BOKE- AND CAVE-DEPOSITS OF THE KEINDEEK-PERIOD. 179 



objects from. Les Eyzies, occurred in association with bones of Reindeer, Ox, 

 Horse, and other animals, mostly in a fractured condition. We have not as yet 

 the advantage of knowing what opinion has been formed by Professor Owen as to 

 the age of the deposit, or what fauna he has been enabled to determine as 

 belonging to the cave ; but in a second collection from thence, which I saw at the 

 chateau of the Vicomte de Lastic St. Jal, the explorer of the cave, were the base 

 of a large canine tooth, probably of Ursus spelceus, and the tooth of a large 

 Carnivore. There were also several marine shells, such as Dentalium, Natica, 

 Nassa, Pectunculus, Scalaria, Valuta, and a Cypnea an inch in length, all not 

 improbably derived from the Miocene beds of the Garonne. As several of these 

 shells are perforated, it is evident that they were brought into the cave as personal 

 ornaments ; and this fact strengthens the supposition that in other cases remains 

 of an older period, such 1 as teeth of Ursus spelteus and Elephant, may have been 

 introduced into the caves by their primitive human occupants long after the 

 death of the animals. In some cases, as at La Madelaine, fossil shells have been 

 found imbedded in the refuse-heaps. A shell of the genus Cassis has also been 

 found at Les Eyzies. 



On the whole, the evidence of all the caves which I have here cited as con- 

 taining deposits of a similar character to those of the Valley of the Vezere is 

 strongly corroborative of their belonging to a period subsequent to that of the 

 Elephas primigeuim and Rhinoceros tichorhinus and their Postpliocene associates, 

 but characterized by the presence of the Reindeer and some other animals now 

 extinct in that part of Europe, though they must have lived on to a period when 

 some slight advance had been made in human civilization. For the works of 

 Human Art found in these deposits show faculties of design beyond those of 

 mere savages ; and there is, moreover, for the most part, a definite character 

 pervading them, so much so that, even with our present experience, there are 

 a certain number of objects which may, with considerable confidence, be regarded 

 as characteristic of what M. Lartet has termed the "Reindeer-period" in the 

 South of France. It is indeed evident that outward conditions, and the means 

 requisite for obtaining a supply of animal food, must react upon the manner of 

 life of a people, and that this will in turn regulate the weapons and implements 

 most in use, so that such objects will always be to some extent correlated with 

 the fauna of the period. 



I must, however, acknowledge that there are some instances of caves which, 

 according to the observations of those who explored them, favour the view of 

 weapons, implements, and ornaments of precisely the same character as those of 



