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But they all showed a rather remarkable aptitude for delineation which further fortified Bowen's comparisons between these people and the extinct Cro-Magnons whose ancient art is still preserved in the caverns of Niaux and Le Portel. The Band-lu, however, did not have the bow and arrow, and in this respect they differ from their extinct progenitors, or descendants, of Western Europe.
Mind, by the way, that you do not fall into that round hole in the floor. It is enormously deep; and more than forty cave-bears have left their skeletons at the bottom, amongst which your skeleton would be a little out of place. Next day let us move off eastwards to the Little Pyrenees to see another cave, Niaux, high up in a valley scarred nearly up to the top by former glaciers.
In Australia, as we shall see later on, rock-paintings of game-animals, not so lifelike as these of the old days, but symbolic almost beyond all recognizing, form part of solemn ceremonies whereby good hunting is held to be secured. Something of the sort, then, we may suppose, took place ages ago in the cave of Niaux.
Really, considering that we thus have a contemporary fashion-plate, so to say, whilst there are likewise the numerous stencilled hands elsewhere on view, and even, as I have seen with my own eyes at Niaux in the sandy floor, hardened over with stalagmite, the actual print of a foot, we are brought very near to our palaeolithic forerunners; though indefinite ages part them from us if we reckon by sheer time.
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