PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PRE-HISTORIC MEN. 191 



The woman presented similar characters of stature 

 and cranial form, modified by her sex, and must in 

 form and visage have been a veritable squaw, who, 

 if her hair and complexion were suitable, would have 

 passed at once for an Indian woman, but one of un- 

 usual size and development. Her head bears sad 

 testimony to the violence of her age and people. She 

 died from the effects of a blow from a stone-headed 

 pogamogon or spear, which has penetrated the right 

 side of the forehead with so clean a fracture as to indi- 

 cate the extreme rapidity and force of its blow. It is 

 inferred from the condition of the edges of this wound 

 that she may have survived its infliction for two weeks 

 or more. If, as is most likely, the wound was received 

 in some sudden attack by a hostile tribe, they must 

 have been driven off or have retired, leaving the 

 wounded woman in the hands of her friends to be 

 tended for a time, and then buried, either with other 

 members of her family or with others who had per- 

 ished in the same skirmish. Unless the wound was 

 inflicted in sleep, during a night attack, she must have 

 fallen, not in flight, but with her face to the foe, per- 

 haps aiding the resistance of her friends, or shielding 

 her little ones from destruction. With the people of 

 Cro-magnon, as with the American Indians, the care 

 of the wounded was probably a sacred duty, not to be 

 neglected without incurring the greatest disgrace, and 

 the vengeance of the guardian spirits of the sufferers.* 



* Prof. Boyd Dawkins, in "Cave Hunting," has thrown some 

 doubts on the antiquity of the skeletons of this type. A 



