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
Similar instances may easily be quoted from France. Excavations at
Solutré have yielded several fragments of yellow, hand-made pottery
very insufficiently baked; and other pieces have been found in the
peat-bogs of Bastide de Béarn with the bones of reindeer, and worked
flints similar to those found in Quaternary deposits. We may add that
at Lafaye, Bize, and Pondre (Hainault) discoveries were made of pottery
mixed with human remains and with those of animals now extinct; and in
the Argent Cave (Basses-Alpes) a new type, shown in Fig. 26, has been
found which merits special attention. In the very earliest days of
prehistoric research the Nabrigas Cave (Lozère) was excavated by M.
Joly, who found in it many fragments of pottery. In a volume published
shortly before his death he relates the circumstances of his discovery,
and earnestly maintains its authenticity. Later excavations, made under
the direction of masters in prehistoric science, would have thrown some
doubts on the assertions made by the professor of Toulouse, if MM.
Martel and Launay had not brought forward a fresh proof in support of
it. “On the 30th August, 1885,”16 they say, “we picked up at Nabrigas
in a deep hole, untouched by previous excavations and not displaced by
water, some human bones and a piece of pottery side by side with two
skeletons of _Ursus spelæus_. The human bones, of indeterminate race,
included an upper left maxillary, still retaining three teeth, an
incomplete mastoid apophysis, and seven pieces of crania, belonging to
different individuals. The piece of pottery only measured one and a
half by two and a quarter inches; the clay is gray and friable, bound
together with big bits of quartz, mica, and a few particles of
charcoal.” There would appear to be no sufficient reason to question
the exactness of a discovery so carefully studied.
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