5 6 GEOLOGY AND HISTORY 



during a night attack, she must have fallen, not in 

 flight, but with her face to the foe, perhaps aiding the 

 resistance of her friends or shielding her little ones 

 from destruction. With the people of Cro-magnon, 

 as with the American Indians, the care of the 

 wounded was probably a sacred duty, not to be 

 neglected without incurring the greatest disgrace 

 and the vengeance of the guardian spirits of the 

 sufferers. 



Unreasonable doubts have been cast on the burial 

 of the dead by palseocosmic men. The burial of men 

 of the Cro-magnon race at that place and at Laugerie 

 Basse and Mentone is established by the most un- 

 equivocal evidence ; and interments of men of the 

 Canstadt race have been found at Spy, in Belgium. 

 Of course, even if interment proper had not been 

 practised, there might have been cremation, as 

 among the Tasmanians, or burial on stages or in 

 huts, as among some American Indians. Still, that 

 interment was practised we know, and this carries 

 with it the certainty that our palaeocosmic men must 

 have had some simple ideas of religion. 



The skulls of these people have been compared to 

 those of the modern Esthonians or Lithuanians ; but 

 on the authority of M. Quatrefages it is stated that, 

 while this applies to the probably later race of smaller 

 men found in some of the Belgian caves, it does not 

 apply so well to the people of Cro-magnon. Are, 

 then, these people the types of any ancient, or of the 

 most ancient, European race ? The answer is that 



