Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/29

Rh of them are covered with a red sort of rust, while they lie in a sepia-colored earth softer than that which is immediately above and around them in the cave, M, Bonfils explains this rusty color by the fact that lumps of red ocher have been found near the skeletons, probably having been obtained from some rocks that exist not far off; with this the bodies most probably had been covered, and the flesh having disappeared, the ocher had settled and remained on the bones. It is said that around the head of the man was a circlet of carved reindeer teeth and a chaplet of shells, and around the necks of all were found necklaces, of course long since fallen to pieces, formed from the backbones of fish; these latter have been strung together on wire. But so many people claim to have seen the skeletons first and dispute each other's assertions with regard to these relics found with them that we only refer to them for what they are worth: certain it is that circlets of carved reindeer teeth and other objects have been found in these caves; all that has been found we have ourself seen, but, unfortunately, no authoritative person was able to reach the caves in time to ascertain in exactly what positions these chaplets, knives, and other objects were found by the peasant Abbo and his wife, to whose house, not far from the caves, the articles were at once transported, to be placed with many others which have from time to time been discovered. These bones and other objects are here and there tinged with the same ocher rust with which the skeletons themselves are covered. The outermost skeleton, that of the man, was lying on its back, the knees slightly bent toward its left, its arms stretched out by its side. In the left hand was found a flint blade exactly nine inches long, held loosely, which proves that once there was a handle of some perishable material. The woman and the youth had been buried lying on their left sides, the legs bent slightly at the knee; the former held in her left hand, raised beside her face, a smooth, wide, and hollow-curved blade of flint that lay under the head as if it had been placed there for it to rest on, while in the right hands of both these smaller skeletons were said to have been found flint knives, as in that of the bigger one. Their right arms were bent so that the hand reached the shoulder. The third, buried between the man and woman, and whose skull is missing, we have taken to be that of a tall youth. From the appearance of these skeletons they seem to have been buried rather than to have been overcome by some sudden catastrophe, as has sometimes been supposed of that of 1872, which was very much bent up and leaning on its left side. Around them, above and below, were the bones of many extinct species of mammalia—huge teeth, teeth of reindeer and of the Bos primigenius and the horse, together with many small flint instruments; but these would merely seem to indicate that