PRIM1GENIAL SKELETONS. 19 



of them are covered with a red sort of rust, while they lie in a 

 sepia-colored earth softer than that which is immediately above 

 and around them in the cave. M. Bonfils explains this rusty color 

 by the fact that lumps of red ocher have been found near the 

 skeletons, probably having been obtained from some rocks that 

 exist not far off ; with this the bodies most probably had been 

 covered, and the flesh having disappeared, the ocher had settled 

 and remained on the bones. It is said that around the head of the 

 man was a circlet of carved reindeer teeth and a chaplet of shells, 

 and around the necks of all were found necklaces, of course long 

 since fallen to pieces, formed from the backbones of fish ; these 

 latter have been strung together on wire. But so many people 

 claim to have seen the skeletons first and dispute each other's 

 assertions with regard to these relics found with them that we 

 only refer to them for what they are worth : certain it is that 

 circlets of carved reindeer teeth and other objects have been found 

 in these caves ; all that has been found we have ourself seen, but, 

 unfortunately, no authoritative person was able to reach the caves 

 in time to ascertain in exactly what positions these chaplets, 

 knives, and other objects were found by the peasant Abbo and his 

 wife, to whose house, not far from the caves, the articles were at 

 once transported, to be placed with many others which have from 

 time to time been discovered. These bones and other objects are 

 here and there tinged with the same ocher rust with which the 

 skeletons themselves are covered. The outermost skeleton, that 

 of the man, was lying on its back, the knees slightly bent toward 

 its left, its arms stretched out by its side. In the left hand was 

 found a flint blade exactly nine inches long, held loosely, which 

 proves that once there was a handle of some perishable material. 

 The woman and the youth had been buried lying on their left 

 sides, the legs bent slightly at the knee ; the former held in her 

 left hand, raised beside her face, a smooth, wide, and hollow- 

 curved blade of flint that lay under the head as if it had been 

 placed there for it to rest on, while in the right hands of both 

 these smaller skeletons were said to have been found flint knives, 

 as in that of the bigger one. Their right arms were bent so that 

 the hand reached the shoulder. The third, buried between the 

 man and woman, and whose skull is missing, we have taken to 

 be that of a tall youth. From the appearance of these skeletons 

 they seem to have been buried rather than to have been overcome 

 by some sudden catastrophe, as has sometimes been supposed of 

 that of 1872, which was very much bent up and leaning on its left 

 side. Around them, above and below, were the bones of many 

 extinct species of mammalia huge teeth, teeth of reindeer and of 

 the Bos primigenius and the horse, together with many small 

 flint instruments ; but these would merely seem to indicate that 



