100 BELIQUI/E AQUITANKLE. 



are entirely coalesced on their inner face. On the exterior the coronal suture is partly effaced ; the sagittal 

 and especially the lambdoid are much more apparent. Consequently the obliteration of the sutures 

 advanced from before backwards. A similar state of the sutures in skulls of modern Europeans would 

 indicate on an average an age of more than fifty years ; but we know that among uncivilized races the 

 sutures become obliterated at a much earlier period of life than with us. It is possible, then, that this 

 woman was less than fifty years of age ; and the state of her teeth supports this view. Only two teeth, the 

 first and second right large molars, remain in place. The other teeth are gone ; but the condition of the 

 sockets proves that the teeth were displaced after death. The two remaining molars have been worn, one 

 very much, so that its cusps and furrows have disappeared and the ivory has been laid bare ; the other has lost 

 its cusps, but the bases of the furrows are still visible, and its enamel is nowhere worn through. As the first 

 large molar cuts the gum at about the sixth or seventh year, and the second not until from the twelfth to 

 the fourteenth, it follows that the first will be more used than the second, with the difference of from six to 

 eight years. The amount of difference existing between the two molars under notice is such as would be 

 referable to eight years' use ; it is very considerable, and indicates a very rapid wearing of the teeth 

 either because the person habitually fed on very hard substances, or because the dental tissues were 

 relatively soft. Moreover the wearing away of the second molar is very slight, compared with that of the 

 first ; and hence we may regard it as probable that a very long time had not elapsed between the cutting of 

 that tooth and the woman's death. It seems to me impossible that she lived to the age of fifty years, as the 

 advanced stage of the obliteration of the sutures would seem to indicate. I am indeed disposed to think 

 that she was still young, not more than thirty-five or forty an age at which in Negroes I have many 

 times seen the sutures of the cranial vault almost entirely closed. 



The direction of the plane of wearing cannot be determined on the second molar, which was not 

 sufficiently ground down; but on the first molar it is oblique from below upwards and from without 

 inwards. This is the same as is observed in the tooth of the " Old Man " No. 1. 



The cranium of our " No. 2 " is imperfect, especially behind and on the left side. Although incomplete, 

 the face may be studied in its principal features. The left half of the frontal bone is penetrated, above the 

 outer half of the orbit, by an oblique hole 33 millimetres (1-299 inch) long, 12 (0-472 inch) wide in the 

 middle, and narrowing to sharp angles at the end, therefore in all probability made by a blow with a small 

 stone axe. It was certainly made during life, and probably produced death, but not immediately ; for we 

 perceive on the inner face of the frontal, around the hole, a vascularity of the bone and a deposit of finely 

 porous bony matter, which must have required from fifteen to twenty days for ite production. The little 

 fragment of bone, probably driven into the brain, has not been found ; and there is no splintering of the table 

 of the skull, the aperture in which has nearly as sharp an edge as that outside. Hence the blow must have 

 been given with very great force. 



As we have already seen that one of the Old Man's thigh-bones presents some traces of an old wound, 

 received possibly in a fight, the Cro-Magnon people appear to us as of violent habits ; and indeed, if the 

 " Old Man " was wounded in the chase, the woman's wound was evidently given by a murderer. 



The bones corresponding in colour with the cranium "No. 2" are large and strong, but less rough and 

 massive than those of " No. 1 ; " and they otherwise present the characters of the bones of a female. 



3. Skeleton " No. 3." " No. 3 " was an adult man, about forty-five years old. The face and the 

 temporal bones are wanting. All the occipital sutures, including those of six rather large wormian bones 

 in the lambdoid suture, are still quite open. The sagittal is not at all closed externally, but it is closed on 

 the inside. The coronal has quite coalesced on the inside ; but on the outside, though the obliteration is 

 much advanced throughout, there are still traces of the suture. 



