330 THE TROGLODYTES. 



it is difficult to believe that the fires which were lighted, not only 

 every day, but at every season of the year, were only for warmth. It is 

 much more probable that they were used by the troglodytes for cooking 

 their food. 



We do not know how they produced the fire 5 whether by striking flint, 

 or heating wood by friction. Nor do we know anything about their 

 arrangements for cooking. They had no pottery, and could not boil 

 their meat; neither did they roast it, for only occasionally calcined bones 

 are found, and these are calcined evidently by accident. It is possible 

 that they used wooden vessels, in which the water was brought to the 

 boiling-point by the immersion of red-hot pebbles, but it seems to me 

 much more probable that the food was cooked under the ashes, as is 

 still the custom among savage people. 



They were very fond of the brain of animals, and of the marrow of the 

 long bones, for the heads and the marrow-bones (to the exclusion of all 

 others) are uniformly broken. Marrow is considered a great delicacy 

 among all savages. They break the bone in a peculiar manner, and the 

 head of the tribe is honored with the first suck. Our troglodytes used 

 wedge-shaped pieces of flint as a kind of hatchet for breaking the bones. 

 They also had an instrument of horn, which was probably employed in 

 extracting the marrow. (See Fig. 14.) ArchiEologists disagree in regard 

 to this instrument. Some have supposed it to be a dart, because one of 

 its extremities, if not pointed, is conical in shape, and that the cavity 

 formed in the other was intended to admit the handle ; but, if so, the 

 latter extremity would not have been sharpened to an oblique poiut 

 before the cavity was made. On the contrary, the part used for the 

 handle, where strength was required, would have been heavier, not 

 smaller and weaker. Besides, the elegant ornamentation of the exterior 

 surface indicates that it was an object of luxurj-. The time required 

 for such work was not wasted in forming a weapon which might be lost 

 in the first thicket encountered. I therefore think, with Edward Lar- 

 tet and Christy, that this instrument was for extracting marrow, and 

 was only used by persons of distinction. 



The troglodytes, when their repasts were ended, left the bones scat- 

 tered upon the ground. In a warm climate these would have exhaled 

 frightful odors, but we must remember that the temperature was much 

 lower then than now. Moreover, we must admit that cleanliness was 

 not the dominant virtue of the men of this period, but their want of 

 neatness serves ns well, for, in consequence, the floors of their caves 

 show us exactly what they had to eat. The flesh of the reindeer was 

 their principal food, but they also lived upon the horse, the urns, seve- 

 ral species of ox, the chamois, the goat, and even of the carnivorous 

 animals. Thus far they but followed the example of their predecessors; 

 but they had, in addition, the products of the fisheries, while the im- 

 provement of the bow enriched their larder with a great variety of 

 birds, whose bones are found among the remains of the repasts. 



