THE FIRST TRACES OF MAN IN EUROPE. 681 



caves were described by Sclimerling, in bis admirable but neglected 

 works, some thirty-five years ago. 



The Neanderthal cave ' has become celebrated. An entire human 

 skeleton of good size and proportions, save its ape-like, low-browed 

 skull, was discovered here in 1856, 5 a full account of which was given 

 by Dr. Fuhlrott. This discovery, since become the occasion of so 

 much discussion, indicates quite clearly the existence in that remote 

 period of a race of men of marked characteristics, and in some peculi- 

 arities closely resembling certain now-living Australian tribes. The 

 skull is not nearly of so high a type as that from the Engis cave just 

 mentioned. 



Of exceptional interest, also, is the burial-place at Aurignac, in the 

 department of Haute-Garonne, in Southern France. It was acci- 

 dentally discovered in 1852, but first scientifically described in 1861, 

 by Lartet. There, in a cave closed by a vertical slab of stone, which 

 was itself hidden by accumulated stone fragments dropped from the 

 cliff above, were found no less than seventeen human skeletons, mingled 

 with bones of the cave-bear, cave-lion, mammoth, rhinoceros, giant-elk, 

 and other now-extinct diluvial animals, weapons of wrought-flint and 

 implements of bone, stag's-horn, and ivory articles probably buried 

 with the dead for use in the life beyond the grave ; in the belief of 

 which Sir Charles Lyell, in his work on the " Antiquity of Man," quotes 

 as pertinent the well-known lines from Schiller's " Nadowessian Death- 

 Song : " 



" Here bring the last gifts and with these 

 The last lament be said : 

 Let all that pleased, and yet may please, 

 Be buried with the dead. 



" Beneath his head the hatchet hide 

 That he so stoutly swung: 

 And place the bear's fat haunch beside 

 The journey hence is long. 



" And let the knife new sharpened be, 

 That, on the battle-day, 

 Shore with quick strokes he took but three 

 The foeman's scalp away ! " 3 



In exact agreement with one of these lines, the thigh-bones of the 

 cave-bear were actually found laid beside some of the skeletons of this 

 cave. Not a trace of pottery was found here. Under the debris men- 

 tioned as lying just outside of the door of the cave were ashes, char- 

 coal, and bones of the species found inside, all suggestive of the notion 

 that the funeral-feast may have been here celebrated. This heap con- 



1 Near Hochdal, a village on the railroad between Diisseldorf and Elberfeld. Trans. 



s Lyell gives the date 1857. Trans. 



3 I have given Sir E. L. Bulvver's version. Trans. 



