and artistic merits which characterise many of their animal illustrations, with perhaps the exception of a few small statuettes, mostly made of ivory. The engraved figures on the walls of some caverns, which in some respects depict certain features peculiar to humanity, are either caricatures, or intended, as some suppose, to represent intermediate links between man and the anthropoid apes. A few of these designs are given in Fig. 86, but nothing more can be said of them. Several pieces of bone and reindeer-horn, engraved with figures which
FIG. 86. Sketches of the Human Form, (i) Three faces from the Cave of Marsoulas ; (2) apelike forms from Altamira ; (3) figure of man, with disproportionate outstretched arm, from Laugerie Basse (after Girod et Massénat).
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there can be no doubt were intended to represent human beings, male and female, have been found, and, although they cannot be reckoned as works of art, are of some scientific value for the inferences they suggest. All these figures, both male and female, are depicted as naked and having their bodies covered with hair. From the station of La Madeleine we have the figure of a quiet-looking man carrying a club on his shoulder, engraved on a bâton de commandement (PI. XIX. (A) ) ; also some fragments of lance-heads of reindeer-horn each having a human hand showing only four fingers engraved on it (PI. XXVIII., No. 13). Laugerie Basse has supplied a fragment of bone with a pregnant woman and reindeer
