Abstract
IT is a remarkable fact in the history of Archæology that the palæolithic age of the human interments in the cave of Aurignac has been universally accepted without any criticism of the evidence. It has passed into the condition of an article of scientific faith, partly through the eminence of M. Lartet, the describer of the cave, and partly through the high authority of Sir Charles Lyell, who followed his views in the “Antiquity of Man.” The ready faith with which it has been received stands in marked contrast to the scepticism which l refused to allow the value of the discovery of flint implements in the caves of England and Belgium for more than a quarter of a century, and up to within some three years of M. Lartet's investigations in Aurignac. The importance of examining the data on which M. Lartet's theory is based can hardly be over-estimated in the present state of the science of man. If the human interments really be of the same relative date as the extinct Mammalia found in the cave, and M. Lartet's interpretation of the circumstances be true, then, to quote Sir Charles Lyell, “we have at last succeeded in tracing back the sacred rites of burial, and, more interesting still, a belief in the future state,” to the palæolithic age, and we have a powerful argument against the progressive development of religious ideas. This point did not escape Mr. Wallace in his speech at the Exeter meeting of the British Association. If, on the other hand, the interments be not proved to be palæolithic, the sooner an element of error is eliminated from a most difficult problem, the nearer shall we be to its solution. I shall first of all take the facts as they are now universally interpreted; and then I shall check them by the independent evidence of the late Rev. S. W. King, who finally explored the cave.
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DAWKINS, W. The Date of the Interment in the Aurignac Cave . Nature 4, 208–209 (1871). https://doi.org/10.1038/004208a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/004208a0