58 OEIGINAL ARTICLES. 



and, in general, badly executed. This may be ovring perhaps to the 

 want of appropriate tools, which have not been found at either 

 place, whilst the Danish aborigines were provided with them in 

 abundance. At Aurignac, therefore, and also at Massat, the long 

 bones are rarely split longitudinally ; sometimes the ends have been 

 broken off, but more often the bones appear in some way to have 

 been broken and reduced to fragments by blows from a stone ; and 

 in these two situations we have found, in the neighbourhood of the 

 remains of the banquet, the blocks and pebbles, which may have 

 served for this operation. 



It may be asked, how is it, that with arms in appearance so in- 

 efficient as those we have described, the aborigines of ancient Aqui- 

 tania ventured to attack animals of the size of the Great Cave Bear, 

 Ehinoceros, &c. ?* 



It may be presumed, that, like the ancient Grermani spoken of by 

 Cfesar, the primiti\e inhabitants of the Pyrenees were acquainted 

 with the art of constructing snares for these great animals, and of 

 catching them in pits, concealed under the leaves and branches of 

 trees. And besides this, their accurate knowledge of the most vul- 

 nerable points in the bodies of the animals, and the precision of their 

 aim, either with the arrow or dart, might to a certain extent com- 

 pensate for the imperfection of their rude weapons.f 



Such is the general statement of the observations it was possible 

 to make during the complete and careful exploration of the Aurignac 

 station. The circumstances to which they relate are complex ; and 

 their succession also indicates a considerable lapse of time. The 

 first traces of living creatures met with in the loose and, speaking 

 geologically, comparatively recent deposits, are those of man, proving 

 that he had made a fireplace on the platform outside the little cave, 

 whilst the thickness of the layer of ashes upon this site shows that it 

 was inhabited for a long tune, or, at any rate, that it was frequently 

 visited. 



The complete absence of any trace of fire in the interior of the 

 grotto, and the state of comparative preservation of the bones found 



* In spite of all the attention which I have devoted to the examination of the 

 bones found at Am-i<;iiac, and to the other circnnistantial evidences afforded at that 

 place, I have failed to delect the faintest indication of the existence of the JJog, that 

 habitual companion of man in the chase, in all climates and in cveiy state of bar- 

 barism. Under the piles belonging to the stone age in Switzerland, the remains of 

 a diminutive race of Dogs have'been met with. In studying the fauna of the Danish 

 kitchen-middens, Prof Stcenstruj) lias satisfied himself, from the way in which 

 certain bones have been gnawed, that tlic Dog must have been the latest companion 

 of the aborigines, and he has even fuund reason to believe it may sometimes have 

 been eaten by them. At Massat (Ariege), a station far more recent than that of 

 Aurio-nac, I have myself fancied that I could perceive indications of the presence of 

 the Dog, from the wav in which some of the herbivorous Ixmes had been gnawed. 



t The Shangallas, 'according to Bruce, kill tlie Rhinoceros with the worst arrows 

 it is jiossible for a people making use of arms at all to have; and they flay it after- 

 wards with knives no better than their arrows. 



