ANIMAL REMAINS FOUND AT CISSBURY. 417 



vertebrae have been recovered from this pit may seem at first 

 hardly in keeping with the view just stated. But the Homeric 

 epithet for the chine, as eaten at feasts ('Iliad,' vii. 321), curiously 

 enough suggests that the vertebrae would be kept together even 

 when thus used ; and the comment of the scholiast upon the word 

 in question seems to indicate that the way of utilising the muscles 

 of the back for food with which he was familiar, was not such as 

 to be described by such words as vvtoktl bi-qveKieacn. It is easy to 

 imagine that savages using flint knives only to carve with would be 

 glad to be spared the trouble of disarticulating the vertebral column 

 into segments, such as we eat under the name of ' chine' ; and the 

 deeper lying spinal and interspinal muscles and ligaments would 

 keep it all bound together after they had devoured the more super- 

 ficially placed soft parts. What they left would be flung on to 

 their rubbish heap ; from that it migrated, in a way to be hereafter 

 suggested, into the skeleton shaft. 



The fact that the lower jaws are invariably broken 1 , so as to 

 part the alveolar from the other parts of the bone, bears directly 

 upon the employment of the bone for food, as does also the very 

 scanty representation of the brain-containing part of the skull, 

 or indeed of any part of the skull except the upper jaw. The 

 absence of any manubrium sterni I should explain, following a 

 hint given by Rutimeyer, by suggesting that it was found useful 

 as a punch when the tynes of the red deer might have become 

 scarce. 



An old goat, Copra kircus, was represented in the series from 

 this skeleton pit by a radius, a metacarpal, and metatarsal bone, 

 and by four lumbar vertebrae. A kid was also represented by its 

 metatarsal bones. 



Two roes, Cervus capreolus, were also represented here ; the femur 

 and humerus of one had been split for marrow, and was slightly 

 stained with the manganic oxide. 



Bos primigenius may perhaps be represented by a couple of thick 

 and rough nasal bones, as well as by a few other fragmentary 

 bones of similar texture, and some much worn premolars. These 

 may have got accidentally mixed up with the bones of the other 

 animals found in larger quantities in this pit, some of the suc- 

 cessful drivers of the urns having brought away its head from 



1 See Rutimeyer, 'Fauna der Pfahlbauten,' p. 14. 

 E 



