inhabitants of Italy. Moreover, hesitation on this point is
impossible for other reasons, as Roman historians allude to the
practice. Pliny,[55] in saying how little removed was a human sacrifice
from a meal, adds, that it ought not to surprise us to meet with this
monstrous custom amongst barbarian races, as it prevailed in ancient
times in Italy and Sicily.

It is generally admitted that we can tell whether the fracture of long
bones was intentional by the way in which they were broken. This fact,
which is true alike with the bones of men and of animals, is the most
important proof we have of the cannibalism of the men of the Stone
age. To the examples already given, we can easily add others culled
from France. In the Pyrenees and in the caves of Lourdes and Gourdan,
for instance, human bones have been found mixed with the cinders and
ashes of the hearth, and still bearing the marks of the implements
with which they were broken.

At Bruniquel a human skull was found which had been opened in the
same way as the heads of ruminants amongst which it was picked up, and
on its external surface were deep notches, which appear to have been
made with a flint hatchet. Similar traces of revolting feasts on human
flesh are not at all rare; near Paris, at Villeneuve-Saint-Georges,
and at Varenne-Saint-Maur, for instance.[56]

The excavations in the Montesquieu-Avantes Cave, about six miles from
Saint-Girons, have brought to light a hearth covered over with a layer
of stalagmite; numerous fragments of human bones, crania, femora,
tibiae, humeri, and radii were found in this layer, and in that of the
subjacent clay. In many cases the medullary orifice had been enlarged
to make it easier to get out the marrow. It is impossible to attribute