340 On the Habits and Condition [ July, 
plus ancienne, 4 Aurignac, professer une sorte de culte pour les 
morts, aient enseveli un des leurs dans le lieu méme ou ils man- 
geaient ; ensuite, parce que l’on n’a apercu aupres de ces débris 
humains aucuns des accessoires habituels et a signification symbo- 
lique que l’on retrouve jusque dans les sépultures les plus anciennes 
des temps primordiaux.”* ‘These two reasons seem to me to be inva- 
lidated by the equivocal evidence afforded by the cave of Aurignac. 
As, however, the human remains in the cave of Eyzies and the rock- 
shelter of La Madelaine were found 7m situ by experienced observers, 
the evidence for their contemporaneity with the Reindeer seems 
to be as good as that afforded by the bone of any other animal 
found. 
These remains give us a most vivid picture of the habits and 
mode of life of the time. The great Carnivora had not yet disap- 
peared from Western Europe, and of the great extinct Pachyderms 
the Mammoth was sufficiently familiar to the eye of the artist to 
be faithfully engraved. Herds of Reindeer, along with the Horse 
and the Red-deer, wandered through Central and Southern France. 
The great Arctic Musk-sheep and the Antelope Saiga of the 
Siberian steppes were occasionally killed by the Reindeer Folk. 
We can almost see the hunter returning to his cave, or rock- 
shelter, bearing upon his shoulders the Reindeer that he had slain, or 
portions of a Bison, or Urus, or Horse (for they were cut up where 
they fell), or with fish from the Vezere or Dordogne, or with birds 
that he had snared or speared, to be hastily cooked and greedily 
devoured by his family and friends. We can see him clad in skins 
perpetuating the remembrance of the chase by engraving on 
antlers, or bones, or stones the figure of a fish, a Red-deer, Horse, 
Bouquetin, and even of a Mammoth, or preparing skins for clothing 
with the rude flint scrapers, or sewing them together with the 
bone needles. And we can see him chipping his rude spear-heads, 
knives, and scrapers, and all his edged tools, out of a block of flint, 
and the chips he struck off, and the flint core he threw away, are 
still where they fell, on the heap of split bones, ashes, and broken 
implements upon which he dwelt. He was unacquainted with the 
art of making pottery or of spinning; he never ground his imple- 
ments or weapons, and was unaided by the dog in hunting. Yet, 
even in this poor savage we find an idea that in the time which 
has elapsed between his sojourn in France and our own day has 
borne the most glorious fruits. The idea of representing familiar 
objects has developed, on the one hand, into the marvellous works 
of a Phidias and a Raphael; on the other, into the invention of 
hieroglyphies, of the alphabet, and of printing. 
This early people seem to have been a different race to the 
Flint Folk, because, although both lived very much under the 
same physical conditions, in no case are their implements or weapons 
* See ‘Revue Archéologique,’ 1864. 
