134 



KEV. D. GATH WHITLEY, ON 



5. Laugerie- Basse, &c. In the rock-shelter of Laugerie-Basse 

 in the valley of the Vezere in the Dordogne, another ancient 

 skeleton was found by M. Massenat in 1872. The bones and 

 skull were examined by M. Hamy, and a full description of 

 them has been given in the erreat work of Christy and Lartet.* 

 The skeleton lay on its side with the arms and legs folded 

 upwards. It was adorned around the neck, arms, and legs, with 

 shells which had formed bracelets and necklaces. Flint 

 implements lay around, and also the bones of the reindeer. As 

 this skeleton is admitted by nearly all authorities, even by 

 M. de Mortillet,f to be of Palaeolithic antiquity ,t it forms a 

 typical case with which we can compare all the other. I need 

 notice no further Palaeolithic burials such as those of Duruthy, 

 Paymonden, and Cro-Magnon. They are all of the same 

 character, and present the same details. 



Let us now sum up most of the characteristics of the burials, 

 with which these caverns have furnished us. 



The body was carefully dressed, covered with ornaments and 

 bracelets, and carefully painted. Weapons were placed in the 

 hand of the corpse, food w r as also laid by the side, and all 

 arrangements were made for the comfort of the individual when 

 he entered the spirit world. Here we clearly see that a belief 

 in the immortality of the soul was strongly held in the earliest 

 ages of the Human Pace. Possibly it was only the great chiefs 

 who were buried in caves with such elaborate funeral ritual. 

 The bodies of the common people may have been disposed of in 

 a simpler manner. Let us now proceed to another kind of 

 burial in the Palaeolithic Age. 



Burials in Grave-Yards in the open air. 



Solutre 1 . We have hitherto been examining only single burials 

 in caverns, and we have now to consider burials in grave-yards 

 in the open air. The chief of these is at Solutre. 



Here we have a genuine Palceolithic village, which for a long 

 time was the home of Primitive Man, and here were held feasts, 

 funerals, and all the operations of domestic economy. 



Near Macron in Eastern France is the village of Solutre, which 

 is overhung by a towering hill. Beneath this crag lies an 

 uncultivated hillock and barren slope called Le Clos du Charnier. 

 The earth here is full of bones of men and animals. At the 



* Reliquiae Acquitanicce, pp. 255-272. 



t Formation de la Nation Fraacaise, pp. 295-297. 



