278 NATURAL SCIENCE. J"^^; 



1892 skeletons the ornaments are much more finely polished and 

 bored than would be expected in association with the Palaeolithic 

 type ; but at the same tmie it must be borne in mind that if Palaeolithic 

 man had such artistic capacity as we know he possessed from the 

 classic drawings on bone, it is not difficult to suppose he could 

 perforate teeth for necklaces. It is, on the whole, easier to imagine 

 that man learned the art of making necklaces at an early date, than to 

 suppose that the Mentone skulls belong to the age of polished celts 

 and pottery. One can more readily believe that relatively sudden 

 changes took place in man's technical power in one region (for 

 instance, by learning of other races) than that any rapid change in 

 the forms of skulls occurred. The mere absence of ornaments from 

 the skeleton of 1884 ^^ of little value in discussing its age, though it 

 may tend to indicate the poverty or inartistic character of the subject. 

 The implements, again, though not of the type which we in England 

 know as Palaeolithic, are certainly not any of the usual Neolithic 

 patterns. In size and shape they differ markedly from anything found 

 in the overlying deposits, and their value was, doubtless, the reason 

 for burial with their owners. 



That the new skeletons, therefore, may well belong to the 

 Neolithic age is possible, and the worked ornaments with them point 

 to that conclusion. But at the same time they show osteological 

 affinities to more ancient types. It seems probable, also, that the 

 1884 skeleton belongs to the same period, and that its great size was 

 not an isolated accident ; while it appears that the deposits which 

 can be formed in a cave where there is no stalagmitic deposition 

 may reach a thickness of 16 feet or more, accumulating since the 

 age when the art of working bones had been perfected. Furthermore, 

 it is likely that the habit of speaking of Palaeolithic and Neolithic 

 times, and attempting to draw sharp distinctions between them, 

 carries with it more than the usual evils of all formal nomenclature. 



The Mentone skeletons, perhaps, belong to a transition period, 

 when the race of cave-dwellers were of large size and of ancient 

 skeletal build, when they made roughly-chipped implements, and 

 were ignorant of the art of pottery manufacture. On the other hand, 

 they knew how to work bones and to make necklaces of them, and 

 they had, apparently, a definite custom of burial. 



It should be stated, in conclusion, that these notes were written 

 on the spot, where reference to books and comparison with other skulls 

 were alike impossible, and that, therefore, too much stress may be 

 laid here on cranial characters. On the other hand, the fact that 

 precisely similar perforated teeth, vertebrae, and shells of Cypraa 

 have been found in the Dordogne caves of the same age as the 

 classic drawings on bone of mammoth and reindeer (a fact of which 

 at the time the writer was ignorant), strengthens very much the 

 argument for the Palaeolithic age of the Cave Men of Mentone. 



A. Vaughan Jennings. 



