Books: Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples

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At the same level and in that immediately above it were picked up
the remains of the mammoth, the RHINOCEROS TICHORHINUS, the cave
bear, and the large cave hyena, the reindeer, and numerous other
mammals belonging to the Quaternary fauna. Everything points to the
conclusion that the man and woman whose remains have so opportunely
come to light were contemporary with these animals, and that their
bodies were placed after death in the cave in which they were found.

Belgium has furnished numerous examples of sepulchral caves, of a
date, however, less ancient than that we have been considering. Recent
excavations in the Chauvaux Cave revealed two skeletons leaning against
the walls in a crouching position, the legs tucked under the body. In
the Gendron Cave M. Dupont discovered seventeen skeletons lying in a
low, narrow passage, stretched out at full length with the feet toward
the wall, and arranged in twos and threes, one above the other. In the
middle of all these dead was the skeleton of one man placed upright,
as if to watch over the other bodies.

The Duruthy Cave at Sordes opens near the point of junction of the
waters of the Pan and Oloron, whence their united waters flow into
the Adour. At the northern extremity of this cave is a natural niche
in which lay more than thirty skeletons, some of men, some of women,
and some of children, mixed together in the greatest confusion. Worked
flints, bone stilettos, and ornaments lay around, all. of the forms
characteristic of Palaeolithic times.

It would seem that we have here evidence of the practice of a funeral
rite, which consisted in first stripping the bodies of flesh, and
then laying the bones in caves, where they were often left unnoticed
by the living occupants of the same refuge.[277]

The caves of Baousse-Rousse, near Mentone, give fresh proof of the
extension of this rite, if we may so call it. The skeletons lay upon
a bed of powdered iron ore, in some cases as much as two fifths of an
inch thick, and this accumulation could not have taken place if the
skeleton had not been deprived of its flesh before inhumation. The
flesh must have been taken off by some rapid process, for the bones
remain, as a general rule, in their natural positions, united by
their tendons and ligaments. In Italy, says Issel, the cave men
buried their dead in the caves they lived in, a thin layer of earth
alone separating them from the living; the bodies, adds Pigorini,[278]
generally lay on the left side, the head rested on the left hand, and
the knees were bent. Beside the skeleton was placed a vase containing
red chalk, to be used for painting the body in the new world it was
supposed to be about to enter.

We could quote similar discoveries in Sicily, Belgium, and the southern
Pyrenees. Beneath the tumulus of Plouhennec, in Brittany, bones were
strewn about in the greatest disorder. Some archaeologists are of
opinion that the openings in certain dolmens were used for throwing in
the bones of the dead who successively went to join their ancestors. In
many of the Long Barrows of England the bones appear to have been
flung in pell-mell; the space was too narrow to hold the complete body,
so that before inhumation the flesh must have been separated from the
bones. In no other way can we explain the confusion in which the human
remains lay when they were discovered.[279] Pigorini thinks this is
a proof that primitive races worshipped their dead, and held their
bodies in veneration.[280] Perhaps they even carried them about in
their migrations. However that may be, the custom of separating the
flesh from the bones was continued until cremation became general. This
would explain the huge ossuaries found in regions so widely separated.

Although, however, the mode of sepulture we have just described was
practised for a long time in certain places, we cannot admit it to have
been general. In certain megalithic tombs we find dispositions similar
to those described in speaking of the Gendron Cave. Excavations beneath
the Port-Blanc dolmen (Morbihan) brought to light a rough pavement on
which lay numbers of skeletons, closely packed one against another,
which skeletons were probably those of men who had been held in honor,
and to commemorate whom the dolmen was set up. Separated from them
by a layer of stones and earth rested another series of skeletons,
not so closely packed as the first. The new-comers had respected
their predecessors, and no one had violated the sanctuary of the
dead. Similar facts were noted at Grand Compans, near Luzarches,[281]
and it is evident that successive inhumations beneath dolmens often
took place, and instances might, if necessary, be multiplied.

