Page:Prehistoric Britain.djvu/189

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COMMEMORATIVE MONUMENTS
181

idols, graves, or grave-goods had been recognized. But a fresh interpretation of old materials, together with some recent discoveries, have shown that this deduction can no longer be maintained. The sepulchral phenomena, associated with some of the skeletons from the Grimaldi caves of Mentone leave no doubt that the bodies had been intentionally buried with their personal ornaments, coiffures, necklets, pendants, etc., made of perforated shells, teeth, fish-vertebræ, pieces of ivory, etc.

Among other skeletons of the Palæolithic period which might be brought forward as evidence of intentional burial, one of the most typical is that discovered in 1908 in the rock-shelter of Le Moustier. The skeleton lay in the attitude of sleep, beneath undisturbed strata of Moustérien Age. The right arm was folded under the head and the left extended. Near the left hand lay a pointed flint implement of the coup-de-poing type, and a little farther on a flint scraper. The cranium had the osteological characters of the Neanderthal-Spy race. The face was strongly prognathic, and there was no chin (Fig. 12). The skeleton was that of a young man about 4 feet 10 inches in height, whose wisdom teeth had not yet been developed. Bones of various animals, such as might have been the remains of a feast, and of which a few appeared to have been calcined, lay near the skeleton. Dr. Klaatsch, the expert who examined the human remains, came to the