908 REPORT—1896. 
The importance of this series of interments is so unique, and the fulness of the 
evidence so far surpasses any other records immediately associated with the earliest 
remains of man, that even in this brief survey they seem to demand more than a 
passing notice. 
So much, at least, must be admitted on all hands: an earlier stage of culture is 
exhibited in these deposits than that which has hitherto been regarded as the mini- 
mum equipment of the men of the later Stone Age. The complete absence of 
pottery, of polished implements, of domesticated animals—all the more striking 
from the absolute contrast presented by the rich Neolithic cave burials a little 
further up the same coast —how is it to be explained? The long flint knives, the 
bone and shell ornaments, might, indeed, find partial parallels among Neolithic 
remains; but does not, after all, the balance of comparison incline to that more 
ancient group belonging to the ‘ Reindeer Period’ in the South of France, as illus- 
rated by the caves of La Madeleine, Les Eyzies and Solutré ? 
Tt is true that, in an account of the interments found in 1892 in the Barma 
Grande Cave, given by me to the Anthropological Institute, I was myself so pre- 
possessed by the still dominant doctrine that the usage of burial was unknown to 
Paleolithic man, and so overpowered by the vision of the yawning hiatus between 
him and his Neolithic successor, that I failed to realise the full import of the 
evidence. On that occasion I took refuge in the suggestion that we had here to 
deal with an earlier Neolithic stratum than any hitherto recorded. ‘ Neolithic,” 
that is, without the Neolithic. 
But the accumulation of fresh data, and especially the critical observations of 
M. d’Acy and Professor Issel, have convinced me that this intermediate position is 
untenable. From the great depth below the original surface, of what in all cases 
seem to have been homogeneous quaternary deposits, at which the human remains 
were found, it is necessary to suppose, if the interments took place at a later 
period, that pits in many cases from 80 to 40 feet deep must have been excavated in 
the cave earth. But nothing of the kind has been detected, nor any intrusion of 
extraneous materials. On the other hand, the gnawed or defective condition of the 
extremities in several cases points clearly to superficial and imperfect interment of 
the body ; and in one case parts of the same core from which flints found with the 
skeleton had been chipped were found some metres distant on the same floor level. 
Are we, then, to imagine that another pit was expressly dug to bury these ? 
Tn the case of a more recently discovered and as yet unpublished interment, at 
the excavation of which I was so fortunate as to assist, the superficial character of 
the deposit struck the eye. The skeleton, with flint knife and ochre near, decked 
out with the usual shell and deer’s tooth ornaments, lay as if in the attitude of 
sleep, somewhat on the left side. The middle of the body was covered with a large 
flat stone, with two smaller ones lying by it, while another large stone was laid 
over the feet. The left arm was bent under the head as if to pillow it, but the 
extremities of the right arm and the toes were suggestively deficient : the surface 
covering of big stones had not sufficiently protected them. The stones themselves 
seem in turn to have served as a kind of hearth, for a stratum of charred and 
burned bones about 45 cm. thick lay about them. 
Is it reasonable to suppose that a deposit of this kind took place at the bottom 
ofa pit over 20 feet deep, left open an indefinite time for the convenience of 
roasting venison at the bottom ? 
A rational survey of the evidence in this asin the other cases leads to the conclu- 
sion that we have to deal with surface burial, or, if that word seems too strong, with 
simple ‘ seposition ’—the imperfect covering with handy stones of the dead bodies 
as they lay in the attitude of sleep on the then floor of the cavern. In other 
words, they are 77 situ in a late quaternary deposit, for which Professor Issel has 
proposed the name of ‘ Meiolithic.’ 
But if this conclusion is to hold good, we have here on the northern coast of 
the Mediterranean evidence of the existence of a late Paleolithic race, the essential 
features of which, in the opinion of most competent osteological inquirers, reappear 
in the Neolithic skeletons of the same Ligurian coast, and still remain characteristic 
of the historical Ligurian type. In other words, the ‘ Mediterranean Race’ finds 
