MAN FROM THE FARTHEST PAST 
Though we find a certain similarity between the burial 
customs of the Cro-Magnons and those of the Neander- 
thalers whom they replaced, the former made far greater 
use of red pigment, which they appear to have deemed ab- 
solutely essential to a properly arranged interment. They 
likewise buried with the dead circlets, necklaces, gorgets, 
and coronets of perforated shells; tools and weapons of 
finely worked flint; and supplies of food. Such funeral 
furnishings would appear to imply a lively faith in the sur- 
vival of the ghost ot the dead man, for a time at least. 
Sometimes, it would seem, the Aurignacians painted the 
corpse itself red with mineral pigments which, as the body 
decayed, eventually worked through to the bones. At 
other times, like so many later peoples, they laid the dead 
away temporarily until the fleshy parts of the body de- 
cayed, after which they carefully cleansed, painted red, 
and once more buried the bones, this time for good. 
This custom of painting the dead or their bones suggests 
that the living Aurignacians also probably painted them- 
selves. If so, the practice undoubtedly had a magical basis, 
as did the war paint of the American Indians, for example. 
THE SOLUTREAN FEpocH 
What finally became of the culture of the Aurignacian 
hunters and artists which we have briefly sketched in the 
foregoing paragraphs? In certain areas, especially in Italy, 
sheltered as it 1s against invasion from the north by the 
great rampart of the Alps, it seems to have survived with- 
out radical change for a long period. There it shows no 
sign of having been influenced by the Solutrean and 
Magdalenian cultures, and was ultimately replaced only 
by the Azilian type of human industry. The valleys of the 
Pyrenees and of northeastern Spain also probably served as 
refuges for some of the Aurignacian bands who fled thither, 
apparently before the Solutrean intruders slowly drifting in 
from the east. , 
The climate during the Solutrean epoch was in the main 
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