANA and TIGRIS EUROPAEA, the largest of the Quaternary
felidae, which was some twelve feet long. We also know of seven species
of leopards, six species of cats, from the Serval to a little felis
smaller than our domestic cat; two species of lynx, and lastly the
MACHAIRODUS, a beast of prey of considerable size, characterized by
having exceptionally long upper canines serrated like a saw. Probably
these beasts of prey were not all contemporaries, but succeeded each
other. (Bourguignat: "Histoire des Felidae Fossiles en France dans
les Depots de la Periode Quaternaire," Paris, 1879.)
[64] -- "Testimony of the Rocks," p. 127, Edinburgh and Boston, 1857.
[65] -- OSSEMENTS FOSSILES TROUVES A ODESSA. The cave-hyena resembles
that now living at the Cape.
[66] -- Ducrost and Arcelin: "Stratigraphie de l'Eboulis de Solutre,"
MAT., 1876, p. 403. ARCHIVES DIE MUSEUM D'HIST. NAT. DE LYON, vol. 1.
[67] -- M. de Baye found a great many similar arrow-heads in the
Petit-Morin caves.
[68] -- Nilsson: "The Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia."
[69] -- Captain Edward Johnson, who travelled about in New England
from 1628 to 1632, relates that the children there spent their days
in shooting at the fish that appeared on the surface of the water,
succeeding in catching them with marvellous skill. "A History of New
England," London, 1654.
[70] -- Reiss and Steubel: "The Necropolis of Ancon in Peru," London
and Berlin.
[71] -- MATERIAUX, 1870, p, 348.
[72] -- WIADOMOSEI ARCHEOLOGIZNE, No. iv., Warsaw, 1882.
[73] -- Ch. Rau: "Prehistoric Fishing in Europe and America."
[74] -- Horace: "Odes," book i., ode iii.
[75] -- Friedel: "Fuhrer durch die Fischerei Abtheilung."
[76] -- "A Catalogue of the Antiquities in the Museum of the Royal
Academy."
[77] -- PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF SCOTLAND,
vol. iii. Dr. R. Munro "Ancient Scottish Lake Dwellings or Crannoges,"
Edinburgh, 1882.
[78] -- Geikie, EDINBURGH NEW PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL, vol. xv. De
Lapparent "Traite de Geologie," first edition, p. 518.
[79] -- "Discoveries in the more Recent Deposits of the Bovey Basin,"
TRANS. DEVONSHIRE ASS., 1883.
[80] -- "Nordische Oldsager i der kongelige Museum i Kjobenhawn."
[81] -- "Les Proto-Helvetes," NATURE, 1880, 1st week, p. 151.
[82] -- "Mem. Soc. d'Emulation d'Abbeville," 1867.
[83] -- Indra, the all-seer, to whom it is given to pierce the cloud,
personified by Vritra, and "to open the receptacles of the waters with
his far-reaching thunder-bolts," is of course the sun, the worship of
which was one of the earliest and most natural instincts of humanity;
whilst Vritra was in the first instance merely the symbol of the
cloud, intervening between heaven and earth, shutting out from men the
light of the sun, and keeping back the refreshing rain. The gradual
conversion of these natural phenomena into a good and a malignant
power, ever struggling for the mastery, is a forcible illustration
of the way in which myths are evolved. -- Trans.
[84] -- De Mortillet: "Le Prehistorique," Paris, 1883, p. 133.
[85] -- "Limon du Plateau du Nord de la France," Paris, 1878. Acheuleen
et Mousterien: REVUE DES QUESTIONS SCIENTIFIQUES, October,
1880. BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1884, 1887.
[86] -- CHELLEEN, so called from their having been found at Chelles
(Seine-et-Marne), where the remains of the ELEPHAS ANTIQUUS, the most
ancient of the pachyderms now known in Europe, was associated with
these tools.
[87] -- De Mortillet: "Musee Prehistorique," pl. xvi. to xix.
[88] -- M. de Mortillet enumerates 127 polishers found at various
points in thirty departments of France. "Le Prehistorique," first
edition, p. 534.
[89] -- Piette: ASS. FRANC. POUR L'AVANCEMENT DES SCIENCES, Nantes,
1875, p. 909.
[90] -- De Mortillet: "Le Prehistorique," p. 544; "Musee
Prehistorique," figs. 431 to 434.
[91] -- "Musee Prehistorique," fig. 410.
[92] -- Lagneau: "De l'Uusage des Fleches empoisonnees chez les
Anciens Peuples l'Europe," Ac. des Insc., 2d November, 1877.
[93] -- "Les Temps Prehistoriques en Belgique," p. 151.
[94] -- "Reliquiae Aquitanicae," p. 127.
[95] -- NATURE, 1876, second week, p. 5.
[96] -- In this cave, in the second ossiferous deposit, were found
four fragments of pottery. De Puydt and Lohest: "L'Homme Contemporain
du mammouth."
