Page:Palæolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in Europe.djvu/256

 CHAPTER X

now come to the summing up of the stray facts brought under your notice during our incursion into the domain of Anthropology, with the view of synthetically constructing an intelligible and fairly accurate description of the intellectual status and social culture which our prehistoric forefathers of the Palæolithic period attained to in the scale of human evolution. In doing so, let me again emphasise the fact that fossil remains were not intentionally preserved for the purpose of instructing modern anthropologists—a fact sufficiently attested by their fragmentary condition, which makes it often hazardous to draw any inference from the remains, however suggestive they may be. Then again, the associated relics may be tantalisingly scanty, or altogether absent. How much more valuable would have been the information recorded in Dr Buckland's careful description of the Red Woman of Paviland had the complete skeleton been present. Here we have the ceremonial burial of a tall female adorned with ornaments made of ivory and shells, accompanied with special rites which are now known to have been common in Palæolithic times, and actually associated with remains of the mammoth, rhinoceros, bear, hyæna, etc. Had the skull been forthcoming to show that this woman belonged to the race of Cro-Magnon—a fact suggested by the exceptionally large size of the skeleton—there