NA TURE 



401 



THURSDAY, MARCH 23, 1876 



FRENCH AND SWISS TROGLOD YTES 

 ReliquicB Aqidtanica: ; being Contributions to the Archaeo- 

 logy and Palaeontology of Perigord, By Edouard 

 Lartet and Henry Christy. Edited by T. Rupert 

 Jones, F.R.S. (London : Williams and Norgate, 1875.) 

 Excavations at the Kesslerloch near Thayngen, Switzer- 

 land. By Conrad Merk. Translated by John E. Lee, 

 F.S.A,, F.G.S. (London : Longmans, Green, and Co., 

 1876.) 



ALTHOUGH the term Aquitaine employed in the title 

 of this work is used in its widest sense as embracing 

 the whole country between the Loire and the Cevennes, 

 the prehistoric researches recorded in the seventeen 

 quarto numbers of it, which have appeared periodically, 

 commencing in December 1865, are confined to the 

 Province of Perigord, and chiefly to the valley of the 

 Vezere, a tributary of the Dordogne. 



Here the river, which has cut its way deeply into the 

 cretaceous rocks of the district, has formed a narrow 

 tortuous valley, bounded on either side at intervals by 

 cliffs rising to a height of 300 feet in some places. Above 

 this the surrounding country forms an extensive plateau, 

 varying in altitude, but rarely rising to any great height 

 above the summit of the valley. 



Owing to the different degrees of hardness of the cal- 

 careous rocks which form the precipitous sides of the 

 valley, the weathering of the face of the cliff has been 

 very unequal, the softer portions yielding to the action of 

 the atmosphere have formed deep grooves, and in places, 

 caves as much as 30 feet in depth have been formed, 

 extending some of them, for a hundred yards or more 

 along the sides of the cliff. As these caves afford con- 

 venient places of shelter, they have been occupied as 

 residences by the inhabitants of the valley at many different 

 periods, but more particularly by a race of prehistoric 

 |Troglodytes, who form the subject of the present work. 



The presence of these people is indicated by successive 

 layers of debris beneath the present floors of the caves 

 denoting successive periods of occupation, and separated 

 from each other in some places by a coating of stalagmite 

 of considerable thickness. The small distance of some 

 of the caves above the river proves that the latter can 

 have deepened its course but little, if at all, since the 

 caves were occupied by prehistoric men ; the cave of La 

 Madelaine, in which numerous works of art of the Trog- 

 lodytes have been found, is but little above the level of 

 extraordinary floods of the river at the present time, whilst 

 those of Le Moustier and Les Eyzies are 90 and 100 feet 

 respectively above the river. The position of the caves, 

 consequently, affords little or no evidence as to the age of 

 their contents, which has to be determined in two ways, 

 firstly, by the associated animal remains ; and secondly, 

 by the nature of the relics of human workmanship. From 

 both of these sources we derive proof of the greater anti- 

 quity of the Le Moustier cave than those of La Madelaine, 

 Les Eyzies, and Laugerie Basse, in the same valley. 



Comparing the fauna of these caves with that of other 

 well-known tinds of the prehistoric era elsewhere, we find 

 that the following sequence has been established. Sum- 

 VoL. XIII.— No. 334 



marising briefly, and omitting for the sake of clearness 

 many details which ought, nevertheless, to have weight in 

 a full consideration of the subject, the following are the 

 animals, the remains of which are most prevalent in 

 the different prehistoric periods. In the Drift, the 

 mammoth, rhinoceros, horse, and ox, are the predo- 

 minant animals, and the reindeer appears but sparingly. 

 In the cave of Le Moustier the mammoth and reindeer 

 are both found, but the latter is still found sparingly. In 

 the other caves of the valley the same fauna is found, but 

 the remains of the reindeer are abundant, and these 

 caves are consequently attributed "par excellence" to the 

 reindeer period. In the kitchen middens of Denmark 

 both mammoth and reindeer are absent, and the class 

 of domestic animals is represented only by the dog. In 

 the oldest of the Swiss lake villages the mammoth and 

 reindeer are also absent, although they existed formerly 

 in the neighbourhood, as shown by the contents of the 

 caves, and domestic animals are abundant. Both 

 mammoth and reindeer are wanting in all the tumuli 

 and other prehistoric monuments of the Celtic period, in 

 Gaul, showing that they must have disappeared from this 

 part of Europe before that time. 



Turning now to the relics of human industry, we find a 

 corresponding sequence in the different ages. In the 

 Drift, none but the large, rude, flint tools known as the Drift 

 type are found. In the cave of Le Moustier these large 

 rude tools are also found, and here only amongst the 

 caves of the valley, and they pass gradually into another 

 form known as the side tool or scraper, which is also 

 wanting in the later caves, where they are replaced by 

 lance heads of finer make and finish. In these also, 

 carved harpoon heads of bone begin to appear, and en- 

 gravings of the mammoth and reindeer, scratched by the 

 hand of man on fragments of horn and bone. No pottery 

 or ground axes are found in any of the caves, nor was 

 the art of spinning known. In the Danish kitchen 

 middens, ground axes are found, though rarely ; pottery 

 is firequent, and the art of spinning in some form appears 

 to have been introduced. In the oldest of the Swiss lake 

 habitations, ground axes and pottery are abundant ; spin- 

 ning, weaving, and the cultivation of wheat was well 

 known. 



From the study of their ar:s we are led naturally to 

 inquire into the physical pecuUaricies of the inhabitants of 

 the caves ; on this point, however, our evidence is some- 

 what meagre. Skulls of a brachycephalic type, and others 

 approaching to that form, had led Dr. Pruner-Bey to attri- 

 bute the inhabitants of France of the reindeer period to 

 a Mongol origin, but in these caves we are introduced to 

 a race of men whose form of cranium is decidedly 

 dolichocephalic. In the valley of the Vezere at Cro- 

 Magnon not far from Les Eyzies, a cave was dis- 

 covered and explored by M. Louis Lartet, which con- 

 tained the remains of four individuals. These remains 

 were situated at the back of the cave, above a series 

 of deposits which marked successive periods of the 

 occupation of the cave, and the whole cave had been 

 filled up by a talus which had fallen from above. The 

 animal remains found in the relic beds of the cave con- 

 sisted of bear, mammoth, lion, and horse. Reindeer was 

 also found but in small quantities, and this circumstance, 

 coupled with the absence of carved or engraved bone, led 



