Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1893-06-08
cANNlsALs OF ANCIENT TIMES,
VAST quantities of Interesting Relics Foun
In Caves of Southern EuroDe.

VASE Quantities OF Interestfnr. Re,Ic. rouna
IN Caves of Southern Europe.
Inc scientists holding the belief that
man Is very ancient animal on earth.
nave referred for evidence to numerous
caves In southern Europe and elsewhere,
winch were doubtless inhabited by
many generations of human beings for
Inc sake OF shelter and security. These
caSerns contain great numbers of hui
man bones and primitive tools, which,
.e Is alleged, have been found numerous
instances mixed with fragments of
sheietons of the huge cave bear, the
saoer-toothed tiger, the woody rhinoc-
eros. the giant beaver and even the
eiephas antiquus, which was the
ancestor of the mammoth and
the elephants of to-day. The floor
ing OF ashes from ancient house
mold fires in these caverns is
sometimes as much as twenty feet thick,
representing the accommodations of hum
dreds II not thousands of years. Scat
tered about the ancient hearths are
ever so many bones of men. women and
children, which bear not only traces of
nre but marks of implements employed
TO split them lengthwise for the pur-
pose OF getting at the marrow. Thus
1t would seem that these savapes of an
tlquity were cannibals-
In these caves testimony is found of
many murders committed thousands of
years ago. Skulls of women cleft nv
sharp weapons prove that they often
We're victims of savage violence. One
such Uranium of a female bears the
marks of three penetrating wounds.
The fact that two of them exhibit
signs of having healed shows that she
recovered, only to succumb to a third
assault. The ancient OCCUPANTS
of the caverns appear to have
depended for food chiefly on the meat
of reindeer, which in their time were
as plentiful in the south of Europe as
sheep are now. Reindeer horn was
their earliest raw material employed
for manufacturing purposes. They
fshed with hooks made of splinters of
bone pointed at both ends. Twenty
pounds of the bones of water-rats, half
roasted. where dug up in single cave
at Chaleux, from which it is inferred
that these animals co ntributed to the
food supply in times of scarcity. It
has been alleged that the jewellers in
the cayerns used the lower jawbone of
the cave bear as a weapon, the great
canine teeth serving as a point with
which deadly blows could be struck
Some of the caves were regular fac
tories for making tools and weapons.
From the one at Chaleux twenty-thou-
sand flint hatchets. daggers and knives
have been obtained by digging. A
workshop of this kind in Perigord was
devoted to the making of spearheads,
while another confined itself to fabri-
eating tools of reindeer horn. Curious
whistles were turned out from the first
joint of the reindeer's foot. Many of
the implements and weapons discov-
cred were rudely decorated with repre-
sensations of fishes. of reindeer and
even mammoths. There were hunting
scenes carved in bone and horn. in
which men were shown in pursuit of
game or in conflict with beasts. One
carving is landscape. with reindeer
browsing, in admirable perspective.
The British museum owns a supposed
paleolithic poniard of reindeer horn,
with the handle carved in the form of
a reindeer, which would not be I'M
worthy of modern art.-Boston Tran