[97] -- "La poterie en Belgique a l' age du mammouth," REVUE
D'ANTHROPOLOGIE, 1887.
[98] -- AC. DES SCIENCES, Nov. 9, 1885. We must add that at a later
seance M. Cartailhac contested, if not the facts, the conclusions
deducted from them.
[99] -- But what is the value of categorical assertions of this kind
in presence of the fragments of pottery found at different levels in
Kent's Hole? One of these fragments was so rotten that when placed
in water it formed a black liquid mud as it decomposed.
[100] -- I have not space to speak here of the curious pottery found
in America. The most ancient specimens, moreover, are of much later
date than the Quaternary epoch. I can only refer those interested in
the subject to my book on "Prehistoric America," published in French by
M. Masson of Paris, and in English in America by Messrs. G. P. Putnam's
Sons.
[101] -- "De Architectura," book ii., c. i.
[102] -- On the subject of tatooing an excellent work may be consulted
by Dr Magitot ("Ass. Franc. pour l'Avancement des Sciences," Alger,
1881).
[103] -- CYPRAEA RUFA, CYPRAEA LURIDA (COMPTES RENDUS ACAD. DES
SCIENCES, vol. lxxxiv., p. 1060).
[104] -- On this point an excellent work may be consulted by
S. Reinach: "Le Musee de Saint Germain,'' p. 232.
[105] -- Vaudry: ACAD. DES SCIENCES, August 25, 1890.
[106] -- A. Bertrand: ACAD. DES INSCRIPTIONS, April 29 and May 6, 1887.
[107] -- Reinach in his "Catalogue of the Saint-Germain museum"
gives the best description I know of this now celebrated reindeer.
[108] -- A. Milne Edwards: ACAD. DES SCIENCES, May 8, 1888.
[109] -- "De Natura Rerum," book v., v. 951, etc.
[110] -- "El hombre seguramente habitaba las corazas de los Glyptodon
Pero no siempre las colocaba en la posicion que acabo de indicar." --
"La Antiguedad del Hombre en el Plata," vol. ii., p. 532.
[111] -- "On Some Recent Researches in Cone-Caves in Wales,"
PROC. GEOL., ASSO., vol. ix. "On the Flynnon, Benno, and Gwyu Caves,"
GEOL. MAG., Dec., 1886.
[112] -- REVUE DES QUESTIONS SCIENTIFIQUES, April, 1887.
[113] -- "Odyssey," book ix., v. 105 -- 124.
[114] -- AEschylus: "Prometheus Bound."
[115] -- A. Maury: "La Vieille Civilisation Scandinave," REVUE DES
DEUX MONDES, September, 1880.
[116] -- F. de Olivera: "As Racas dos Kjoekkenmoeddings de Mugem,"
Lisbon, 1881.
[117] -- REPORT PEABODY MUSEUM, 1882.
[118] -- REPORT PEABODY MUSEUM, 1882 and 1885.
[119] -- Brinton: "Notes on the Floridian Peninsula," Philadelphia,
1849.
[120] -- We take many of these details from Dr. Gross' excellent work
on the "Pile Dwellings of Switzerland."
[121] -- Virchow: "Drei Schadel aus der Schweiz."
[122] -- REVUE D'ANTHROPOLOGIE, 1887, p. 607.
[123] -- G. Cotteau: NATURE, 1877, first week, p. 161.
[124] -- Rutimeyer: "Fauna der Pfahlbauten in der Schweiz."
[125] -- ANZEIGER FUR SCHWEIZERISCHE ALTERTHUMS KUNDE, April, 1884.
[126] -- Comte Conestabile: "Sur les Anciennes Immigrations en
Italie." Heilbig: "Beitrage zur Altitalischen Kultur and Kund
Geschichte," i. Band. G. Boissier: REVUE DES DEUX-MONDES, October,
1879.
[127] -- BUL. DI PALETHNOLOGIA ITAL., 1879. The TERPENS of Holland,
though of much more modern date, greatly resemble the TERREMARES.
[128] -- "Ricerce di Archeologia Preistorica nella Valle della
Vibrata."
[129] -- Wylie, ARCH. BRIT., vol. xxxviii. Wylde, PROC. ROYAL IRISH
ACAD., vol. i., p. 420.
[130] -- ARCH. BRIT., vol. xxvi., p. 361. PROC. ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY,
vol. vii., p. 155.
[131] -- "Habitations Lacustres des Temps Anciens et Modernes," p. 170.
[132] -- R. Munro: "Ancient Scottish Lake Dwellings or Crannoges,
with a Supplementary Chapter on Remains of Lake Dwellings in England,"
Edinburgh, 1882.
[133] -- "Prehistoric Times." Wilson: "Prehistoric Scotland."
