New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-04-16
SCIENCE FOR THE PEOPLE.
THE CAVE MEN.

According to Professor Boyd Dawkins, the
numerous discoveries made in France, Belgium
and Switzerland have enabled scientists 10 form
q tolerably definite idea rs TO the cave man
habits and mode of lie. He dwet for the most
part in caves, and he accumulated enormous
masses of refuse bones of the animals on when
he lived. In these refuse heaps were numerous
implements of stone bone ana antlef, spear :
heads, arrOW-heads, scrapcrs, elaDOrately GUY
harpoon heads, elaborate needles OF bone ana
antcr. and along with these occurred curious
carvings representing the surroundings OF inc
cave man, and for the most part reproducing
the forms of the animals on which nc llNcu'
From the numerous implements for scraplnR
skins. il might be inferred that the cave man
dressed in skins, sewn together by neeulCS.
They also wore gloves, as was known from tne
representations of gloves, with two, three or
four fingers, and running almost up 10 tle
elbows. like the 26-button gloves of the present
time. Perforated stones and shells ana INC
teeth of bears, lions and wolves were uscu as
necklaces and amuets. They adorned them;
selves with red rG1dle, which might be looked
upon as the lineal ancestor OF rouge.
In their hunting they used pears anu
arrows. On one bit OF antler found IN france
they saw the hunter carefully creeping up 10
the gigantic oX-the great urus III Others lhc4
SAW figures of bisOns, reindeer, HoIst' anu
ibeXes and in others the great WOClIy niii-
moth was represented so faithfully that were
il not for the discovery of the creature III tilo
frozen mOrasses of Siberia 1t would he sald Iilit
the drawing was quite wrong. On OthcI sldps
of stone might he seen the birds and fishes On
which the cave men lived. All those outlines
had been made with splinter OF Tint, ana
were engraved in q great many cases upon tue
bones and teeth of the animals which were
represented. The cave men also were SOUP
tors and the handles of some OF their dageers
made of reindeer antler or ivory represented
the form sometimes of a bnceling reindeer ana
at other times of elephants. The cave
men were hunters pure and simple, without
knowledge of the metals, without domestic
animals, and were even ignorant OF the potters
art. Nor had they left behind them any cyl
dence that they were III the habit OF DuryIng
their dead.
Could the cave men be identified with any
living race The answer was 20 he found III
their habits, implements and art. On the
shores of the great Arctic Sea- on both sides OF
Behring's Straits, aud along the north OF the
american Continent and Greenland, lived the
Esqumaux, IA people cut off from all others, ana
whose origin was puzzle To the ethnoloSlSt.
Those people had exactly the same habit OF ac-
cumulating refuse their implements were eX-
actly of the same kind, and their art was III n
teal with that of the cave man III Europe.
They lived also to a large extent on the same
animals, and they we're careless as 10 what lap
pened TO thcir dead. From all those lines OF
argument il might be inferred that the Esqui-
mau was in all probability the living repre-
sentative of the cave man, just a. the musk
sheep now living in Esquimau- land was un-
dOubtcdly the representative Of the musk sheep
then living in France.