250 THE REV. J. MAGENS MELLO, M.A., F.G.S., KTC, 



not bmy their dead, and therefore had no respect for them, 

 and from this he assumes that they had no rehgion, for had 

 they any, it would have led them, he concludes, to fear death 

 or the dead, and so to practise funeral rites ; but it appears to 

 me that this is a very questionable conclusion on his part, 

 besides which, although we may allow that as a rule the 

 dead were left unburied, it is open to question whether this 

 was the invariable practice, M. Cartailhac and also M. 

 Reinach say that there have been found instances of Palaeo- 

 lithic burials, certain finds at Solutre, Jjaugerie basse, Cro- 

 Magnon are cited as examples. It must, however, be noted 

 that Professor Boyd Dawkins has thrown some doul)t as to 

 the age of some of these interments, and is sceptical as to 

 the practice of burial during the early Stone age; but in the 

 c;ave at Spy, previoasly spoken of, it is said two human 

 skeletons, which had evidently been buried, were found in 

 connection with the Pleistocene fauna, under conditions 

 which absolutely precluded the h;)^othesis of later introduc- 

 tion. A good deal of stress has also been laid on the dis- 

 covery of interred skeletons at Brousse-Rousse, near Mentone. 

 One of these, it is said, was found in 1876 in one of the 

 caves, at a depth of 61 metres, and it was urged that no 

 Neohthic interment could have been made at such a depth. 

 However, Professors W. Boyd Dawkins, McKenny Hughes, 

 MM. de Mortillet and Cartailhac, all doubted its being of 

 Palseolithic age. Still more recently, in 1884, another dis- 

 covery was made in an adjoining cave by M. Julien, where 

 beneath beds containing a large assemblage of characteristic 

 Pleistocene remains, and implements of Magdalenien type, 

 together with marine shells, a human skeleton was found 

 apparentl}'" interred beneath a large stone block at a depth of 

 over 8 metres. With this skeleton were found implements 

 of Palseolithic type. Mr. Wilson together with M]\L Julien and 

 Bonfils, the discoverers, maintained that the position of this 

 skeleton was such as to exclude '' all idea of disturbance," so 

 great was the depth at which it was found, and there being 

 also that large mass of stone above it. In a long article 

 in the Revue des Questions Scientifiques, 1886, the Abbe E. 

 Vacandard argues strongly in favour of the Palaeolithic age 

 of this find, which was disputed by M. de Mortillet and others 

 who have regarded it, as they did the previous ones, as 

 Neolithic. As lately as the beginning of the present year, 

 1892, three other skeletons, one at least 7 feet in height, 

 were found close to where the 1884 one was discovered, 



