Page:Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man.djvu/206

188 by Bonnemaison, were eighteen small, round, and flat plates of a white shelly substance, made of some species of cockle (Cardium), pierced through the middle as if for being strung into a bracelet. In the substratum also in the interior examined by M. Lartet was found the tusk of a young Ursus spelæus, the crown of which had been stripped of its enamel, and which had been carved perhaps in imitation of the head of a bird. It was perforated lengthwise as if for suspension as an ornament or amulet. A flint knife also was found in the interior which had evidently never been used; in this respect, unlike the numerous worn specimens found outside, so that it is conjectured that it may, like other associated works of art, have been placed there as part of the funeral ceremonies.

A few teeth of the cave-lion, Felis spelæa, and two tusks of the wild boar, also found in the interior, were memorials perhaps of the chase. No remains of the same animals were met with among the external relics.

On the whole, the bones of animals inside the vault offer a remarkable contrast to those of the exterior, being all entire and uninjured, none of them broken, gnawed, half-eaten, scraped or burnt like those lying among the ashes on the other side of the great slab which formed the portal. The bones of the interior seem to have been clothed with their flesh, when buried in the layer of loose soil strewed over the floor. In confirmation of this idea, many bones of the skeleton were often observed to be in juxta-position, and in one spot nearly all the bones of an Ursus spelæus were lying together uninjured. Add to this, the entire absence in the interior of cinders and charcoal, and we can scarcely doubt that we have here an example of an ancient place of sepulture, closed at the opening so effectually against the hyænas or other carnivora that no marks of their teeth appear on any of the bones, whether human or brute.