Note 328 — Chapter I

One of the earliest indications of human existence on the planet is a sepulchral cave in the post-pliocene drift at Aurignac, in France, in which are evidences of the celebration of the funeral banquet and other sepulchral rites. “The artificially closed Catacomb,” says Dr. Wilson, “the sepulchred dead, the gifts within, the ashes and débris of the last funeral feast without, ... all tell the ever-recurring story of reverent piety, unavailing sorrow, and the instinctive faith in a future life which dwells in the breast of the rudest savage.”—“Prehistoric Man,” by Daniel Wilson, LL.D., Toronto University, p. 84.