weapon into the handle, and which is continued to the base of the horn. One of the flint implements above alluded to is a knife manufactured with particular care, and appearing never to have been used.
One of the most curious of the relics discovered in this exploration is the canine tooth of a young Great Cave Bear (Ursus spelæus). The crown has been entirely deprived of enamel, afterwards thinned on the two sides, and a groove running along the concave border simulates a sort of buccal commissure, or the opening of a bird's beak; an oblong fossette visible above and a little behind this, in the situation that would have been occupied by the eye, and surmounted by a superciliary line, completed an ill-defined resemblance to some animal form, perhaps a bird's head. The maker, or, as one might say, the artist, who certainly had at his disposal large canines of the same species of Bear, chose that of a young individual, no doubt because the still existing pulp cavity enabled him to complete the perforation with less trouble. The tooth, in fact, is perforated from end to end, so as to admit of its being suspended by some means. It was found very near the entrance of the cave, and exactly at the spot where Bonnemaison, after the removal of the stone slab, had subsequently collected the rubbish from the interior. It had probably been origiually interred with one of the bodies as a token of affection, or as an amulet, and was overlooked when all the human remains were removed by M. Amiel.[1]
It has been remarked that some of the flint implements must have been manufactured on the spot. The same may be said of some articles in Reindeer horn; for we collected, partly among the ashes, partly in the superjacent layer of rubbish, the remains of the horns of that animal, from which the antlers and other portions, likely to be made useful as implements, had been removed.
The experience acquired by this primitive people had even thus early taught them that the shed horns, which at the present day are preferred by cutlers, are better nourished and more compact than those taken in the growing state from the head of the living animal. A single horn of a young individual was found, which had been cut off immediately after the death of the animal, doubtless that its solitary point might be used. It was still attached by the base to the frontal bone, and at and below the seat of fracture the striped lines of numerous cuts made with the blunt edge of a flint tool may readily be perceived.
Among the ashes we also found the disjointed laminæ of the molars of the Elephant (E. primigenius). In these laminæ, from which the enamel is detached, the ivory appears to have been very much altered by the action of fire. It is impossible to surmise the purpose for
- ↑ In the sepulchres of the ancient Livonians, we are informed by M. Frederick Troyon, that pierced teeth of the Bear are found, which had been worn no doubt as charms or amulets.
