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The artist would have left us some sketchy representation of it if there had been anything in the nature of a tent in his surroundings. The rock-shelter and the cave are the homes which men seek from the advancing cold. As these are relatively few in number, fixed in locality, and often of large dimensions, the individualism of the earlier times is replaced by collective life.
The rock-shelter of Entre-Roches is supposed to date from Paleolithic times, and if it were certain that there has been no displacement of the soil on which the parietal was found, it is to be concluded that trepanation was practised in the Quaternary period when man was living amongst the large extinct pachydermata and felidae.
They live at ease ensconced in the branches of the trees, nestling amid green olive vines and garlands of flowers. I, only I, am exiled! Where shall I find a refuge? My rock-shelter is hedged about with prickly thorns and thistles.... E'en the wild birds of prey mate happily, only I, poor mourning dove, alone among all beings alive, dwell apart.
We must mention yet one more discovery which it will not do to omit. A human parietal with a piece missing that had evidently been taken out, was found beneath the rock-shelter of Entre-Roches near Angouleme. The skull bore very evident traces of the performance of an operation which may or may not have been executed during life.
The plan of the excavation was made by M. Antoine and communicated to the "Bulletin de la Societe Archeologique de Touraine," in 1858, but I will give a description from the pen of a later visitor. "The upper rock-shelter has been dug out or enlarged with a pick. The stone is a tender tufa, containing a quantity of little cores of black silex, giving it a spotty appearance.
These implements are found not only in the alluvium as are the Chelleen COUPS DE POING, but also in the cave or rock-shelter deposits. Amongst the mammalian remains with which they are associated are those of the mammoth, the RHINOCEROS TICHORHINUS, the elk, the horse, the aurochs, the cave-lion, the cave-hyena, and the cave-bear, remarkable for the constancy of their characteristics.
Then he hunts himself out a hollow tree or rock-shelter, curls himself up quietly to sleep, and snores away the whole livelong winter. During this period of hibernation, the action of the heart is reduced to a minimum, and the bear breathes but very slowly.
They had but one skin rug, and there would be no getting another till next autumn, when there were wethers to kill and even then two skins would not make a blanket. Isak had a hard time, with cold at nights, for a while; he tried burying himself in the hay under the rock-shelter, tried to bed down for himself with the cows. Isak was homeless.
The name of an upper room indicates how the idea of the second or third story was developed, as it is ósh ten u thlan, from ósh ten, a shallow cave, or rock-shelter, and ú thla nai e, placed around, embracing, inclusive of.
It seems to me that the same artistic impression is to be detected in the still earlier paintings of the wasp-waisted little ladies of the Cogul rock-shelter in Catalonia. We find here the same sinuous figure with exaggeratedly compressed waist, prominent bosom, and emphasised haunches. But it is many, perhaps forty, thousands years earlier!
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