INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS DURING THE YEAR 1875. clix 



The Iron Age, Protohistoric Era, has two periods the 

 Tumulus and the Gallic. 



The Tumulus Period has one epoch : 



Hallstattien. (First appearance of iron.) 



The Gallic Period is called 



Marnien : epoch of the Marne, Helvetian epoch, third La- 

 custrian epoch. (Appearance of money.) 



The Iron Age, Historic Era, has two periods the Ro- 

 man and the Merovingian. 



The Roman Period has two epochs : 



Lugdunien. (Roman money and industry prevailing.) 



Champdolien. (Decadence of art and industry.) 



The Jlerovingian Period is called 



Wabenien : epoch of Waben, Frank or Burgundian epoch, 

 Helveto-Burgundian epoch, Germanic epoch. (Roman in- 

 dustry replaced by forms entirely new.) " Materiaux," 

 1875, Aug., p. 373 ; and "Tableau Arch, de la Gaule," Paris, 

 E. Leroux. . 



A communication made by Dr. Prunieres, of Marvejols, be- 

 fore the meeting of the French Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science at Lille, treated of the curious artificial per- 

 forations common anions; the neolithic skulls of the Lozere. 

 These perforations vary in the pieces exhibited from an inch 

 to an inch and a quarter in diameter. Near the perforated 

 skulls were found rings of cranial bone, which seemed to 

 be designed as amulets. They were evidently worked with 

 flint tools. The men of the polished stone age practiced 

 trepanning ; for if some of the skulls appear to have been 

 perforated after death, others were treated during life, and 

 the patients had lived for years afterward. One skull pre- 

 sented three perforations, made near each other upon a line 

 fore and aft. There is no distinction of age, the excisions 

 occurring upon infants as well as upon adults. The motive 

 of this strange custom was either medical or superstitious. 

 They probably attributed disease to supernatural agencies. 

 The evil spirit escaped through the opening made by the 

 sorcerer, who wrapped the operation in a shroud of mystery 

 by preserving the detached piece as a precious relic. From 

 the appearance of these facts reported by the learned archae- 

 ologist of Lozere, he said that a new light had been shed 

 upon the intellectual state of man in the polished stone age. 



