What were the funeral customs in use among men during the polished-stone epoch? and what were the ceremonies which took place at that period when they buried their dead? These are questions which it will not be difficult to answer after a due investigation of the _dolmens_ and _tumuli_. In a great number of _tumuli_, animal bones have been found either broken or notched by sharp instruments. This is an indication that the funeral rites were accompanied by feasts just as in the preceding epochs. The body which was about to be enclosed in the _tumulus_ was borne upon boughs of trees, as is the case among some savage tribes of the present day. The men and women attending wore their best attire; necklaces of amber and shells adorned their necks. Men carrying torches walked in front of the procession, in order to guide the bearers into the dark recesses of the sepulchral chambers. From these data fig. 146 has been designed, which gives a representation of _a funeral ceremony during the polished-stone epoch_. [Illustration: Fig. 146.--A _Tumulus_ of the Polished-stone Epoch.] If we may judge by the calcined human bones which are rather frequently met with in tombs, there is reason to believe that sometimes victims were sacrificed over the body of the defunct, perhaps slaves, perhaps even his widow--the custom of sacrificing the widow still being in practice in certain parts of India. Sir J. Lubbock is, besides, of opinion that when a woman died in giving birth to a child, or even whilst she was still suckling it, the child was interred alive with her. This hypothesis appears a natural one, when we take into account the great number of cases in which the skeletons of a woman and child have been found together. M. Leguay in his 'Mémoire sur les Sépultures des Parisii,' which we quoted above, expresses the opinion that after each interment, in addition to the funeral banquet, a fire was lighted on the mound above the _tumulus_, and that each attendant threw certain precious objects into the flames. The objects which were most precious during the polished-stone epoch were flints wrought into hatchets, poniards, or knives. "On to this burning hearth," says M. Leguay, "as numerous instances prove, those who were present were in the habit of casting stones, or more generally wrought flints, utensils and instruments, all made either of some kind of stone or of bone; also fragments of pottery, and, doubtless, other objects which the fire has destroyed. "There are many of these objects which have not suffered any injury from the fire; some of the flints, indeed, seem so freshly cut and are so little altered by the lapse of time, that it might be readily imagined that they had been but recently wrought; these were not placed in the sepulchre, but are met with intermingled with the earth which covers or surrounds the hearth, and appear in many cases to have been cast in after the extinction of the fire as the earth was being filled in.