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Updated: June 15, 2025
Broca, Prof., on the occurrence of the supra-condyloid foramen in the human humerus; anthropomorphous apes more bipedal than quadrupedal; on the capacity of Parisian skulls at different periods; comparison of modern and mediaeval skulls; on tails of quadrupeds; on the influence of natural selection; on hybridity in man; on human remains from Les Eyzies; on the cause of the difference between Europeans and Hindoos.
The village of Les Eyzies is dominated by the ruins of a castle of the tenth or eleventh century, that was restored in the fifteenth, when a graceful turret was added.
One must therefore be guarded against wild talk about prehistoric man in connection with these rock dwellings, which in many cases were used as fortresses during the three hundred years' struggle between the English and French in Aquitaine. My waterfaring back to Les Eyzies was far easier than the voyage up-stream.
We passed under the ruined castle of Les Eyzies, which was never very large, because the shelf of rock on which it was built would not have admitted of this; but when defended it must have been almost inaccessible. The ruin is very picturesque, with the overleaning rock above, and the clustered roofs below.
This is called the Roche de la Peine, as from the top of it the Sieur de Beynac, who was also lord of Les Eyzies, precipitated malefactors. But under that designation he was disposed to reckon all such as in any way offended him.
A stag's meta-tarsal bone, on which there was a carving of two ruminants, was found in the cave of Savigny: in a cave at Eyzies there was a fragmentary carving of two animals on two slabs of schist; at La Madelaine there were found two so-called staves of office, on which were representations of a horse, of reindeer, cattle, and other animals; two outlines of men, one of a fore-arm, and one of a naked man in a stooping position, with a short staff on his shoulder; there is also the outline of a mammoth on a sheet of ivory; a statuette of a thin woman without arms, found by M. Vibraye at Laugerie-Basse, and known by the name of the immodest Venus; a drawing representing a man, or so-called hunter, armed with a bow, and pursuing a male auroch, going with its head down and of a fierce aspect; the man is perfectly naked, and wears a pointed beard.
A visit, however, to the now celebrated cavern known as the Grotte de Miremont repaid me for the trouble of reaching it. It lies a few miles to the north of Les Eyzies, in the midst of very wild and barren country. From any one of the heights the landscape on every side is seen to be composed of hills covered with dark forest and separated by narrow valleys.
He recognised my nationality, while I supposed him to be a Frenchman, and he seemed as glad to see me as if I had been an old friend. He told me that when he was a boy his father brought his family from England to Les Eyzies, where he was employed at the iron works.
The French Museum possesses mammoth and rhinoceros bones bearing fine scratches produced by the weapons which had been used to despatch the animals. The metacarpus of a large beast of prey, found at Eyzies, retains marks no less clear, and the skull of a bear front Nabrigas has in it a large wound which must have been made by a missile of some kind.
The remains described by Professor Broca from Les Eyzies, though they unfortunately appear to have belonged to a single family, indicate a race with a most singular combination of low or simious, and of high characteristics. This race is "entirely different from any other, ancient or modern, that we have heard of."
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