[134] -- Nicolucci: "Scelse Lavorate, Bronzi e Monumenti di
Terra d'Otranto." Lenormant, REVUE D'ETHNOGRAPHIE, February,
1882 (BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1882 and 1884). S. Reinach: "Esquises
Archeologiques."
[135] -- "Les Premiers Ages du Metal dans le Sud-Est de l'Espagne,"
Brussels, 1887.
[136] -- Bateman: "Ten Years' Diggings," Preface, p. 11.
[137] -- W. MacAdams: "The Great Mound of Cahokia." Am. Ass.,
Minneapolis, 1883.
[138] -- Pelagaud: "Prehistoire en Syrie."
[139] -- Moore, POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, New York, March, 1880;
ZEITSCHRIFT FUR ETHNOLOGIE: Berlin, 1887.
[140] -- "Monuments de Roknia," p. 18.
[141] -- Haxthausen: "Mem. sur la Russie," vol. ii., p. 204;
A. Bogdanow: "Mat. pour Servir a l'Histoire des Kourganes," Moscow,
1879; Margaret Stokes: "La Disposition des Principaux Dolmens de
l'Irlande," REV. ARCH., July, 1882.
[142] -- Sir A. de Capell Brooke: "Sketches in Spain and Morocco."
[143] -- Tissot: "Recherches sur la Geographie Comparee de la
Mauritanie Tinigitane."
[144] -- Margaret Stokes: "La Distribution des Principaux Dolmens de
l'Irlande." REVUE ARCH., July, 1882.
[145] -- Sir W. Wilde: "Ireland, Past and Present." Miss Buckland:
"Cornish and Irish Prehistoric Monuments." ANTH. INST., NOV.,
1879. O'Curry: "Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Irish History."
[146] -- BUL. SOC. POL. DU MORBIHAN, April, 1885.
[147] -- S. Reinach, REV. ARCH., 1888. Wilson: "Megalithic Monuments
of Brittany." Cartailhac: "La France Prehistorique," in which the
measurements are given of the principal monuments of Brittany.
[148] -- A. Bertrand: "Archeologie Celtique et Gauloise," p. 105.
[149] -- Iliad, book xxiii., v. 380.
[150] -- Joshua, chap. iv., v. 13 ET SEQ.
[151] -- P. du Chatellier, MEM. SOC. D'EMULATION DES COTES-DU-NORD,
vol. xix.
[152] -- Cartailhac: "Les Ages Prehistoriques en Espagne et en
Portugal."
[153] -- Verreaux, L'ANTHROPOLOGIE, 1890, p. 157.
[154] -- Haxthausen: "Mem. sur la Russie Mer., Vol. ii.,
p. 204. "Fouilles des Kourganes," par M. Sarnokoasof, REVUE ARCH.,
1879. Much: MITTHEILUNGEN DER ANTH. GESELL. IN WIEN, 1878.
[155] -- On this point see the excellent work by Maury, "Les Monuments
de la Russie et les Tumulus Tchoudes," and Meynier and Eichtal's
"Tumulus des Anciens Habitants de la Siberie."
[156] -- REVUE D' ANTH., 1880, p. 655.
[157] -- MEM. DE LA SOC. ARCH. DE LA PROVINCE DE CONSTANTINE, 1863.
[158] -- "Monuments Megalithiques de la Tunisie," ANT. AFRIC., July,
1884. Dr. Rouire: "Les Dolmens de l'Enfida," BULL. GEOG. HIST., 1886.
[159] -- "Heth and Noah," pp. 191 and 192.
[160] -- "Heth and Moab," p. 249.
[161] -- "Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh," Calcutta, 1881.
[162] -- MATERIAUX, 1887, p. 458. M. Pallart ("Mon. Meg. de Mascaro"),
thinks that this dolmen was not erected by man, but that a long slab
of stone has slipped down the slopes of the mountain and rested on
two natural supports. It is not easy to accept this view.
[163] -- Dr. de Closmadeuc, agreeing, I think, with Henry Martin,
derives the name of DOL VARCHANT from DOL MARCH'-HENT, the table of
the horse of the avenue.
[164] -- COMPTE RENDU, p. 421.
[165] -- MAT., 1877, p. 470.
[166] -- ASS. FRANCAISE, Bordeaux, 1872, p. 725.
[167] -- REV. D'ANTH., 1881, p. 283.
[168] -- By permission of the author, the translator adds the
following quotation from Taylor's "Origin of the Aryans," p. 17,
which is referred to by Professor Huxley in his paper on the Aryan
question in the NINETEENTH CENTURY for November, 1890. Taylor says:
"It is now contended that there is no such thing as an Aryan race in
the same sense that there is an Aryan language, and the question of
late so frequently discussed as to the origin of the Aryans can only
mean, if it means anything, a discussion of the ethnic affinities
of those numerous races which have acquired Aryan speech; with the
further question, which is perhaps insoluble, among which of these
races did Aryan speech arise and where was the cradle of that race?"