Another singular funeral rite was practised in remote antiquity. Many
of the bones found in the various caves of Mentone were colored with
red hematite.[282] As this was only the case with the bones of adults,
those of children retaining their natural whiteness, it evidently
had some special significance. In 1880, the opening of a cave of
the Stone age in the district of Anagni, a short distance from Rome,
brought to light the facial portion of a human cranium, colored bright
red with cinnabar. Nor are these by any means exceptional cases, for
similar coloration was noticed on bones picked up at Finalmarina and
several other places in Liguria and Sicily. The custom had therefore
become general in the Neolithic period in the whole of the Italian
peninsula.[283] We also meet with it in other countries; at the
Prehistoric Congress, when in session at Lisbon, Dolgado added to
what was said about the discoveries in Italy the fact that the cave
men of Furninha practised a similar rite. In the KURGANES of the
department of Kiev crania were found colored with a mineral substance,
fragments of which were strewn about near the skeletons. The most
ancient of the KURGANES appear to date from the Stone age, for in
them were found implements made of flint and reindeer-horn, mixed
with the bones of rodents[284] long since extinct in that district. A
similar practice is met with in the tombs of Poland, many bones being
covered with a coating of red color, in some instances one fifth of
an inch thick. Excavations in the Kitor valley (province of Irkutsk,
Siberia have brought to light several tombs which appear to date
from the sauce period as the KURGANES of Kiew. The dead were buried
with the weapons and ornaments they would like to use in the new life
which had begun for them. The tomb was then filled in with sand, with
which care was taken to mix plenty of red ochre. It is difficult not
to conclude that this was a relic of a rite fallen into desuetude.

At the present day certain tribes of North America expose their dead on
the tops of trees, and before burying the bones, when stripped of their
flesh, cover them with a coating of a bright red color. In the island
of Espiritu Santo many human bones have also been picked up painted
with an oxide of argillaceous iron. These customs, strange as they
may appear, were evidently practised in honor of ancestors; atavism
is as clearly shown in customs and traditions as in physical structure.

At Solutre is a sepulchre formed of unhewn slabs of stone. The body
of the dead rested on a thick bed of the broken and crushed bones of
horses. The remains of reindeer were mixed with the human bones. Were
these too relics of funeral rites, and were the animal bones those
of the horses and reindeer that had belonged to their hunter? It
is impossible to say. Solutre, situated as it was on an admirable
site on a hill overlooking the valley of the Seine, protected from
the north winds and close to a plentiful stream, has also been a
favorite resort of man. In the tombs all ages are mixed together,
and if some do indeed date from Neolithic times, others are Roman,
Burgundian, Merovingian. There may be among them a certain number
dating from the Reindeer period; that is about all we can assert
with any certainty in the present state of our knowledge. The Abbe
Ducrost, however, in an important essay[285] asserts that he has found
incontrovertible proofs of the interment of Solutreens on the hearths
of their homes in Palaeolithic times. If this be so, the custom is
one of frequent occurrence, and has been continued for centuries;
for De Colanges, in his fine work on ancient cities, shows that at
Rome the earliest tombs were on the hearth itself of the dwelling. De
Mortillet, on the other hand, dwells very earnestly on the mode of
inhumation at Solutre, and sees in the juxtaposition of human remains
and the DEBRIS of hearths but the result of displacement, and of the
regular turning upside down of which the hill of Solutre has been
the scene. To this Reinach replied, to the effect that, whereas a few
years ago De Mortillet's authority led many archaeologists to suppose
that the men of the Reindeer period did not bury their dead, facts,
ever more important than theories, have now proved beyond a doubt
that this very decided opinion is a mistake. Not only did the men
of remote antiquity bury their dead; they laid them, as at Solutre,
on the hearths near which they had lived.[286]

The dead were often buried seated or bent forward, and it is
interesting to note the same custom beneath the mounds of America and
the tumuli of Europe. It is touching to see how in death men wished to
recall their life on earth; the cradle was, so to speak, reproduced
in the tomb, and man lay on the bosom of earth, the common mother
of humanity, like the child on the bosom of his own mother. Perhaps,
too, the seated position was meant to indicate that man, who had never
known rest during his hard struggle for existence, had found it at
last in his new life. The men of the rough and barbarous times of the
remote past were unable to conceive the idea of a future different
to the present, or of a life which was not in every respect the same
as that on earth had been.

Whatever may have been the motive, this mode of burial was practised
from the Madeleine period.[287] At Bruniquel, in Aveyron, the
dead were found crouching in their last home. This position is,
however, peculiarly characteristic of Neolithic times, and is met
with throughout Europe. Eight skeletons were recently discovered
bending forward in the sepulchral cave of Schwann (Mecklenburg). In
Scandinavia there are so many similar cases that it is difficult to
make a selection. Tit the sepulchral cave of Oxevalla (East Gothland)
the dead are all in crouching attitudes, and tumuli dating from the
most remote antiquity cover over a passage, formed of immense blocks
of stone, leading to a central chamber, in which are numerous seated
skeletons resting against the walls.

