622 ANNUAL, REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1910. 



Reliquiae Aquitanicae, by MM. Lartet and Cristy. The Aquitani of 

 Caesar's time lived in caves, and the caverns of Dordogne were in- 

 habited in the Middle Ages. According to M. Desnoyers, writes 

 Boyd Dawkins : 



In France there are at the present time whole villages, including the church, 

 to be found in the rocks, which are merely caves modified, extended, and altered 

 by the hand of man. 



The so-called Heidenlocher, Pagan holes (pi. 3), at Goldback, over- 

 looking Lake Constance in South Germany, may be taken as typical 

 examples of certain European cave dwellings excavated in the loess 

 formation, recalling those in tufa along the Verde in Arizona. My 

 attention was first called to these interesting caves by H. von Bayer, 

 who has given me an English translation from a German account 

 published in the Ueberlinger Badblatt (Nos. 6 and 7, Aug. 6, 22, 

 1910), and a short notice published in 1827 in Gustav Schwab's Der 

 Bodensee nebst dem Rheinthal. As these descriptions are too long to 

 quote in my address, I have introduced a condensed account embody- 

 ing the main features of the two. These caves are excavated in a 

 cliff rising perpendicular from the lake about 7 meters above the 

 water level, and were formerly approached by ladders from a narrow 

 path that once skirted the shore. 



The Heidenlocher formerly consisted of a series of rooms, chambers, cel- 

 lars, and niches connected with each other by hallways and stairs, extending 

 for a distance of almost a kilometer * * *. The single rooms are of differ- 

 ent sizes and shapes, some have groined arches, or at least the beginning of 

 them with the springers ; others have flat ceilings, some have columns, pilasters, 

 architraves, and cornices ; others are simple and without ornamentation. In 

 nearly all of them, however, are to be found stone benches, niches, window and 

 door openings with grooves cut out to receive the frames, and even the remains 

 of wooden dowels. In some places in the cliff are to be seen niches and rifts 

 which no doubt are remains of a former cave dwelling. 



The present approach (pi. 4, fig. 1) is by stone steps along the face 

 of the cliff, the former stairs being badly disintegrated. There are 

 now seven caves, a large number having been destroyed in 1846-1848, 

 when a road was constructed between Ueberlingen and Ludwigshafen. 

 The first cave, entered by an arched doorway, is 3 meters high and 

 has niches near the entrance. The second cave has two windows 

 open and a chimney. A niche in this opens into a third cave 1.8 

 meters high and 2 meters wide. The fourth cave (pi. 4, fig. 2), over 

 2 meters high, has a groined ceiling and stone bench at the opening. 

 On a lower level lies a cave called " the chapel," from which one 

 descends seven steps to a path which bifurcates, one branch leading 

 to the open, the other to a fifth cave, which has two stone columns 

 in the middle supporting Gothic arches. Two additional caves with 

 niches and benches are extended a few steps along the level of the 

 meadow lands. 



