the performance of a variety of sacred and religious duties as homage to his memory, such as a ceremonial burial, the erection of a suitable commemorative monument, and the deposition of viands and such objects as would be serviceable to the soul on its journey to the unseen world. These customs, however, belong to a somewhat advanced stage of human civilization, and until sepulchral monuments and relics became available as evidence, archæologists had no reliable data to combat the idea that, during the nomadic wanderings of primitive races, their dead were disposed of by simple abandonment by the wayside, probably to be devoured by wild animals. Strabo (Book XI, chap. xi, 3) informs us that among the Bactrians, those who were disabled by disease or old age were thrown alive to be devoured by dogs kept expressly for that purpose. The custom of keeping animals for such sacred duties has survived to the present day, as exemplified by the Parsees of Bombay in their Towers of Silence, where the process of Scarnitura is completed by vultures in little more than an hour. Some other semi-civilized races dispose of their dead by exposing the corpse on the branches of a tree, which is merely a speedy way of facilitating decomposition by atmospheric agencies.
Formerly it had been generally held by anthropologists that the Palæolithic people of Europe had no religion, because, among the relics disinterred on their inhabited sites, no