On the shores of the Mediterranean, excavations of the Vence Cave
(Alpes-Maritimes) brought to light a number of dead arranged in a
circle as if about to take a meal in common. The bodies were crouching
in the position of men sitting on their heels; the spinal column was
bent forward and the head nearly touched the knees. In the centre
of this strange group were noticed some fragments of pottery and the
remains of a large bird, a buzzard probably. Perhaps its death among
the corpses was a mere accident.[288] The dolmens of Aveyron yielded
some flint-flakes and arrow-heads, pieces of pottery, pendants,
and bone, stone, shell, and slate-colored schist beads. Beneath
one of these dolmens was found one small bronze object, quite an
exceptional instance of the occurrence of that metal. The skeletons
rested against the walls. In one of the tombs some human bones,
which bad been originally placed at the entrance to the cave, had
been moved to the back; the vanquished had here, as in life, to give
way before the conquerors. Excavations in the Mane-Lud tomb have
led explorers to suppose that here too the corpses were buried in a
crouching position. It is the same at Luzarches and in the Varennes
cemetery near Dormans.[289] In the last named were found traces of a
fire that had been lit above the tomb, and some pottery was picked
up ornamented with hollow lines, filled with some white matter not
unlike barbotine. M. de Baye says this mode of interment is confined
to the district of Marne; but for all that he himself gives an example
of its practice elsewhere.[290]

In the prehistoric tombs discovered at Cape Blanc-Nez, near Escalles
(Pas-de-Calais), the position in which the body had been interred
could be made out in four instances. The ends of the tibiae, humeri,
and .radii were united, the bones of the hands were found near the
clavicles, so that the bodies had evidently been bending forward with
the arms crossed and the fingers pointing toward the shoulders.[291]
Similar facts are quoted from a cave at Equehen on the plateau which
stretches along the seashore on the east of Boulogne. The bodies,
to the number of nine, were crouching with the face turned toward
the entrance of the cave, which was closed with great blocks of
sandstone. Two polished stone hatchets, broken doubtless in accordance
with some sepulchral rite, had been placed near the skeletons.

Numerous human bones were found in the Cravanche Cave near Belfort,
which probably dates from the close of the Neolithic period,
judging from the total absence of metal and the shape of the flint
and bone implements picked up. Here too the bodies were bent almost
double, the head drooping forward and the knees drawn up nearly
to the chin. Several of these skeletons were completely imbedded
in the stalagmite which had formed in the cave, the head and knees
alone emerging from the solid mass. The position in which they were
originally placed had thus of necessity been maintained.[292]

A similar rite, for rite we must call this mode of burial, was
practised in Italy, and the Chevalier de Rossi speaks of a tomb
of the Neolithic period at Cantalupo, near Rome, in which one of
the bodies wag placed in the crouching attitude, which he says is
familiar to all who have studied ancient tombs.[293] This practice
was still continued in protohistoric times; Schliemann noticed it
in the excavations he superintended at Mykenae, and Homer says that
amongst the Lybians the dead were buried seated.

The necropolis near Constantine contains numerous megalithic
monuments. These are either round or square cromlechs surrounding
sarcophagi, or circular ENCEINTES, in which the dead were laid in a
trench. In the former there are always a great many funeral objects
in the tomb, and the body of the dead is in a crouching posture;
in the latter there are few things beside the corpse itself, and
that is in a recumbent position. Do these peculiarities denote
different races? Do the tombs all date from the same period, or are
these arrangements but fresh indications of the difference everywhere
maintained between social classes? It is difficult to decide, and we
must be content with enumerating facts. We may add, however, that the
crouching position of corpses is constantly met with in Africa[294]
and in North and South America, from Canada to Patagonia.[295]

The funeral rites of which we have spoken necessarily imply burial;
man did not abandon to wild beasts or birds of prey the bodies of
those who had once been like himself. At Aurignac, at Bruniquel,
and in the Frontal Cave, the cave man bad taken the precaution of
closing with the largest stones he could find the entrances to the
last resting-places of those belonging to him. The caves of L'HOMME
MORT, and of Petit-Morin which date from Neolithic times, retain
traces of similar blocking up. There were five entrances to the cave
of Garenne de Verneuil (Marne) in which was a regular ossuary; the
floor was paved and the roof kept up with eleven upright stones. The
objects in the tomb with the dead were a clumsy earthenware vase,
a few flint knives, and some shell necklace beads.

