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
The funeral rites of which we have spoken necessarily imply burial; man
did not abandon to wild beasts or birds of prey the bodies of those who
had once been like himself. At Aurignac, at Bruniquel, and in the
Frontal Cave, the cave man bad taken the precaution of closing with the
largest stones he could find the entrances to the last resting-places
of those belonging to him. The caves of _L’Homme Mort_, and of
Petit-Morin which date from Neolithic times, retain traces of similar
blocking up. There were five entrances to the cave of Garenne de
Verneuil (Marne) in which was a regular ossuary; the floor was paved
and the roof kept up with eleven upright stones. The objects in the
tomb with the dead were a clumsy earthenware vase, a few flint knives,
and some shell necklace beads.
The sides of the almost inaccessible mountains of Peru are pierced, at
a height of several hundred feet, with numerous caves which have nearly
all been artificially enlarged. It was in them that the Peruvians
placed their dead, and the people of the country still call them
_Tantama Marca_ or abodes of desolation. The entrances were concealed
with extreme care, but this care did not save the tombs from violation;
the greed for the treasures supposed to be concealed in the tombs was
too great for respect to the unknown dead to hold curiosity in check.
In other cases, the dead was laid near the hearth which had been that
of his home when living, and his abode during life became his tomb. The
dolmens, _cella_, and _Gangraben_ in Germany, and the barrows in
England, appear to bear witness to the prevalence of a similar custom
in those countries; and we find the same idea perpetuated even when
cremation became general. At Alba, in Latium, at Marino, near Albano,
at Vetulonia and Corneto-Tarquinia were discovered urns with doors,
windows, and a roof imitating human dwellings.21
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