LITMIR.BIZ

      OUTLINE OF THE SKULL OF THE 'OLD MAN OF CRO-MAGNON' (after Christy and Lartet)

      The woman presented similar characters of stature and cranial form modified by her sex, and in form and visage closely resembled her sisters of the American wilderness in the pre-Columbian times. If her hair and complexion were suitable, she would have passed at once for an American-Indian woman, but one of unusual size and development. Her head bears sad testimony to the violence of her age and people. She died from the effects of a blow from a stone-headed pogamogan or spear, which has penetrated the right side of the forehead with so clean a fracture as to indicate the extreme rapidity and force of its blow. It is inferred from the condition of the edges of this wound that she may have survived its infliction for two weeks or more. If, as is most likely, the wound was received in some sudden attack by a hostile tribe, they must have been driven off or have retired, leaving the wounded woman in the hands of her friends to be tended for a time, and then buried, either with other members of her family or with others who had perished in the same skirmish. Unless the wound was inflicted in sleep, during a night attack, she must have fallen, not in flight, but with her face to the foe, perhaps aiding the resistance of her friends or shielding her little ones from destruction. With the people of Cro-magnon, as with the American Indians, the care of the wounded was probably a sacred duty, not to be neglected without incurring the greatest disgrace and the vengeance of the guardian spirits of the sufferers.

      Unreasonable doubts have been cast on the burial of the dead by palæocosmic men. The burial of men of the Cro-magnon race at that place and at Laugerie Basse and Mentone is established by the most unequivocal evidence; and interments of men of the Canstadt race have been found at Spy, in Belgium. Of course, even if interment proper had not been practised, there might have been cremation, as among the Tasmanians, or burial on stages or in huts, as among some American Indians. Still, that interment was practised we know, and this carries with it the certainty that our palæocosmic men must have had some simple ideas of religion.

      THE FIRST SKELETON FOUND IN THE MENTONE CAVES (after Rivière)

      The skulls of these people have been compared to those of the modern Esthonians or Lithuanians; but on the authority of M. Quatrefages it is stated that, while this applies to the probably later race of smaller men found in some of the Belgian caves, it does not apply so well to the people of Cro-magnon. Are, then, these people the types of any ancient, or of the most ancient, European race? The answer is that they are types of the cave men of the mammoth age in Europe. Another example is the remarkable skeleton of Mentone, in the south of France, found under circumstances equally suggestive of great antiquity. Dr. Rivière, in a memoir on this skeleton, illustrated by two beautiful photographs, shows that the characters of the skull and of the bones of the limbs are similar to those of the Cro-magnon skeleton, indicating a perfect identity of race, while the objects found with the skeleton are similar in character. I had an opportunity of verifying his description by an examination of the skeleton in the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes, in 1883; and more recent discoveries at Mentone have confirmed the conclusion that this man really represents a race of giants, some of them seven feet high, who inhabited Southern Europe in the palanthropic age. A similar skeleton found by Carthaillac, at Laugerie Basse, was buried under a great thickness of accumulated débris of cookery, as well as of large stones fallen from above. This skeleton had its shell ornaments in place on the forehead, arms, legs and feet, in a manner which would induce the belief that they had been attached to a head-dress, sleeves, leggings, and shoes or moccasins. (See illustration on p. 79.)