The sides of the almost inaccessible mountains of Peru are pierced, at
a height of several hundred feet, with numerous caves which have nearly
all been artificially enlarged. It was in them that the Peruvians
placed their dead, and the people of the country still call them
TANTAMA MARCA or abodes of desolation. The entrances were concealed
with extreme care, but this care did not save the tombs from violation;
the greed for the treasures supposed to be concealed in the tombs was
too great for respect to the unknown dead to hold curiosity in check.

In other cases, the dead was laid near the hearth which had been
that of his home when living, and his abode during life became his
tomb. The dolmens, CELLA, and GANGRABEN in Germany, and the barrows in
England, appear to bear witness to the prevalence of a similar custom
in those countries; and we find the same idea perpetuated even when
cremation became general. At Alba, in Latium, at Marino, near Albano,
at Vetulonia and Corneto-Tarquinia were discovered urns with doors,
windows, and a roof imitating human dwellings.[296]

Later, other modes of sepulture came into use. In Marne M. Nicaise
made out seven funeral pits[297] resembling in shape, he tells
us, long-necked bottles with flat bottoms. One of these pits at
Tours-sur-Marne contained at least forty skeletons, and among the
bones were found thirty-four polished stone hatchets, fifty knives,
two flint lance-heads and a great many arrows with transverse edges,
a necklace of little round bits of limestone, several fragments of
coarse pottery which had been mixed with grains of silica and baked
in the fire, and lastly three little flasks made of stag-horn hollowed
out in a curious manner and with stoppers of the same material. These
quaint little flasks doubtless contained the coloring matter with which
the dead had painted their bodies when alive. All the objects of which
we have spoken belonged to the Neolithic period; but a flat bronze
necklace bead made by folding a thin slice of metal, a radius, and a
bit of rib bearing green marks resulting from long contact with metal,
appear to fix the date of this pit at the transition period between
the Stone and Bronze ages. If this be so it is quite an exceptional
case of a sepulchral pit dating from this time, for most of those known
are of much later origin. Those for instance of Mont-Beuvray, Bernard
(La Vendee), and Beaugency are not older than Gallo-Roman times.[298]
According to Count Gozzadini, those of Manzabotto in Italy, which
are twenty-seven in number, date from the IVth century after the
foundation of Rome, and are of Etruscan origin. They are constructed
with small pointed pebbles, with no trace of cement, and resemble
in shape a long amphora vase, or perhaps, to be more accurate, the
clapper of a bell. They are from six and a half to thirty-two and a
half feet deep, with an opening varying in diameter from one foot to
nearly two and a half feet.[299]

We have said so much in preceding chapters on monuments erected in
memory of the dead, that but little remains to be added here. Doubtless
there are many distinctions to be noted at different times and in
different countries, but everywhere the aim remains the same, and the
means used for attaining that end are radically the same all the world
over. Take for example the Aymaras, the most ancient race of Bolivia
and Callao; they laid their dead sometimes beneath megalithic monuments
(Fig. 58, p. 178) resembling the dolmens of Europe, sometimes beneath
towers or CHULPAS, which are however probably of more recent date.

FIGURE 105

Chulpa near Palca.

CHULPAS, generally of square or rectangular form, consist of a mass
of unhewn stones faced outside with blocks of trachyte or basalt,
painted red, yellow, or white. A very low door, always facing east,
as if in honor of the rising sun, gives access to a cist in which the
dead was laid. The CHULPA of our illustration (Fig. 105) is situated
near the village of Palca; it rises from an excavation four feet deep;
its height is about sixteen feet, and the cornice consists of ICHU, a
coarse grass which grows in abundance on the mountains, and which after
being firmly compressed was cut with the help of sharp instruments. The
human bones, which were mixed together in the greatest confusion,
made a heap in the sepulchral chamber more than a foot high.

