ROCK-SHELTERS. 5 



Vezere, an affluent of the Dordogne, which flows through a portion of South- 

 western France, known in ancient times under the name of Aquitania, chiefly 

 claims our attention. The valley of the Vezere is very rich in caves, which 

 occur in the picturesque formations of cretaceous limestone bordering on the 

 meandering river, and form a peculiar feature in its beautiful scenery. These 

 caves, however, are not at all distinguished by vast proportions, some being mere 

 hollows or "rock-shelters" (abris in French), owing their origin to the disinte- 

 gration of soft strata which offered less resistance to atmospheric influences than 

 the harder rocks covering them. In times long past, rude hunters and fishers 

 used these hollowed rocks as dwelling-places, leaving there abundant tokens of 

 their occupancy, which afford the means of judging of their conditions of 

 existence. 



The best-known of these caves and shelters situated on both sides of the 

 Vezere at short distances from each other, and all embraced in the Department 

 of the Dordogne are Le Moustier, La Madelaine, Laugerie Haute, Laugerie 

 Basse, Gorge d'Enfer, Les Eyzies, and Cro-Magnon. They were conjointly explored 

 by M. Edouard Lartet, a distinguished French palaeontologist, and Mr. Henry 

 Christy, an English gentleman of wealth and great scientific acquirements. 

 Their efforts resulted in the publication of the " Reliquiae Aquitanicse," a com- 

 prehensive and richly-illustrated work, which, notwithstanding its Latin title, is 

 written in the English language.* 



In prehistoric times the above-named localities, or " stations," as they have 

 been called, undoubtedly were inhabited by man for a lengthened period, during 

 which the numerical proportion of some of the then existing species of animals 

 seems to have undergone changes, while in the same epoch a decided progress is 

 traceable in the mechanical acquirements of man. So much may be inferred 

 from the animal remains and works of art found in the different caves of the 

 Vezere.f Generally speaking, the refuse left by the cave-men, or troglodytes, in 

 the caves under notice consists of bones (many of them broken for extracting 

 the marrow), pebbles, and articles of flint, horn, and bone, intermingled with 

 charcoal in fragments and dust : the whole often being cemented together, and 

 forming a kind of tufa. These accumulations sometimes extend to a depth of 



* Reliquiae Aquitanicaa ; being Contributions to the Archaeology and Palaeontology of Perigord and the adjoin- 

 ing Provinces of Southern France. By Edouard Lartet and Henry Christy. Edited by Thomas Rupert Jones. 

 1865-76. London, 1875. 



f Sir Charles Lyell remarks, concerning the unequal representation of animal remains in the caves, aa follows : 

 " M. Lartet has founded a classification upon the prevalence of certain animals in the d6bris ; the mammoth 

 and cave-bear characterizing the earlier, and the reindeer the later deposits. But as the same species occur through- 

 out, and as most of the remains were brought there by man, the abundance of any particular animal may not 

 indicate the prevalence of that species at the time, but only the success of the hunters, or the sojourn of migratory 

 animals in the neighborhood." The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man; London and Philadelphia, 

 1873 ; p. 135. 



