320 THE TROGLODYTES. 



to the recent period. They were familiar with the mammoth, fought 

 with him, fed upou him, and even sketched him, and yet in their most 

 ancient locality, at least the most ancient known, the extinct species are 

 rare. Therefore, our troglodytes do not date from the first Quaternary 

 period, or the age of the mammoth. The Moustier locality incontesta- 

 bly belongs to the age we have called intermediate, and which precedes 

 the age of the reindeer, while their other localities descend from period 

 to period until the end of the age of the reindeer. They witnessed then 

 the extinction of the ancient fauna. They did not, it is true, see disap- 

 pear the last survivor — the mammoth — for occasional remains of this 

 animal are found in the most recent caves of the Vezere, although a few 

 leagues from there, at Excideuil, MM. Jules and Philippe Parrot discov- 

 ered a paleolithic cave in which there was no trace of the extinct spe- 

 cies, and even the reindeer was rare. 



Thus the troglodytes of Perigord existed during the last two divisions 

 of the Quaternary period, from the decadence of the mammoth to the 

 disappearance of the reindeer. It is impossible to calculate the number 

 of centuries they lived, but we can lorm some idea from the relation of 

 their localities to the present level of the Vezere. 



After the Moustier cave ceased to be inhabited it was frequently 

 inundated by the Vezere, and gradually filled with alluvium. This 

 stratum of earth, which is about Gh feet in thickness, contains no 

 osseous or siliceous remains. Below it lies the stratum which formed 

 the habitation of man, in which he left traces of his industry and re- 

 mains of his feasts. This proves that the opening of the cave was once 

 beyond the reach of the waters, and consequently above the level of 

 the river, while now it is 30 yards below low-water mark. The bottom 

 of the valley has, therefore, been considerably elevated by deposition 

 since the time of the troglodytes of Moustier. 



On the other hand, the Madelaiue locality, which is perhaps the most 

 recent of the valley, is a little above the level of the highest present 

 tide, and we may therefore conclude that the valley at that period was 

 very much the same as it is now, the level having become only a little 

 lower. 



Thus this deposit of 30 jards, due to the action of the waters, was 

 effected almost entirely under the eyes of our troglodytes, and since 

 then, throughout the entire duration of the recent period, that is to say, 

 for thousands of centuries, little change appears. Judge, then, what 

 countless generations of humanity must have intervened between the 

 time of the Moustier locality and that of the Madelaiue. 



It is evident that, in this iuimense lapse of time, the habits and manu- 

 factures of these people must have undergone great changes, which we 

 find to have been the case in examining their different localities. 



All the localities now known are found in a very circumscribed 

 district, grouped on both sides of the river Vezere. From that of 

 Moustier, the highest up the river, to the Eyzies, the lowest, the distance 