[169] -- This poet is one of those whose work is to be found in the
so-called "Black Book of Caermarthen." See also "The Four Ancient
Books of Wales, Containing the Cymric Poems Attributed to the Bards
of the Sixth Century." Edinburgh, 1868.
[170] -- Foureau, BUL. SOC. GEOG., June 1, 1883.
[171] -- Munck has just discovered a similar station at Oburg
(Hainault), where similar implements, produced by similar processes
as those at Spiennes, were discovered.
[172] -- Briart, Cornet, and Houzeau: RAPPORT SUR LES DECOUVERTES
FAITES A SPIENNES EN 1867. Malise: BUL. ACAD. ROYALE DE BELGIQUE.
[173] -- JOURNAL, ETHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY, 1818, p. 419.
[174] -- ACADEMIE DES SCIENCES, Nov., 1883. MAT. Jan., 1884. Nature,
June 18, 1887.
[175] -- NATURE, June 16, 1887.
[176] -- Heilbig: "Osservazioni sopra il Commercio del l'Ambra"
(ACAD. DEI LINCEI). We must not confound the yellow amber of the Baltic
with the red amber found in Italy, in the mountains of Lebanon, and
even in some lignites in the south of France. Sadowski: "Le Commerce
de l'Ambre chez les Anciens."
[177] -- Nephrite is found in Turkestan, in Siberia, and in New
Zealand. Deposits of jadeite are known in Burmah, Jeannetay, and Michel
-- "Note stir la Nephrite ou jade de Siberie" (BUL. SOC. MINERALOGIQUE
DE FRANCE, 1881). Meyer: "Die Nephritfrage kein ethnologische Problem,"
Berlin, 1882.
[178] -- Objects made of chloromelanite have been picked up in
thirty-eight of the departments of France. No deposit of it is known
now. -- Fischer and Damour: REV. ARCH., 1877.
[179] -- Obsidian is chiefly found in the mines and quarries of Terro
de las Navajas (Mexico), known in the time of the Aztecs. Deposits
have also lately been discovered in Hungary and the island of Melos.
[180] -- Calaite differs from the turquoise by an equivalent of
aluminium; it was described by M. Damour in 1864. It is said that
traces of it have been found in the tin mines of Montebras, which
appear to have been worked from prehistoric times. -- MAT., 1881,
p. 166, etc. Cartailhac: BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1881, p. 295.
[181] -- Broca: "Les Ossements des Eyzies," Paris, 1868.
[182] -- Lartet and Chaplain-Duparc: "Une Sepulture des Anciens
Troglodytes des Pyrenees."
[183] -- BULL. SOC. ANTH., 1878, p. 215. The Baumes-Chaudes
caves are the most complete charnel houses of Neolithic times yet
discovered. Dr. Prunieres collected in them as many as three hundred
skeletons.
[184] -- "In a large proportion of the long barrows I have opened,
the skulls exhumed have been found to be cleft apparently with a blunt
weapon, such as a club or stone axe." -- ARCHAEOLOGIA, vol. xlii.,
p. 161, etc.
[185] -- Wilson: "Prehistoric Annals of Scotland," 2d ed., vol. i.,
p. 187.
[186] -- Keller: "Pfahlbauten," SIEBENTER BERICHT, P. 27, Zurich, 1876.
[187] -- "Habitants Primitifs de la Scandinavie," pp. 212 and 213.
[188] -- "On the Occurrence of Fossil Bones in South America."
[189] -- JOURNAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY, May, 1882.
[190] -- Wyman: REPORT PEABODY MUSEUM, 1874, p, 40.
[191] -- This skill was not always shown, for Dr. Topinard speaks
of a femur found at Feigneux which had been so clumsily set that one
part greatly overlapped the other. -- Bul. Soc. ANTH., P. 534.
[192] -- BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1883, pp. 258 -- 301; 1885,
p. 412. BUL. SOC. POLYMATIQUE DU MORBIHAN, 1883, p. 12.
[193] -- NATURE, January 2, 1886.
[194] -- BUL. SOC. ANTH. DE LYON, 1883 -- 1884.
[195] -- Belucci: CONGRES PREHISTORIQUE DE LISBONNE, 1880, p. 471.
[196] -- "Uber trepanirte Schadel won Giebiechenstein" (VERH. DER
BERLINER GESELLSCHAFT FUR ANTH., 1879, p. 64).
[197] -- MATERIAUX POUR L'HISTOIRE DE L'HOMME, Aout, 1886.
[198] -- American Ass., Detroit, 1875, Nashville, 1877; "Ancient Men of
the Great Lakes" "Additional Facts Concerning Artificial Perforation of
the Cranium in Ancient Mounds in Michigan." See also on this question
generally Fletcher "On Prehistoric Trepanning and Cranial Amulets,"
Washington, 1882.
