336 A Geological Problem. [July, 



large amount of attention in the neighbourhood, and were 

 the theme of so much conjecture, that the mayor of 

 Aurignac deemed it prudent that the human remains 

 should be collected and re-interred in the parish burial 

 ground. Fortunately the mayor was a medical man, and 

 before his directions were carried out, he had ascertained 

 that the bones represented seventeen human bodies. 



In i860, M. Lartet, passing through Aurignac, visited the 

 cave, of which he had previously heard, and proceeded to a 

 full personal investigation of the deposit, both within and im- 

 mediately without the cavern. In the soil which the human 

 bones had occupied, and in its immediate prolongation out- 

 side, he found the remains of from 80 to 100 individuals, 

 belonging to nineteen species of mammals, some existing 

 and some extinct, including the cave bear, cave lion, cave 

 hyaena, Elephas primigenius, Rhinoceros tichorhinus, Irish elk, 

 reindeer, and aurochs. With them were tools of flint and 

 of deer's horn — chiefly reindeer, and an article made of 

 a canine of a young cave bear, the use of which was 

 unknown, but was perhaps interred with one of the bodies 

 as a token of affection. The marrow-bones of the aurochs, 

 reindeer, and rhinoceros had been split by man, and it was 

 observed that some of those of the last named species 

 which had been thus treated, had subsequently been gnawed 

 by the hyaenas, as had many others. Outside the grotto, 

 under the talus of fallen debris but on the ossiferous earth, 

 was a layer composed of ashes and charcoal, from six 

 to eight inches thick, and covering an area of several square 

 yards. It contained a very great many teeth, principally of 

 herbivorous animals, together with many hundreds of frag- 

 ments of their bones, and coprolites of the . hyaena. By 

 chemical examination it was found that the bones of the 

 reindeer, aurochs, rhinoceros, &c, ha\i retained precisely 

 the same proportion of nitrogen as the human bones mixed 

 with them. 



The interpretation which the facts obviously suggested 

 and required, was that the grotto was an ancient burial- 

 place, closed ordinarily with the heavy slab found at the 

 entrance, but opened from time to time for the introduction 

 of another corpse ; that symbolical and votive objects, as 

 well, perhaps, as such as were supposed to be useful in 

 another state of being, were interred with the bodies ; that 

 after each burial a feast was held immediately without the ' 

 sepulchre ; that the hyaenas devoured the remnants of the 

 feast after the departure of the relatives ; and that the era 



