Page:Palæolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in Europe.djvu/209

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FOSSIL MAN (FRANCE)
153

coup-de-poing were collected. Nothing that could be called an ornament, or amulet, was found associated with the body- no perforated shells or teeth, no worked objects of bone or horn, nor any colouring matter. M. Rivière stoutly maintains that the skeleton is that of a woman of the Epoque Chelleo-Moustérienne. The position of Homo Moustériensis Hauseri was only 6 metres from that now described by M. Rivière, and it is but natural to ask why it had not been described earlier. At the Tours meeting of the same Congress (1910, p. 116) he discourses on the lower jaw, of which an excellent photograph is published, as well as one of the skull. Dr Manouvrier, to whom the bones had been submitted for anatomical investigation, characterises the skull as "type absolument moderne, c'est à dire des temps néolithiques les plus reculés jusqu'á nos jours" (ibid.) p. 118).

It is hardly necessary to say that French anthropologists are not unanimous in accepting M. Rivière's opinion as to the age of this skeleton. In exhibiting the skull, still in its original matrix, at the Societé Préhistorique de France, 3rd March 1909, M. Rivière thus refers to "la campagne systématiquement hostile a son antiquité enterprise depuis plusieurs mois."

"En présence des allégations de M. Marcelin Boule, professor de Paléontologie au Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris, me déclarant a moi-même, le 4 décembre dernier (1908), avoir des tuyaux—c'est l'expression dont il s'est servi—de prétendus témoins de la découverte du susdit auxquels j'ai donné aussitôt, sans la moindre hésitation, et je donne de nouveau ici un formal démenti," etc.

Human Remains of Minor Importance at Bruniquel and other Stations.

(a) The cavern of Bruniquel (Tarn-et-Garonne) is situated in a cliff 40 feet above the Aveyron. It was explored in 1863-4 by the Vicomte de Lastic, and described by Professor Owen in the Philosophical Transactions (vol. 159, p. 517). The floor was covered with a sheet of stalagmite, under which lay a bed of breccia 4 to 5 feet thick, composed of earth, fallen stones, charcoal, Palæolithic implements of bone and flint,