[199] -- BUL. SOC. ANTH., February 17, 1881.
[200] -- Jehan Taxil: "Traite de l'Epilepsie, Maladie Appalee
Vulgairement la Gouttete aux Petits Enfants."
[201] -- BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1887, p. 527.
[202] -- De Baye: "Trepanations Prehistoriques," p. 28, fig. 11.
[203] -- BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1877, p. 42. Broca constantly dwells on this
idea. "This funeral rite," he said, addressing the Anthropological
Society, "implies belief in another life."
[204] -- ASS. FRANCAISE, Lille, 1874, p. 631.
[205] -- BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1864, p. 199.
[206] -- BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1882, pp. 143, 535.
[207] -- ASS. FRANCAISE, Blois, 1884, p. 417.
[208] -- Boulogne: MEM. DE MEDECINE ET DE CHIRURGIE MILITAIRES, 3d
series, Paris, 1868. Vedrenes: "Le Trepanation du Crane" (REV. ANTH.,
October, 1886).
[209] -- On this point an admirable book should be consulted, by De
la Noe: "Enceintes Prehistoriques," MAT., 1888, p. 324, in which
the author says that positions protected by escarpments bordering
the greater party of the circumference of the ENCEINTE were at all
times chosen for the erection of fortifications. The absence of
water, however, often makes him hesitate in coming to a decision,
and leads him to think that the remains where it is absent must have
been temples for the worship of deities.
[210] -- CONGRES PREHISTORIQUES, Brussels, 1872, p. 318.
[211] -- "De Bello Gallico," book vii., chap. xxiii.
[212] -- Dupont: "Les Temps Prehistoriques en Belgique," p. 235.
[213] -- H. Bauduin: BUL. SOC. BELGE DE GEOGRAPHIE, 1879.
[214] -- RECUEIL DES TRAVAUX DE LA SOCIETE DE L'EURE, Evreux, 1879.
[215] -- REV. D'ANTH., 1880, p. 469.
[216] -- "Notice sur Quelques Monuments Trouves sur le Sommet des
Vosges" (SOC. DES MONUMENTS HISTORIQUES DE L'ALSACE, vol. i.).
[217] -- REV. D'ANTH., 1880, p. 295.
[218] -- We may also mention the Pen Richard in Charente Inferieure,
so well described by Cartailhac in his "France Prehistorique," p. 131.
[219] -- Arcelin: "L'Age de Pierre et la Classification Prehistorique,"
Paris, 1873. Flouest: "Notice sur le Camp de Chassey." Perrault:
"Un Foyer de l'Age de la Pierre Polie au Camp de Chassey" (MAT.,
1870). Coynart: "Fouilles au Camp de Chassey" (REV. ARCH., 1866
and 1867).
[220] -- Ponthieux, "Le Camp de Catenoy" (Oise).
[221] -- "Hist. Francorum," book i., chap. xxxii.
[222] -- De Rosemont: "Etude sur les Antiquites anterieures
aux Romains." Desjardins: "Les Camps Retranches des Environs de
Nice." Riviere: ASS. FRANCAISE, Rheims, 1880, p. 628.
[223] -- Pigorini: "Terramara dell'Eta del Bronzo Situata in Castione
de' Marchesi."
[224] -- NATURE, 1887, second week, p. 62.
[225] -- Memoranda read to the Royal Society of Antiquaries in
London (ARCHAEOLOGIA, vol. xlii., pp. 27 -- 76). Lane Fox: BRITISH
ASSOCIATION, Bristol, 1875. Evans: "Stone Age."
[226] -- "Solent et subterraneos specus aperire, eosque multo insuper
fimo onerant, suffugium hiemi et receptaculum frugibus" ("De Moribus
Germanorum," chap. xvi.).
[227] -- AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY.
[228] -- ZEITSCHRIFT FUR ANTHROPOLOGIE, 1874, p. 115; 1875, p. 127.
[229] -- Zaborowski: "Monuments Prehistoriques de la Basse Vistule."
[230] -- Ribeiro: "Notice sur Quelques Monuments Prehistoriques du
Portugal," Lisbon, 1878.
[231] -- "Noticia de Algunas Estarves e Monumentos Prehistoricos."
[232] -- H. and L. Siret: "Les Premiers Ages du Metal dans le Sud-est
de l'Espagne."
[233] -- CONGRES PREHISTORIQUE DE COPENHAGUE, p. 118.
[234] -- Putnam: "Report Peabody Museum," vol. iii., p. 348.
[235] -- "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley."
[236] -- See Dr. Hibbert in the TRANSACTIONS OF THE SOCIETY OF
ANTIQUARIES OF SCOTLAND, vol. iv., Appendix, p. 181.
[237] -- ZEITSCHRIFT FUR ETHNOGRAPHIE, 1870, p. 270.
