Page:Excavations at the Kesslerloch.djvu/58

Rh IX. figs. 53 and 56), and in general all the smaller objects which had holes in them, were used as earrings or neck-ornaments. A thread was passed through the holes, and then tied in a knot to the ear or round the neck. At all events they are very simple ornaments, and these objects have been found in nearly every cave which has ever been inhabited by man.

Two flat perforated slabs of bone were also found (Plate XIII. figs. 76 and 77); at one time the form had been round. One of them has on both sides branch-like ornaments in a radiating form.

The earring drawn, Plate IX. fig. 57, looks more like those of the present day. It is of bone, and finely polished.Probably also in this case the perforation may have been made first, and then afterwards the curved form immediately adjacent was given to the ornament.

The ornaments of 'brown coal' are unique of their kind. Where the cave-dwellers got the material it is impossible to say. It is well known that the Jurassic limestone, and the marly slate, and the sandy limestone immediately overlying the uppermost beds of the lower white Jura, occasionally contain what are sometimes called 'pockets' of coal. It may therefore be quite possible that these coal ornaments may have come from places like those in the immediate neighbourhood. At the present day small pieces of coal are to be found at Schienenerberg, near Ramsen, and we may, perhaps, conclude that the pieces of coal found in the cave were got from this locality. The ornaments were worked exactly in the same manner as those of bone, as may be seen, Plate IX. fig. 58. All these ornaments are in good preservation, and have been worked with surprising neatness; they also have been used as earrings or neck-ornaments. One of them (Plate XIV. fig. 82) is circular and about an inch and a quarter in diameter; it is perforated in the centre, and it becomes somewhat thinner towards the circumference. On both sides there are a number of scratches made with flint, the last traces of the grinding or polishing.

Two amulets are very interesting; they are nearly alike in form, and certainly would not be despised by the ladies of the present day, any more than by those of the prehistoric age. One of these earrings (Plate XIV. fig. 83) has no further ornamentation, except being polished on the convex side, and having in the middle of it a kind of oval escutcheon. The other,