Page:Palæolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in Europe.djvu/210

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
154
ANTHROPOLOGY

together with the osseous remains of many animals rhinoceros, reindeer, Irish elk, bison, horse, etc. Portions of reindeer-horn were engraved with the forms of animals in the usual Magdalénien style. Embedded in this breccia, from 3 to 5 feet in depth, were human bones representing several individuals, including those of a child. They were very much decayed, and only one calvaria was so complete as to yield any measurements and it was dolichocephalic. One of the skeletons was disinterred by the Vicomte de Lastic and Professor Owen with sufficient care to prove that it had been deposited in a crouching position. Owen believed that these skeletons were of the same age as the mammals and implements with which they were associated. But this opinion has not been universally accepted. (See Cave Hunting, p. 248.)

(b) Two human skulls found in the cave of Lombrive (Ariège) by MM. Garigou, Filhol, and Rames, associated with remains of the reindeer, and for that reason supposed to be Palæolithic, are regarded by Professor Boyd Dawkins as Neolithic. As the reindeer lived in Scotland up to historical times, he argues that the presence of the animal could not be a sufficient reason for assigning two brachycephalic skulls to the Palæolithic period. Besides, the other associated fauna— Bos longifrons, urus, stag, small ox, horse, dog, and brown bear— were equally characteristic of the Neolithic period. (Ibid., p. 256.)

(c) Portion of a human mandible was found by Ed. Lartet at the well-known station of Les Eyzies ; another, that of an upper jaw, was found by Cartailhac at La Madeleine. (R.E.A., 1893. P. 173.)

(d) The skeleton discovered by Lartet and Christy in 1864 among ossiferous débris in the rock-shelter of La Madeleine, and now preserved in the Natural History Museum, was not considered to belong to the Palæolithic period, although the bones presented the general characters, but in a minor degree, of those of Cro-Magnon. (Bull. Soc. d'Anthrop., 1874, p. 599.)

(e) A number of fragmentary human remains from various caves are described by M. Hamy under the heading "Nouveaux matériaux pour servir a l'étude de la Paléontologie Humaine" (C.A.P., 1889, pp. 405-450). Among the sites from which he