HUMAN REMAINS. 335 



Ao;ain, the accumulation of animal remains in these caves 



O ' 



is itself, as Mr. Christy has ingeniously suggested, a good 

 evidence of change in the climate. We know that the Esqui- 

 maux at present allow a similar deposit to take place in their 

 dwellings, but this can only be done in Arctic regions; in 

 such a climate as that now existing in the south of France, 

 such an accumulation would, except of course in the depth of 

 winter, soon become intolerably offensive. 



So far then as the present evidence is concerned, it appears 

 to indicate a race of men living almost as some of the Esqui- 

 maux do now, and as the Laplanders did a few hundred years 

 ago ; and a period intermediate between that of the Polished 

 Stone implements and of the great extinct mammalia ; appa- 

 rently also somewhat more ancient than that of the shell- 

 mound builders of Denmark. But if these Cave-men shall 

 eventually be shown to have been contemporaneous with the 

 cave-tiger, the cave-bear, the cave-hysena, and the mammoth, 

 remains of which have been found in doubtful association 

 with them, then, indeed, they must be referred to an even 

 more remote period. 



As regards the Cave-men themselves, we have, unfortu- 

 nately, but very little information. For, although fragmentary 

 human bones have been frequently found, there are, as yet, 

 very few cases on record in which skulls have been obtained 

 in such a condition as to allow of restoration, or of which the 

 age is incontestable. For instance, remains of man, though 

 rare in the loess, have been described by Ami Boue, Faudel, 

 Crahay, Wurmbrand, Ecker and others ; but, as the latter has 

 himself suggested,* from the composition of loess, and from 

 the habit of making underground chambers in it, which make 



o o * 



excellent cellars, and even dwellings so to say, cave-dwell- 

 ings it is difficult to satisfy oneself that the remains are 

 clearly contemporaneous with the deposit of the loess. 



* Ar. fur Anthropologie, 1875, p. 99. 



