Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/256

228 MM. Lartet and Chaplain-Duparc consider that the necklace belonged to the possessor of the skull (A), who may have been killed by the fall of the blocks of stone found above it; and they account for the absence of the rest of the skeleton by the suggestion that the body was devoured by wild beasts. The necklace is a remarkable trophy of the chase, for besides proving that the Cave-men were in the habit of killing lions and bears, the engravings with which most of the teeth are adorned are of singular interest. Most of them are marked with deep artificial grooves and with the barbed heads of harpoons or arrows, similar to those we have figured, and one of which was found near the skull at the point C. On one bear's tooth a pair of gloves has been engraved, on another is to be seen the figure of a pike standing out in relief; while on a third the figure of a seal has been engraved in outline with its characteristic head and flippers admirably drawn (see Figs. 75, 76, 82, 84). It is, therefore, evident that the hunter of the Western Pyrenees depended not merely upon the animals haunting the forests and the plains for food, but that he descended from time to time to the shore, and waged war against creatures living in the sea, after the manner of the modern Eskimos.

The human skull is referred by its discoverers, and Dr. Hamy, to the same race of men as those found in the cave of Cro-Magnon. Its crushed condition, however, and the absence of the facial bones, render this view doubtful, although enough of it is preserved to show that it was long. The skulls from the Neolithic tomb above are also long, and are considered by their discoverers to belong to the same race as those of