298 FOSSIL MEN. 



totem of the family or tribe to whom the vault be- 

 longed. Feasts for the dead must have been a recog- 

 nised institution, as evidenced by the hearth built for 

 them, and by the quantity of charcoal, ashes, and bones 

 upon and around it. Dupont enumerates more than 

 forty species of quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, and fishes, 

 which had been used in these repasts, and which show 

 that these people were as omnivorous in their tastes 

 for animal food, and as skilful in gratifying them, as 

 are the American Indians. This cave, which in many 

 respects resembles that of Aurignac, so well described 

 by Lartet and Lyell, and other tombs of this age, tells 

 in a manner too plain to admit of contradiction, of the 

 same hopes with reference to the dead which we have 

 seen in the funeral rites of pre-historic America. 



But there was in Europe a still earlier race. Were 

 they cognisant of this sublime hope ? We have, it is 

 true, few indications of their beliefs ; but what we have 

 show that, while physically a superior race to that 

 which succeeded them, they were equally, in their own 

 judgment, heirs of a future life.* I have already re- 

 ferred to the carvings in the cave of Bruniquel, in 

 France, probably belonging to this most ancient human 

 age, as evidence of their belief in God. Of the sepul- 

 chral caves of this period I may take that of Mentone, 

 already noticed, as evidence of their identity with the 

 Americans in the belief in immortality. 



* It should be noted however, that the Bible gives reason to 

 believe that the chief sin of antediluvian times was a disregard 

 of God and a future life. 



