Notices respecting New Books. 553 



shells, common on the shores of La Charente, point out that this 

 family at least had ascended the valley of the Dordogne after a 

 sojourn on the Atlantic coast. 



Personal decoration is instanced by finding pieces of " soft red 

 haematite covered with scratches," indicating how a red powder was 

 produced " which mixed with grease would furnish as good means 

 of personal adornment as is employed by many of the Indians of 

 the present day ;" and pierced teeth of various animals, sometimes 

 marked with incised markings and carved, together with shells drilled 

 for suspension, may well have furnished necklaces or ornaments 

 which can easily find their analogue among Esquimaux or Indians 

 of modern times. 



But it is in the actual implements of war, chase, and domestic 

 life that the researches have been most definite. The materials 

 used were bone and stone, the latter generally flint, the former of 

 different kinds. 



The flint implements varied much in style and character. Some 

 were finely and delicately chipped to form arrow-heads and oval 

 lances of true Scandinavian type, as at Laugerie Basse. Others, 

 as at Le Moustier, more nearly approach the drift-type of St. 

 Acheul in roughness of make, being mere blocks of flint, one side of 

 which has been reduced by chipping to a cutting edge, forming 

 either a tool for splitting open the marrow bones (which among all 

 the hearth-stuff of the caves are found so broken in profusion), or 

 as hand weapons for close combat in a melee. Manifestly what 

 could split the skull of an animal carried to the cave for the pur- 

 pose of extracting the brain, could with equal facility be made to 

 crack a human skull of similar density. Long even flakes of flint 

 with their extremities chipped into an oval form, thumb-flints, fitting 

 conveniently to the grasp, were used evidently in dressing skins, or 

 as raspers and scrapers of wood and bone, though possibly those 

 which bear marks of wear and minute crushing or chipping along 

 the side, and hence turned " side scrapers," were better for the 

 latter purpose. The flakes therefore bear marks of wear in three 

 ways : — first at the end, which is rounded artificially, the other being 

 left pointed ; next at the side, the rest of the flake being untouched; 

 and lastly at the point, on one or both sides. This latter form may 

 have been produced in two ways — either by scraping a round sub- 

 stance like an arrow-shaft, in which case it becomes a more or less 

 complete notch, or as a drill used for piercing the eves of the 

 needles, or other holes in wood and other materials. 



These all have their representatives in implements of existing 

 savage tribes; and much care has been taken in the book to institute 

 these comparisons, and so build up an hypothesis based on what is 

 actually known. The Esquimaux lydite scraper and the New- 

 Caledonian -obsidian lance-head shown at p. 14, can be exactly 

 paired by- implements- from the cave shelters of Perigord. The 

 side scrapers are more^common in the Le Moustier caves, the other 

 rock shelters providing articles of a higher degree of finish. In 

 some instances the rough chipping has been extended all round the 