The mounds of Ohio also cover over sepulchral chambers of a peculiar
construction, being often formed of round pieces of wood, five to
seven feet long by five to six inches in diameter; near the bodies
were placed a few ornaments, chiefly copper ear-rings, shell beads,
and large flint knives. Most of the skeletons lay on the bare earth;
but one exception is mentioned in which the ground was paved with
mussel shells. A remarkable discovery has quite recently been made
at Floyd (Iowa), the account of which in Nature for January 1, 1891,
we will give in the words of Clement Webster: "In making a thorough
exploration of the larger mound ... the remains of five human bodies
were found, the bones even those of the fingers, toes, etc., being,
for the most part in a good state of preservation. First, a saucer
or bowl-shaped excavation has been made, extending down three and
three-quarter feet below the surface of the ground around the mound,
and the bottom of this macadamized with gravel and fragments of
limestone. In the centre of this floor five bodies were placed in a
sitting posture with the feet drawn under them, and apparently facing
the north. First above the bodies was a thin layer of earth and ashes,
among which were found two or three small pieces of fine-grained
charcoal. Nearly all the remaining four feet of earth had been changed
to a red color by the long-continued action of fire." Mr. Webster
goes on to describe the various skeletons and says of one of them,
that of a woman: "The bones in their detail of structure indicated a
person of low grade, the evidence of unusual muscular development being
strongly marked. The skull of this personage was a wonder to behold,
it equalling if not rivalling in some respects and in inferiority
of grade, the famous Neanderthal skull. The forehead, if forehead it
could be called, is very low, lower and more animal-like than in the
Neanderthal specimen.... The question has been raised how was it that
these five bodies were all buried here at the same time, their bodies
being still in the flesh." ... Webster adds that the probability is
that all but one of them had been sacrificed at the death of that one,
who had most likely been a chief.

FIGURE 106

Dolmen at Auvernier near the Lake of Neuchatel.

We have seen that men began by placing the bodies of their dead in
caves, and only later took to burying them underground when caves were
not to be had. Very often the corpse was placed between large unhewn
stones to keep off from it the weight of the tumulus above. Such were
the last resting-places alike of the men of Solutre and of those of
Merovingian times. In the necropolis of Vilanova, which is supposed to
date from times prior to the foundation of Rome, the tombs enclosed a
chest, the walls of which consisted of slabs of sandstone set on edge
and connected by a conglomerate of small stones. At Marzabotto, the
chests are made of bricks, and placed beneath a heap of pebbles. We
reproduce a chest discovered near the Lake Dwellings of Auvernier in
Switzerland (Fig. 106)[300] and another (Fig. 107) brought to light
by MM. Siret in the south of Spain. These drawings will help us better
than long descriptions to form an idea of this mode of burial.

FIGURE 107

A stone chest used as a sepulchre.

In other cases the dead body was enclosed in earthenware jars. At
Biskra in Algeria, two of these jars were found together; the one
containing the head, the other the feet of the departed. In some
instances the jar was replaced by a large clumsy earthenware basin,
some six and a half feet long by three feet wide. Such basins are
mentioned as having been found near Athens, but there is nothing
to help us to determine their date. The ancient Iberians used one
large jar only (Fig. 108) in which the dead was placed in a crouching
position, still wearing his favorite ornaments. The vase was closed
with a stone cover and placed in the tomb. We meet with the practice
of a similar mode of interment in historic times. The Chaldeans
placed their dead in earthenware vases; two jars connected at the
neck serving as a coffin. Excavations in Nebuchadnezzar's palace
brought to light bodies bent nearly double and enclosed in urns
not more than three feet in height by about two feet in width. On
the western coast of Malabar, as far as Cape Comorin, we find near
megalithic tombs large jars four feet high by three feet in diameter
filled with human bones. This mode of sepulture was practised at Sfax,
in the Chersonesus of Thracia, and at the foot of the hill on which
Troy was built. The tumulus of Hanai-Tepeh covered over a huge amphora
in which crouched a skeleton, and the wealthy Japanese loved to know
they would rest in huge artistically decorated vases, masterpieces
of native pottery. If we cross the Atlantic, we meet with the same
custom in Peru, Mexico, and on the shores of the Mississippi. At
Teotihuacan, the bodies of children were placed head downwards in
funeral urns,[301] and excavations in the alluvial deposits of the
Mississippi yielded, among immense quantities of pottery, two huge
rectangular basins glued together with clay and containing the body
of a young child. It is indeed interesting to meet with the same
practice in so many different places and to find the genius of many
races expressing itself in the same way in so many diverse inventions,
produced at times so widely separated.

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