Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/330

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
262
THE RIVIERA

and tools, remains of hearths and charcoal, and human skeletons.

It has been dug into by many and various explorers, and not always with judgment, and with precise record of the depths at which various discoveries have been made.

The present proprietor used the soil for the purpose of making a garden, and it was only when he came upon human remains that it occurred to him that he could turn the cavern into a show place, and get more out of it in that way than he could by growing cabbages in the soil removed from it. In these caves a considerable number of skeletons have been found ; in the first, the Grotte des Enfants, two bodies were discovered of children of six and four years old, lying at a depth of eight feet, side by side. They had evidently been clothed in little loin-cloths embroidered with pierced shells.

In the fourth cave, the Grotte du Cavillon, was found the skeleton of an adult twenty feet below the surface, lying on his left side, the cheek resting on the left hand, and the head and body had been dusted over with red ochre, which had stained the bones. The head had been covered with a sort of cap made of, or adorned with, perforated shells and dogs' teeth, and similar ornaments must have been stitched on to garters about his legs.

The sixth cave, Bausso da Torre, furnished two bodies of adults and one of a child, and with these were flint weapons, bracelets, and necklets of shells.

In 1884 M. Louis Julien found a human skeleton lying at a depth of twenty-five feet, the head bedded in red ochre, and near it numerous flakes of flint. Since