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 objects found in the sepulchral caves are important, and included a
number of arrow-heads with transverse cutting edges. There is no doubt
about their use; they have been picked up in black earth, in contact
with human bones, the decomposition of the soft parts of which caused
them to fall out of the mortal wound they had inflicted. With these
arrow-heads were found flint knives, large sloped scrapers, polishers,
and bone stilettos, the femora of a ruminant with a pig’s tooth fixed
on to each end, hoes made of stag horn, beads and pendants made of
bone, shell, schist, quartz, and aragonite, with the teeth of bears,
boars, wolves, and foxes, all pierced with holes. Some of the shell
anti schist beads were spread upon the surface of the skull, and
perhaps formed a net or _résille_, such as that already referred to as
found at Baoussé-Roussé.
For centuries this occupation of caves continued, offering as they did
a shelter that was dry and warm in winter, and cool in summer. Homer
tells us that the Cyclops lived on the heights of the mountains and in
the depths of the caves,4 and Prometheus says that, like the feeble
ant, men dwelt in deep subterranean caves, where the sun never
penetrated.5
Whilst the men of the Petit-Morin valley hollowed out caves, or
enlarged those made by nature, others took refuge in buts made of dried
clay and interlaced branches, or in tents of the skins of the animals
they had slain, and, though these fragile dwellings have disappeared,
leaving no trace, there yet remain indelible evidences of the presence
of many successive generations. Everywhere throughout the world we find
heaps of rubbish, consisting chiefly of the shells of mollusca and
crustacea, broken bones, flakes of flint, and fragments of stone and
bone implements, covering vast areas and often rising to a considerable
height.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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