Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric PeoplesNadaillac, Jean-François-Albert du Pouget, marquis de
History
Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples
Nadaillac, Jean-François-Albert du Pouget, marquis de
Archaeology; Prehistoric peoples
Belgium has furnished numerous examples of sepulchral caves, of a date,
however, less ancient than that we have been considering. Recent
excavations in the Chauvaux Cave revealed two skeletons leaning against
the walls in a crouching position, the legs tucked under the body. In
the Gendron Cave M. Dupont discovered seventeen skeletons lying in a
low, narrow passage, stretched out at full length with the feet toward
the wall, and arranged in twos and threes, one above the other. In the
middle of all these dead was the skeleton of one man placed upright, as
if to watch over the other bodies.
The Duruthy Cave at Sordes opens near the point of junction of the
waters of the Pan and Oloron, whence their united waters flow into the
Adour. At the northern extremity of this cave is a natural niche in
which lay more than thirty skeletons, some of men, some of women, and
some of children, mixed together in the greatest confusion. Worked
flints, bone stilettos, and ornaments lay around, all of the forms
characteristic of Palæolithic times.
It would seem that we have here evidence of the practice of a funeral
rite, which consisted in first stripping the bodies of flesh, and then
laying the bones in caves, where they were often left unnoticed by the
living occupants of the same refuge.2
The caves of Baoussé-Roussé, near Mentone, give fresh proof of the
extension of this rite, if we may so call it. The skeletons lay upon a
bed of powdered iron ore, in some cases as much as two fifths of an
inch thick, and this accumulation could not have taken place if the
skeleton had not been deprived of its flesh before inhumation. The
flesh must have been taken off by some rapid process, for the bones
remain, as a general rule, in their natural positions, united by their
tendons and ligaments. In Italy, says Issel, the cave men buried their
dead in the caves they lived in, a thin layer of earth alone separating
them from the living; the bodies, adds Pigorini,3 generally lay on the
left side, the head rested on the left hand, and the knees were bent.
Beside the skeleton was placed a vase containing red chalk, to be used
for painting the body in the new world it was supposed to be about to
enter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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