262 RELIQUI^ AQUITAXICLE. 



quantity of bones humeri, femurs, tibias, maxillaries, &c., and a great number 

 of incisor and molar teeth*. The long bones, although "perfectly preserved and 

 without the slightest scratch or notch," appeared to their discoverer to have been 

 perhaps associated with some scene of cannibalism. If we observe that certain 

 existing savages, and the Esquimaux in particular, have so little respect for the 

 remains of their kind, removed by various circumstances from their burial-places, 

 that they allow them to be dragged round their huts with the osseous remains of 

 the animals they have eaten f, we shall readily account for these accumulations of 

 human bones in the hearths of Laugerie Basse, whither many causes might bring 

 them after inhumation, of which if proof were needed, it would be furnished 

 by the Shelter of La Madelaine and, perhaps, that which covered "No. 4" just 

 described. 



"Whether devoured by their kind, or snatched from sepulture by some cause or 

 other, the Men found at the commencement of 1869 at Laugerie Basse have not 

 been anatomically described. We know only that a humerus a little shorter than 

 that of " No. 4 " reached 32 centims. (12'6 inches), and that caries is very rarely 

 met with in the numerous teeth discovered by M. Massenat. 



A generous communication from that intelligent and conscientious observer 

 enables us to add to this rather vague information the description of three crania, 

 collected under conditions comparable with those of the skeleton described above. 



Cranium "No. V from Laugerie Basse. This male cranium is, unfortunately, 

 reduced to its posterior half; but it repeats, in a remarkable manner, in the 

 parietal, temporal, and occipital regions, the characters of the " Old Man " of 

 Cro-Magnon, of which it is a copy with reduced dimensions, especially crosswise. 

 The characters of the parietal and temporal bones can be completely studied on 

 the right side, where these bones are almost entire. The parietal curve and 

 protuberances, the curved temporal line, and the sagittal suture recall exactly 

 what was said of the same region in the male crania from Cro-Magnon. The 

 bone is merely a little shorter (130 millims. or 5 inches, measured along the 

 curve), and its posterior flattening is a little less pronounced; the curved line is 

 well marked, but not exaggerated ; and the suture is obliterated at the junction 

 of the anterior with the middle third of the sagittal. The squamous portion of 

 the temporal is broken along its margin ; and consequently we do not know its 



* " Objets graves et sculptes de Laugerie Basse (Dordogne)," Mat. pour FHist. prim, et nat. de PHomme, 

 ser. 2, vol. i. 1869, p. 356. 



f See Parry's Voyage and Lyon's Journal cited by Sir J. Lubbock, ' Prehistoric Times,' p. 395. 