[238] -- Pomerol: "Murailles Vitrifiees de Chateauneuf," ASS. FRANC.,
Blois, 1884.
[239] -- CONGRES SOC. SAV., Sorbonne, 1882.
[240] -- J. Marion: BUL. DES SOC. SAVANTES, 4th series,
vol. iv. Daubree: REV. ARCH., July, 1881.
[241] -- Sir J. Lubbock compares the ruins of Aztalan, in America,
with the vitrified forts of Scotland; but we think this is a mistake,
for the walls of Aztalan consisted of irregularly shaped masses of
hard, reddish clay, full of hollows, retaining the impression of
the straw or dried grass with which the clay was mixed before it
was subjected to the action of heat, whether the application of that
heat was intentional or accidental. There is nothing about this at
all resembling the melted granite of the vitrified forts.
[242] -- De Cassac: "Notes sur les Forts Vitrifies de la
Creuse." Thuot: "La Forteresse Vitrifiee du Pay de Gaudy," p. 102.
[243] -- We take most of these details from a note by M. A. de
Montaiglon published in the BULLETIN DES SOCIETES SAVANTES.
[244] -- MAT., 1881, p. 371.
[245] -- BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1884, p. 816, etc.
[246] -- Fouque, NATURE, 1876, second week, p. 65.
[247] -- Book vi., chap. xvi. and xx. -- Pliny the Elder, uncle
and father by adoption of Pliny the Younger, lost his life in this
catastrophe, which took place in 79 A. D.
[248] -- Cigalla: ACAD. DES SCIENCES, November 12, 1866. Fouque:
ACAD. DES SCIENCES, March 25, 1867. "Un Pompei Prehistorique," REVUE
DES DEUX-MONDES, October 15, 1869.
[249] -- Schliemann: "Troy and its Remains," translated by Philip
Smith, London, Murray, 1875; "Ilios Ville et Pays des Troyens,"
translated by Mme. E. Egger, Paris, Hachette, 1885; E. Burnouf:
REVUE DES DEUX-MONDES, January 1, 1874; Virchow: "Alt Trojanische
Graber and Schadel."
[250] -- Iliad, canto v., v., 692.
[251] -- Egyptologists tell us that in the fourth year of the reign
of Ramses II., or about 1406 B.C., the Hittites placed themselves
at the head of a coalition against the Egyptian Pharaoh. With these
Hittites, or Khittas, whose descendants still dwell in the north of
Syria, were the Mysians, the Lycians, the Dardanians, and other tribes.
[252] -- "Amerique Prehistorique" (Masson), translated by Nancy Bell
(N. D'Anvers), and published by Murray, London; Putnam, New York.
[253] -- "Troy and its Remains," plate ix. See also excellent essay
on the same subject by S. Reinach, which appeared in the REVUE
ARCHEOLOGIQUE in 1885. Later investigations by Dr. Schliemann also
brought to light a remarkable resemblance between the buildings at
Hissarlik and those of Tiryns.
[254] -- The British Museum contains a manuscript of the fourteenth
century, in which is a letter from Julian, written when he was emperor,
between 361 and 363 A.D., and relating to his visit to Ilium.
[255] -- The potter's wheel was, however, in use at a very remote
antiquity. In China its invention is attributed to the legendary
Emperor Hwang-Ti, who is supposed to have lived about 2697 B.C. The
wheel was also known from the very earliest times in Egypt, and Homer
(Iliad, c. xviii., v. 599) compares the light motions of the dancers
represented on the shield of Achilles to the rapid rotation of the
potter's wheel.
[256] -- Rivett-Carnac: "Memorandum on Clay Discs Called Spindle
Whorls and Votive Seals Found at Sankisa" (Behar), JOURNAL ASIATIC
SOCIETY OF BENGAL, vol. xlix., p. 1.
[257] -- "De Sacris AEdificiis," ch. ix., p. 128.
[258] -- It is interesting to note the discovery of urns closely
resembling those of Troy, and containing human remains, in Persia (Sir
W. Ouseley: "Travels in Persia"), and at Travancore, in the south of
Malabar, where, according to tradition, they were intended to receive
the remains of young virgins sacrificed in honor of the gods. --
"Some Vestiges of Girl Sacrifices," JOURN. ANTH. INST., May, 1882.
[259] -- The vulva was sometimes represented by a large triangle. The
same peculiarity occurs on some black marble statuettes, found in
the tombs of the Cyclades and Attica. Three such statuettes from
the island of Paros are in the Louvre, and the British Museum owns
a rich collection. Dr. Schliemann also mentions a female idol made
in lead of very coarse workmanship, in which the sexual organs are
represented by a double cross.
