BRTJNIQITEL, AND ITS OKGANIC CONTENTS. 523 
the soft parts decayed and were dissolved away, above which such mass had been heaped. 
The breccia including such bones was unusually hard and brittle. 
In the shallow lateral recess, g, fig. 4, I discovered, at about 5 feet below the line or 
shelf of stalagmite, the portions of a human cranium (which are now readjusted in speci- 
men, No. 38308, British Museum). The breccia adhered so firmly, by means of the inter- 
vening layer of stalagmitic matter, to the portion of frontal bone, as to bring away the 
outer table and expose the diploe and part of a frontal sinus in the attempt to detach 
this part of the skull (Register-No. 38310, British Museum). The care and pains 
requisite to detach the bone from the breccia can only be appreciated by those who 
have bestowed them in the attempt to overcome this most difficult part of the quest. 
My interpretation of the layer of stalagmitic matter which intervenes between the 
bone itself and the mould of breccia, is, that the plastic breccia was moulded, soon 
after the interment of the coffin-less corpse, to the scalp and hair covering the calvarium ; 
and that as these dissolved away their place was taken by the infiltrating calcareous 
material, which also lines for a certain thickness the interior of the crania (as shown in 
No. 38310). 
In every part of the superincumbent breccia there were scattered implements of flint 
and bone, with bones or fragments of bones and antlers of the animals introduced by 
man into the cave for food. 
The chemical constitution of the human remains, its correspondence with that of the 
other animal remains, the similarity of their relations to the surrounding breccia, the 
evidences of the plastic condition of the brecciated earth at the period of interment of 
the human bodies, all concurred in producing conviction in my mind of the contempo- 
raneity of the foregoing human remains with the other organic contents of the cavern, 
and with the implements the application of which by man’s hand to various purposess 
was abundantly and unmistakeably evidenced. 
Under the conviction that the cavern of Bruniquel had yielded undoubted evidence 
of the bones of the human beings who inhabited the cavern at the period when flint 
and bone were the sole materials of their weapons and other implements, and when, as 
will be subsequently demonstrated, quadrupeds now extinct, and other quadrupeds now 
restricted to the extreme north of Europe, abounded in the South of France, I spared 
no pains to secure the collection for the British Museum ; and, having succeeded, I have 
devoted such time as other duties permitted, in preparing the description of these human 
remains which I now submit to the Royal Society. Their interest consists in the high 
probability that they are the most ancient authentic specimens, hitherto discovered, 
which afford cranial and dental characteristics of the human race of such period*. 
* [Of the human remains in the sepulture at Aurignac, inferred by M. Laktet to have been contemporaneous 
with Rhinoceros tichorhinus, Hyaena spelcea, and Elephas primigenius, there were none attributable to an indi- 
vidual of large or even of middle size : — “ Sur une dizaine d’os humains qui etaient restes engages dans la terre 
meuble de la sepulture ilii’y a aucun qui puisse etre attribue a des sujets de taille grande ni meme moyenne.” 
—Bulletin de la Societe Philomathique de Paris, Seance du 18 Mai, 1861. Apparently materials for charac- 
