136 



REV. D. GATH WHITLEY, ON 



1873 M. l'Abbe Ducrost found at Solutre in the hurst levels a 

 perfect skeleton surrounded by a ring of great stones. A 

 Palaeolithic weapon lay close to its right hand, and an image of 

 a reindeer in ivory — probably the family Totem — was placed in 

 the grave close by the skeleton. The proof therefore of the 

 Palaeolithic Age of the burial is complete. The latest account of 

 the discoveries at Solutre that I have read is by M. Ernest 

 Chantre.* He declares that at least twelve of the burials are 

 Palaeolithic, and the skulls of these are both dolichocephalic and 

 brachycephalic. The enormous number of the bones of the 

 horse may be explained by considering that they were offered in 

 sacrifice at the funeral feasts held at the death of great chiefs. 

 We know from Herodotus that the Scythians sacrificed many 

 horses at the funeral of a chief, so that these animals might be 

 useful to the deceased in the next world. The Khirghiz 

 Tartars follow the same custom now. Mr. T. W. Atkinson was 

 present at the funeral solemnities of a great Tartar chief, at 

 which one hundred horses, and one thousand sheep were 

 sacrificed in honour of the deceased ;f and in the Caucasus 

 M. Meyendorff assisted at the funeral feasts of the Tartars 

 in which from two hundred to three hundred horses were 

 sacrificed.! Clearly, therefore, the Palaeolithic burials at Solutre 

 prove that the men of the earliest Stone Age believed in the 

 immortality of the soul, and held funeral feasts to give the 

 deceased his passport to another world. 



Ossuaries. 



By this term I understand the burials of many skeletons in one 

 cavern. In the Neolithic Age we find many such cases especially 

 in France and Belgium. The caverns of Baumes-Chaudres are 

 the chief of these in France§ where three hundred skeletons were 

 buried in disorder. We have now to describe such burials in 

 the Palaeolithic Period. 



Frontal. This celebrated burial place, which is a cavern on 

 the banks of the River Lesse in Belgium was discovered by 

 M. Dupont in 1864 and 1865, and has been described by him 



* L Homme Quaternaire dans le Bassin du Rhone, 1901, pp. 143-155. 

 t Travels in the Region of the Amoor, pp. 63-65. 

 | See Southall's Age of the Mammoth, p. 112. 



§ M. Cartailhac describes these burials in La France Prehistorique, 

 pp. 149, 150. 



