CONTENTS OF THE CAVES. 21 



Contents of the Caves. The deposits consist usually of accumulations of 

 broken bones, various-sized pebbles of stone extraneous to the local formation 

 and collected from the river-bed, nodules of flint from which flakes have been 

 struck, innumerable fragments or chips detached in the first dressings of 

 these cores, and countless thousands of blades of flint, varying in size from 

 lance-heads long enough and stout enough to have been used against the 

 largest animals, down to lancets no larger than the blade of a penknife, and 

 piercing-instruments of the size of the smallest bodkin. These remains are 

 usually intermixed with charcoal in dust and in small fragments, and extend 

 to a depth in some cases of eight to ten feet, and a length of sixty to seventy 

 feet. 



Besides these have been found a multitude of implements formed of bone or 

 deer-horn, and equally proved to have been made there, by the presence of the 

 remnants of the bones and horns from which they had been sawn, and by the im- 

 plements themselves being often in an unfinished state. They consist of square 

 chisel-shaped implements ; .round, sharp-pointed, awl-like tools, some of which may 

 also have served as the spikes of fish-hooks ; harpoon-shaped lance-heads, plain or 

 barbed ; arrow-heads, with many and sometimes double barbs, cut with wonderful 

 vigour ; and, lastly, eyed needles of compact bone, finely pointed, polished, and 

 drilled, with round eyes so small and regular that some of the most assured and 

 acute believers in all other findings might well doubt whether indeed they could 

 have been drilled with stone, until their actual repetition by the very stone im- 

 plements found with them has dispelled their honest doubts. More than this, all 

 but two of the many deposits explored have given more or less of examples of orna- 

 mented work ; and three of them (Les Eyzies, Laugerie Basse, and La Madelaine) 

 drawings and sculptures of various animals, perfectly recognizable as such. 



The Old Fauna of the Country. It is not so much the existence of the multi- 

 tudinous implements in stone and bone, with the evidences of their manufacture 

 on the spot, which invests these deposits with their chief interest ; but the even 

 yet more multitudinous examples of bones, broken up by man, of animals extinct 

 in that part of Europe, out of all record of history or tradition, and the failure 

 as yet to detect amongst them any undoubted indication of the early domesticated 

 animals. The broad features of the fauna are the same throughout the district : 

 the Reindeer is almost everywhere by far the most prevalent animal ; in some 

 places the Horse is next, in others the Aurochs ; but in all the first two have been 

 a staple food. 



