Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1882-05-06
The Cave Men.

According to Professor Boyd Dawkins, tho
numerous discoveries made In France, Belgium
and Switzerland have enabled scientists to form
a tOlerably definite idea as to the cave mans
habits and mode of life. He dwelt for the most
part in caves, and he accumulated enormous
masses of refuse-bones of the animals on which
he lived. In these refuse heaps were numer-
Gus implements of stone, bone and antler. spear
heads, arrow-heads, scrapers, deliberately cut
harpOOn heads, elaborate needles of bone and
antler, and along with these occurred curious
carvings representing the surroundings of the
cave man, and for the most part reproducing the
forms of the animals on which he lived. From
the numerous implements for scraping skins, it
might be inferred that the cave man dressed In
skins, sewn together by needles. They also
wore gloves, as was known from the representa-
lions of gloves, with two, three or four fingers
and running almost up to the elbows, like the
26-button gloves Of the present time. Perforated
stones and shells and the teeth OF bears. lions
and wolves were used as necklaces and amulcts.
They adorned themselves with red raddIe, which
might be looked upon as the lineal ancestor OF
rouge.
+ In their hunting they used spears and arrows
On one bit Of antler found in France they saw
the hunter carefully creeping up to the gigantic
Ox-the great urus; In others they saw figures
Of bisons, reindeer, horses and ibexes; and In
Others the great wOolly mammoth was repre-
sented so faithfully that were 1t not for the dis
Siberia 1t would be said that the drawing was
quite wrong. On other slabs Of stone might DO
seen the birds and fishes on which the cave men
lived. All those outlines had been made with o
splinter Of hinte and were engraved, in q great
many cases, upon the bones and teeth Of the
animals which were represented. The cave men
also were sculptOrs; and the handles OF some Of
their daggeps made Of reindeer antler or ivory,
represented the form, sometimes, of q kneeiing
reindeer, and at other times. OF elephants. $50
The cave men were hunters pure and simple,
without knowledge Of the metals, without do
nestle animals and were even ignorant of the
potter's art. Nor had they left behind them any
evidence that they were In the habit Of burning
their dead.
Could the cave men be identified with any llv.
ing race? The answer was to be found In their
habits, Implements, and art. On the shores OF
the great Arctic sea, on both sides Of Behring's
straits, and along the north Of the American
continent and Greenland, lived the Esquimaux,
people cut of from all others, and whose origin
was puzzle to the ethnologist. Those people
had exactly the same habit Of accommodating 70
fuse their implements were exactly Of the
same kind, and their art was identical with
that Of the cave man I'm Europe. They lived
also to large extent on the same animals, and
they were careless as to what happened to their
dead. From all those lines Of argument It mighe
be inferred that the Esquimaux was In all prob
ability the living representative Of the cavemaA,
just as tho musk sheep now livingin Esquimaux
land was undoubtedly the representative OF Tie
musk sheep then living In Francs.