[260] -- The PHALLUS was, as we have already stated, the symbol of
generative force. Its worship extended throughout India and Syria;
a gigantic Phallus adorned the temple of the mother of the gods at
Hierapolis, and it was carried in triumph in processions through
Egypt and Greece. It is still worshipped in some places at the
present day. Near Niombo, in Africa, there is a temple containing
several phallic statues; at Stanley-Pool the fete of the PHALLUS is
celebrated with obscene rites. The Kroomen observe similar ceremonies
at the time of the new moon, and in Japan on certain fete clays young
girls flourish gigantic PHALLI at the end of long poles. The PHALLUS
is also often represented on the monuments of Central America -- on
the stones of the temples of Izamal and the island of Zapatero, for
instance. Possibly the worship of the productive and generative forces
of nature was the earliest religion of many primitive peoples, but
all that is said on the subject must be sifted with considerable care.
[261] -- Similar hatchets of pure copper (Fig. 2) have been found in
Hungary, and Butler ("Prehistoric Wisconsin") speaks of them also as
being found in North America.
[262] -- The tin used is making bronze probably came from Spain or
Cornwall, perhaps also from the Caucasus, where small quantities of
it are still found. It was doubtless imported by the Phoenicians, the
great navigators of antiquity. See Rudolf Virchow's "Das Gruberfeld
Von Koban im Laude der Osseten," Berlin, 1883.
[263] -- This idea gains probability from the fact that the remains
of a key were picked up near the treasure, which we have reason to
suppose belonged to Priam.
[264] -- The gold may have come from the mines of Astyra, not far
from Troy.
[265] -- Electrum was the ancient name for amber, but was also given
to an alloy of gold and silver, the yellow color of which resembles
that of amber.
[266] -- Dr. Schliemann gives a very careful description of all these
objects. See "Troy and its Remains," Figs. 174 to 497, pp. 260 to 353.
[267] -- The qr'hdemnon or diadem of the wife of Menelaus is a
narrow fillet from which hang several little chains formed of links
alternating with small leaves, and ending in rather larger leaves,
these leaves all representing the woman with the owl's head, so
characteristic of Trojan art. The golden objects are all soldered
with the same metals, which modern goldsmiths seem unable to do. At
Tiryns, which we believe to have been contemporary with Troy, the art
of soldering was unknown, and ornaments were merely screwed together.
[268] -- Bastian, ZEITSCHRIFT DER BERLINER GESELLSCHAFT FUR ERDKUNDE,
vol. xiii., plates 1 and 2.
[269] -- If we accept 1200 B.C. as the date of the Trojan war and
the eighth century as that of the foundation of Ilium, the towns
that succeeded each other on the hill of Hissarlik only lasted four
centuries altogether.
[270] -- In the Vedas the word SWASTI is often used in the sense of
happiness or good-fortune.
[271] -- Comte Goblet d'Auriella, BUL. ACAD. ROYALE DE BELGIQUE, 1889.
[272] -- G. Atkinson, CONGRES PREHISTORIQUE, Lisbon, 1880, p. 466.
[273] -- "Ages Prehistoriques en Espagne et Portugal," figs 410, 411,
412, p. 286.
[274] -- Aussland, 1883. ZEITSCHRIFT FUR MUSEOLOGIE AND ANTEQUATEN
KUNDE, 1884. Musoeon, 1888 and 1889.
[275] -- Virchow, who visited the remains at Hissarlik, treats this
idea as FURCHTBAREN UNSINN (ridiculous nonsense).
[276] -- The true name of this cave is the BETCHE AUX ROCHES. A very
excellent essay on the subject was read by the explorers, MM. de
Puydt and Lohest, in August, 1886, to the Historic Society of Belgium,
and "Les Fouilles de Spy," by Dr. Collignon, published in the REVUE
D'ANTHROPOLOGIE, 1887, may also be consulted. Excavations were also
carried on in the same cave in 1879 by M. Bucquoy (BUL. SOC. ANTH. DE
BELGIQUE, 1887). He distinguished five ossiferous levels and picked up
some flints of the Mousterien type, and even some Chelleen hatchets,
to which he gave the name of coups DE POING. -- Fraipont and Lohest;
"Recherches sur les Ossements Humains Decouvertes dans les Depots
Quaternaires d'un grotte a Spy."
[277] -- We borrow these details from a valuable work by Cartailhac
(MAL., 1886, p. 441; REV. D'ANTH., 1886, p. 448). The conclusions of
our learned colleague are that we really know nothing of the funeral
rites of the men of Chelles and Moustier, and that it is to the
Solutreen period that we must assign the first really authenticated
tombs. Cartailhac's admirable book, "La France Prehistorique," p. 302,
should also be consulted.
[278] -- "Ipui Antichi Sepolcri dell Italia."
[279] -- ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL, vol. xxii.
[280] -- MATERIAUX, 1885, p. 299.
[281] -- This dolmen was carefully excavated by MM. Hahn and
Millescamps, BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1883, p. 312.
