IN MODERN SCIENCE. 



153 



when in use it no doubt had trees or shrubs in 

 front, and may have been further completed by 

 stones, poles, or bark placed across the open- 

 ing. It seems, however, in the first instance to 

 have been used only at intervals, and to have 

 been left vacant fcu^ cohsic ' le portions of 

 time. Perhaps it was visited only by hunting- 

 or war-parties. But subsequently it was per- 

 manently occupied, and this for so long a time 

 that in some places ashes and carbonaceous 

 matter a foot and a half deep, with bones, im- 

 plements, etc., were accumulated. By this time 

 the height of the cavern had been much dimin- 

 ished, and, instead of clearing it out for future 

 use, it was made a place of burial, in which four 

 or five individuals were interred. Of these, 

 two were men, one of great age, the other 

 probably in the prime of life. A third was a 

 woman of about thirty or forty years of age. 

 The other remains were too fragmentary to 

 give very certain results. 



These bones, with others to be mentioned 

 n connection with them, unquestionably belong 

 to the oldest human inhabitants known in West- 

 ern Europe. They have been most carefully ex- 

 amined by several competent anatomists and 

 archaeologists, and the results have been pub- 



