Édouard Lartet

“ When this slab was removed, he noticed a certain quantity of bones and skulls, which he at once recognized as human. The bones, which belonged to several skeletons, were found partly imbedded in a loose soil, which might have been introduced into the sepulchre at the time of interment.
This discovery of Bonnemaison's was quickly noised abroad; the curious in such matters flocked to the place, and various conjectures were formed to explain the occurrence of such an abundance of human remains in a situation so remote from any actual habitation. ”

“ The Aurochs and the Reindeer, then, are the species which have figured the most often in the feasts of whose relics we find only what was spared by the Hyænas. The situation of the hearth, on a plattorm overlooking the valley and stream of the Rode, allow also of the supposition that a great part of the bones might have been thrown to the bottom of the valley, whence they would afterwards be removed by the current of water, or decomposed by atmospheric agencies.
The long bones of these ruminants, so rich in marrow, have all been broken for its extraction. Not one has been forgotten ”

“ The first traces of living creatures met with in the loose and, speaking geologically, comparatively recent deposits, are those of man, proving that he had made a fireplace on the platform outside the little cave, whilst the thickness of the layer of ashes upon this site shows that it was inhabited for a long time, or, at any rate, that it was frequently visited. ”

“ The fragmentary condition of the bones of certain animals, the mode in which they are broken, the marks of the teeth of the Hyæna on bones necessarily broken in their recent condition, even the distribution of the bones and their significant consecration, lead to the conclusion that the presence of these animals, and the deposition of all these remains, are due solely to human ageney. ”

“ The maker, or, as one might say, the artist, who certainly had at his disposal large canines of the same species of Bear, chose that of a young individual, no doubt because the still existing pulp cavity enabled him to complete the perforation with less trouble. The tooth, in fact, is perforated from end to end, so as to admit of its being suspended by some means. It was found very near the entrance of the cave, and exactly at the spot where Bonnemaison, after the removal of the stone slab, had subsequently collected the rubbish from the interior. ”

“ These phenomena, however stupendous they may appear to us, as manifested within the limits of our sensible horizon, are reduced to very little when brought down by actual calculation to their relative importance as regards the whole surface of the globe. Everything moreover, indicates that the successive production of these partial accidents forms part of the normal conditions of the course of nature, and that the great harmony seen in the physical and organic evolutions on the surface of the earth, has in no case been affected by them. ”

“ From this it may be presumed that the body of the animal was never conveyed to the spot, and that the teeth had been brought with a special intention, and the rather so because both were collected within the sepulchre, and one of them (the canine sent to M. Leymerie) beyond (à travers) the human bones at the first discovery of the place by Bonnemaison.
As the two molars of the Elephant are also the only relics of that species, their being brought by man to the place where they were found, may also be referred to some customary purpose. ”

“ The portion of the ossiferous rubbish B, comprised between the fireplace, or inferior layer of ashes and charcoal, and the rubbly mass of vegetable earth above, which, before Bonnemaison's discovery, concealed the entrance of the cave, was nearly a metre in thickness. In it were found, as in the ash-layer, many bones of Herbivora, always broken and comminuted in the same manner, and some also gnawed by Hyænas. In the same situation, likewise, we met with scattered particles of charcoal; the bones of the Carnivora were tolerably abundant. ”

“ The Horse is wanting in the Stone age in Switzerland and in Denmark. Nevertheless, in Switzerland, in the 10th century of our era, horse-flesh was served at the table of the monks of St. Gall, at a period, when amongst other European nations its use as food was forbidden under pain of excommunication.
The Rhinoceros appears also to have been eaten by the Pyrenean aborigines. Some molar teeth, and a certain number of bones belonging to a young individnal, were found at Aurignac in the layer of earth above the ashes. ”

“ The Chinese are of opinion that after swallowsnests, the eggs of the lizard, and puppies, there is nothing so delicate as the tail of the Rhinoceros, and a kind of jelly made from the skin of its belly. ↑ In spite of all the attention which I have devoted to the examination of the bones found at Aurignac, and to the other circumstantial evidences afforded at that place, I have failed to detect the faintest indication of the existence of the Dog, that habitual companion of man in the chase, in all climates and in every state of barbarism. ”

“ This practice would not only economize the space occupied by each individual, but would also, according to some archæologists, realize the symbolic thought of restoring to the earth,—our common mother,—the body of the man who had ceased to live, in the same posture that it had before his birth, in the bosom of his individual mother. [5] It is for this reason, that in the figure of the cavern I have represented three skeletons in the crouching posture, warning the reader, at the same time, that the representation is altogether hypothetical. ”

“ The lower layer E, composed of ashes and charcoal, taken as a starting point among such a complexily of circumstances as are evidenced in this locality, indicates in reality the presence of man and the existence of a fire-place or hearth, around which it must be supposed he made his repasts. This hearth was several square metres in extent, and constituted a sort of platform formed of the nummulitic rock, fragments of which had been laid so as to level the natural inequalities of the surface ”

“ The soil, in process of time, becomes exhausted of the elements more especially adapted to the nutrition of forests of one kind or another. The disappearance of this yegetation involves that of the species of animals which feed upon the foliage. The Cock of the Woods, which was common in Denmark in the Pine-period, no loneer exists there. ”

“ In explanation also of the presence in this situation of a considerable quantity of the remains of Camivora of different sizes, it may be suggested that these animals served principally to furnish skins and furs for clothing and the protection of man against the weather. Nevertheless it should not do forgotten that in the interior of the cave, among the human skeletons and in the soil beneath them, the bones of Carnivora were the most numerous ”

“ In the valley of ihe Garonne, the Pyrenean drift is the geological or synchronal equivalent of the diluvium of the Seine and of the diluvial deposits of Amiens, Abbeville, &c., because it is in these alluvial beds, that are found the remains of Elphas primigenius, Rhinoceros tichorinus, and other species regarded as characteristic of the diluvium. ”

“ Of this species, one specimen must have been introduced entire, since we found in very close continuity, the various bones of its skeleton. Amongst the individuals of this great species of Bear whose remains had been conveyed into the cave by the hand of man, one must have been a female in an advanced stage of gestation, for in the loose earth outside the cave we met with several remains of a foetus nearly at ihe period of birth. ”

“ These were found in a cromlech in the department of the Losère aboat five miles from Mende; this cromlech, which had probably been used as a sepulchre, contained human remains, together with some bones of animals of existing species. There were also found, at the same time and place, a long flint-knife, with some spear- and arrow-heads of the same material, These latter objects, from the finish of their manufacture, and the other accessories of the burial place, indicated an epoch far more recent than that of the Aurignac cavern. ”

“ A labouring man, J. B. Bonnenmaison, employed in the breaking of stones for the repair of the neighbouring road, was led to introduce his hand and arm into this hole, whence, to his great surprise, he brought out a bone of considerable size. ”

“ On the northern slope of this eminence may be seen an escarpment, more or less natural, of the nummulitic rock (calcaire à melonies of M. Leymerie) , and on the side of this a sort of niche, or shallow grotto, whose arched entrance looks to the N.W. The floor of this excavation, which is now completely cleared out, is not more than 21/4 metres in horizontal depth, with an extreme width of 3 metres at the entrance. ”

“ This was hdd sufficient to justify the popular impression that these gentry had been also guilty of numerous murders, the traces of which they had concealed by depositing the bodies of their victims in this cavity, whose existence was known only to themselves. ”