[282] -- Riviere; CONGRES DES SCIENCES GEOGRAPHIQUES, Paris, 1878.
[283] -- ATTI DELLA R. ACAD. DEI LINCEI, 1879 -- 1880. Pigorini:
BUL. DE PAL. ITALIANA, 1880, p. 33.
[284] -- SOC. ANTH. DE MUNICH, 1886.
[285] -- SOC. ANTH. DE LYON, 1889.
[286] -- "Histoire du Travail en Gaule," p. 24.
[287] -- Troyon: "De l' Attitude Repliee dans la Sepulture Antique,"
REVUE ARCH., 1864.
[288] -- MATERIAUX, 1875, p. 327.
[289] -- A. Nicaise: MATERIAUX, 1880, p. 186.
[290] -- ARCH. PREHISTORIQUE, p. 178.
[291] -- CONGRES PREHISTORIQUE DE BRUXELLES, p. 299.
[292] -- BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1876, p. 191. Grad: NATURE, 1877, 1st week,
p. 314.
[293] -- MEMORIE SULLE SCOPERTE PALEOETHNOLOGICHE DELLA CAMPAGNA
ROMANA. Pigorini adds in his turn: "I CADAVERI ERANO ABITUALMENTE
ADAGIATI SUL FIANCO SINISTRO, COL CRANIO APPOGIATO SULLA MANO SINISTRE
E LE GINOCCHIA ALQUANTO PIEGATE IN GUISA CHE TAVOLTA SI TROVARONO LE
TIBIE ASSAI PROSSIME ALLA CASSA TORACICA."
[294] -- Pallery: "Mon. Megalithiques de Mascara," BUL. SOC. ETHN.,
1887.
[295] -- Bancroft: "The Native Races of the Pacific," vol. i., pp. 365,
etc. Moreno: "Les Paraderos de la Patagonie," REV. D'ANTH., 1874.
[296] -- "Necropole de Colonna, prov. de Grosseto," R. ACAD. DEI
LINCEI, Roma, 1885.
[297] -- BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1880, p. 895.
[298] -- Abbe Baudry et Ballereau: "Les Puits Funeraires du Bernard,"
La Roche-sur-Yon, 1873.
[299] -- "Renseignements sur une Ancienne Necropole Manzabotta,
pres de Bologna," Bologna, 1871.
[300] -- Gross: "Les Proto-Helvetes." Morel-Fatio: "Sepultures des
Populations Lacustres de Chamblandes." As at Auvernier, a great many
bears' tusks were found lying near the dead, which may possibly also
have had something to do with a funeral rite.
[301] -- D. Charnay: NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, January, 1881.
[302] -- Stuart: "The Early Modes of Burial."
[303] -- Vidal Seneze; BUL. SOC. ANTH., 1877, p. 561.
[304] -- "Histoire des Incas," Paris, 1744, chap. xviii.
[305] -- Conestabile: "De l'incineration chez les Etrusques."
[306] -- A. Bertrand: "Arch. Celtique et Gauloise," Introduction.
[307] -- ASS. FRANCAISE, Nantes, 1875; Havre, 1877.
[308] -- Luco: "Exposition de Trois Monuments Quadrilateres par feu
James Miln," Vannes, 1883.
[309] -- P. du Chatellier: "Mem. Soc. d'Emulation des Cotes-du-Nord,"
Saint Brieuc, 1883.
[310] -- PROCEEDINGS SOC. ANTH. OF SCOTLAND, January 11, 1886.
[311] -- "On the Ancient Modes of Sepulchre in the Orkneys" (BRITISH
ASSOCIATION, 1877).
[312] -- Kohn and Mehlis: "Zur Vorgeschichte des Menschen im Ostlichen
Europa," Iena, 1879.
[313] -- Hochstetter: "Die neueste Graber Funde von Watsch. und
S. Margarethen und der Kultur Kreiss der Hallstadter Period," Wien,
1883. Siebenter: "Bericht der Prehistorischen Commission," Wien, 1884.
[314] -- In these tombs were found 61 gold objects, 5,574 bronze,
593 iron, 270 amber, 73 glass, and 1,813 terra-cotta. A. Bertrand:
REV. D ETHNOGRAPHIE, 1883.
[315] -- SMITHSONIAN REPORT, 1881.
[316] -- Putnam, xii. and XX. REPORTS OF THE PEABODY MUSEUM.
[317] -- "De Bello Gallico," book vi., cap. xix. Consult also Pomponius
Mela: "De Situ Orbis," book iii., cap. ii.
[318] -- In his fruitful excavations of Gallic, Gallo-Roman, and
Merovingian tombs, Moreau collected no less than 31,515 flint celts
or hatchets, which had evidently been votive offerings. See Album
de Caranda: "Fouilles de Sainte Restitute, de Trugny, d'Armentiere,
d'Arcy, de Brenny," etc.