TRACES OF A RELIGIOUS BELIEF OF PRIMEVAL MAN. 137 



at ierigth.* The inner extremity of the cavern had been closed 

 by a large slab of limestone, thus forming a small sepulchral 

 chamber. In this cavity lay the remains of sixteen skeletons 

 in great disorder. With the bones were found the fragments of 

 an urn of coarse pottery which had been hung from the roof of 

 the cave, and which had evidently contained food for the dead. 

 Various ornaments and colours for paints lay around, and outside 

 were the remains of fires and the bones of animals which had 

 been eaten at funeral feasts. The whole of these human and 

 animal relics were overlaid by an immense deposit of Palaeo- 

 lithic yellow clay, which had entered the cave and had been 

 deposited after the bodies had been buried in the cavern. Here, 

 then, was a perfect cast of the burial of the dead in Palaeolithic 

 times. 



Such a complete instance of burial during the Palaeolithic 

 Age, with a belief in a future life, lias of course been strongly 

 denied. Professor Boyd Dawkinsf and Mr. James Geikiet 

 consider that the burial place in the cave of Frontal is of 

 Neolithic Age, and they are followed in this opinion by M. de 

 Mortillet,§ and by M. Fraipont in a valuable work which w 7 as 

 not long ago published || But these talented writers are in error, 

 and they do not seem to have read Dupont's own account of his 

 discovery, nor to have seen Dupont's sections and diagrams. It 

 is now perfectly well known that the yellow clay which overlay 

 the human skeletons in the caves is a genuine Palaeolithic 

 deposit which is found in many caves and valleys in this part 

 of Belgium. It is also known now that this yellow clay was 

 deposited after the burials in the cavern, so that the Palaeolithic 

 Age of the interments in the cave of Frontal cannot be denied. 

 The presence of the fragments of an urn made of coarse pottery 

 has been thought to show that the skeletons in this cavern are 

 of Neolithic Age, because it has been maintained that Palaeo- 

 lithic Man w r as ignorant of pottery. IT This is now known to be 



( * Dupont's account of the discovery of this cavern is found in his 

 Etude sur V Ethnographic de V Homme de V Age du Renne, aud in his Etude 

 sur les Cavernes des bords de la Lesse et de la Meuse, explorees jusqu 'au mois 

 d'Octobre, 1865. 



t Cave Hunting, p. 238. 



% Prehistoric Europe, p. 110. 



§ Le Prehistorique Antiquite de V Homme, p. 472. 



|| Les Cavernes et leurs habitants, pp. 230, 231. 



IT This opinion has been held by M. de Mortillet in Le Prehistorique 

 Antiquite de VHomme, p. 558. Also by Lord Avebury, Journal of the 

 Anthropological Institute, 1872, p. 383, and by others. 



