Ill] AND HISTORIC TIMES 89 



remains of Solutre and elsewhere, we have few osseous data 

 for the existence of the supposed small-headed type. 



Not only have the recent discoveries in caves of the late 

 Palaeolithic period led to the suggestion that at least two 

 distinct species of Equidae were known to their occupants — 

 a thing in itself not at all impi-obable — but to the further 

 theory that man had already subdued the horse to his will. 

 The evidence furnished by the bone-caves of Belgium and 

 Britain led to the conclusion that man hunted the horse like 

 any other animal for purposes of food. The general scarcity of 

 vertebrae of the horse in cave deposits seems to indicate that 

 the hunter took away the more detachable portions to his 

 home, but left the carcase on the field, a method followed in 

 the case of all big game \ Both man and the hyaena alike 

 broke the bones of the horse which formed their prey, but their 

 methods differed ; the former smashed them with hammer- 

 stones, the latter crushed them in his teeth. Further, in the 

 bones broken by men the spongy and cartilaginous portions 

 were not removed, " thus presenting a marked contrast to those 

 gnawed by hyaenas or by the dogs of the 'kitchen-midden' 

 people of Denmark." M. Dupont- inferred from the frequency 

 with which certain caudal vertebrae of the horse were met 

 with in the caves of Belgium that the hunters were in the 

 habit of cutting off and bringing home the tails of their horses 

 as trophies, like the brush of the fox in modern days. Later on 

 we shall see some reason for conjecturing that these tails may 

 have been prized as ornaments. 



The masses of bones of the horse and the reindeer found at 

 Solutre^ already mentioned, led us to infer that the horse was 

 habitually hunted and eaten for food. But M. Toussaint main- 

 tained that the horse-bones were those of domestic animals, 

 basing his opinion on the fact that the bones showed few old or 

 young animals, being usually those of horses from five to seven 

 years old. But M. Pietrement ^ retorted the argument, show- 



1 Munro, op. cit., pp. 123-4. 



2 Dupont, Les Temps Prehistoriques en Belgique, p. 173 (cited by Munro). 



^ Pietrement, Les Chevaux dans les Temps Frehistoriques et Historiques, 

 pp. 86-96. 



* Op. cit., p. 96. 



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