Page:Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man.djvu/79

Rh Bize must be of very high antiquity, as shown by the presence, not only of the Lithuanian aurochs (Bison europæus), but also of the reindeer, which has not been an inhabitant of the South of France in historical times, and which, in that country, is almost everywhere associated, whether in ancient alluvium or in the mud of caverns, with the mammoth. In my work before cited, I stated that M. Desnoyers, an observer equally well versed in geology and archæology, had disputed the conclusion arrived at by MM. Tournal and Christol, that the fossil rhinoceros, hyæna, bear, and other lost species, had once been inhabitants of France contemporaneously with man. 'The flint hatchets and arrow-heads' he said, 'and the pointed bones and coarse pottery of many French and English caves, agree precisely in character with those found in the tumuli, and under the dolmens (rude altars of unhewn stone) of the primitive inhabitants of Gaul, Britain, and Germany. The human bones, therefore, in the caves which are associated with such fabricated objects, must belong not to antediluvian periods, but to a people in the same stage of civilization as those who constructed the tumuli and altars.'

'In the Gaulish monuments,' he added, 'we find, together with the objects of industry above mentioned, the bones of wild and domestic animals of species now inhabiting Europe, particularly of deer, sheep, wild boars, dogs, horses, and oxen. This fact has been ascertained in Quercy, and other provinces; and it is supposed by antiquaries that the animals in question were placed beneath the Celtic altars in memory of sacrifices offered to the Gaulish divinity Hesus, and in the tombs to commemorate funeral repasts, and also from a superstition prevalent among savage nations, which induces them to lay up provisions for the manes of the dead in a