Among the earliest caves inhabited by man(10) was that of Le Moustier, situated on the right bank of the Vézère, and about 90 feet above it. This shelter and cave were examined as early as 1860-3 by Lartet(11) and Christy and subsequently by de Vibraye,(12) Massénat,(13) and others. Besides the deposits in the floor of the grotto there, a deep Mousterian culture layer has been found under the cliff in front, and this has been selected for our representation of the life of the men of Mousterian times, and of the flora of the Vézère in this early period (see frontispiece). Peyrony observes that, here as elsewhere, the older and lower industrial camps were farther away from the shelters; indeed, in this very region there are evidences that the Chellean and Acheulean flint workers occasionally visited the plateaus above; but as time passed and the weather became more severe the Neanderthals began to work nearer to the overhanging cliffs and finally directly beneath them. At this classic station of Le Moustier, one of the most complete skeletons of Neanderthal man was unearthed by Hauser, in 1908. There was a continuous residence here in middle and upper Mousterian times, extending into the lower Aurignacian of the Upper Palæolithic. The contemporary fauna in these deposits included the mammoth, the reindeer, the giant deer (_Megaceros_), the horse, the bison, the woolly rhinoceros, and the cave-bear. During the habitation of this typical station by man the climate was very cold and damp. In this region is found the complete record of the course of Mousterian evolution, both in the implements and in the advent of new forms of life; the number of reindeer gradually increases in the ascending layers with the development of the Mousterian industry. There is a constant gradation from the Acheulean into the Mousterian industrial types; according to Cartailhac, this industry is all the work of the same people, with no sharp lines of division. [Illustration: FIG. 98. The type station of Le Moustier, on the right bank of the Vézère, Dordogne. The culture layer is on the middle terrace, overlooking the hamlet of Le Moustier. (Compare frontispiece, Pl. I.) Photograph by Belvès.] Thus at Combe-Capelle, where the début of the true Mousterian culture took place, we find a number of large coups de poing, pointing back to the early Acheulean implements. The gradations which are exhibited here in these successive layers are quite in contrast to the advance of the industry at the close of Mousterian times in the very same locality, where there is an abrupt cultural transition toward the Aurignacian.