THE UNITY OP THE HUMAN SPECIES. 559 



The tomb was a little niche dug or quarried in the travertine. It 

 contained, along with the skeleton, a black hand-made pottery vase, 

 some arrowheads, a stone hammer, and a bronze lance head. 



The grotto of Arene-Gandide near Finale-Marina (province of Genoa) 

 has also furnished human bones sprinkled with iron oligist, due doubt- 

 less to the red patine with which it had been covered. M. Orsi, whose 

 long excavations in Sicily have been so fruitful, excavated this and 

 other caves, some with a diameter of from 6 to 10 feet, wherein had 

 been laid from twenty to twenty-five dead of the Sikeles, the ancient 

 inhabitants. It is evident that they were deposited after the flesh had 

 been stripped from the bones. These bones, notably in the burial 

 place of Lapaci, near Palermo, bore traces of red paint; and if one 

 argues as to their small number, we should not forget that the color 

 was not fixed by baking, like that on clay or pottery, and would not be 

 preserved in the dry caves.^ 



In the Anthropological Congress at Lisbon M. Delgado announced 

 analogous discoveries in the grotto of Furninha, a cave of Portugal, 

 occupied by man from the most ancient times. 



Professor Pigorini, who has studied this, question with his habitual 

 skill, believes that the skeletons were placed in their tomb after the 

 flesh had been removed, and that the bones had been sometimes painted 

 and colored with red ochre, other times with cinnabar or oligist. Our 

 knowledge of the state of affairs points to that as the present conclusion. 



Passing from the Mediterranean to the shores of the Black Sea we 

 find the same funeral rite. 



According to a communication of M. Autonovitch to the Gongress of 

 Vilna,- the application of red color to human bones is frequently seen 

 in the countries belonging to the Eussian Empire. The custom exists 

 in Bessarabia, in ISTew Russia, in Grimea, and the Ukraine, as well as in 

 Poland, in the provinces of Kiew and Poltava, and in Siberia. This 

 can be shown by examples. 



Professor Wasselowski found in the Grimea two tombs containing — 

 the first six skeletons, the other but one, all of which were colored red. 

 Professor Grembler, of Breslau, after examination, attributed them to 

 the Gimmeriens, who inhabited the Grimea in the time of Herodotus. 

 The Gimmeriens exposed their dead in elevated places, to the end that 

 the birds should devour the flesh. The bones, being thus cleaned, were 

 painted with a mineral. 



Three such tombs had been found in the Grimea. They are also 

 said to have been found in Gentral Asia, but have not been sufiiciently 

 studied to be quoted.^ The kourganes (Russian burial mounds) that 

 contained human bones are generally poor, the excavations having 

 furnished only a few pieces of pottery, some stone implements, and 



1 G. Serrot, Un peiiple oubli^, Rev. des Deux Mondes, June 1, 1897. 



2 L'Anthropologie, 1894, page 72. 



3 L'Antliropologie, 1890, page 767. 



