Page:Palæolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in Europe.djvu/233

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FOSSIL MAN (ITALY AND OTHER COUNTRIES)
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collected pieces. It was dolichocephalic, with a remarkable depression of the forehead, and prominent eyebrows, which gave it a certain resemblance to the Neanderthal-Spy skulls. According to Schaaffhausen, the resemblance was not so strong as Dr Fritsch makes it. Not far from the original site of the Podbaba skull, but at a less depth than it, three skeletons of the Bronze Age had been found, one of which (a female) had a bronze bracelet on the forearm. These skeletons had dolichocephalic skulls, but not the extreme depression of the forehead which characterised the Podbaba cranium. Hence G. de Mortillet assigns it to the category of the doubtful. (L'Homme, 1884, p. 528.)

Cemetery of Predmost.

The station of Predmost, near Prerov (Moravia), was explored by Dr Karl Maska and MM. Wanken and Kriz during the years from 1882 to 1894, a brief report of which was given by Maska at the meeting of the International Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric archæology, held in Paris in 1900. Under the surface of the loess which covered the limestone of this district, at a depth of 2 to 3 metres, were found three archæological layers, of which the lowest was the largest and most important. Here, over an extended area, they discovered hearths, bones of the mammoth and other animals, as well as objects manufactured by man. The fauna, besides the mammoth, included the Arctic fox, wolf, reindeer, alpine hare, horse, glutton, polar bear, lion, bison, musk-ox, elk, beaver, and Lagopus alpinus. Most of the long bones and skulls were broken for their marrow, and some were burnt. As to the quantity of mammoth remains, Maska believed that there was no known station in which this animal was so largely represented. "Vous aurez," he remarks, "une idée de la richesse du gisement si je vous dis que l'on a ramassé à Predmost au moins deux mille molaires. II convient de mentionner les os longs, fendus ou coupes en travers les crânes dont la calotte est brisée, et de nombreux fragments de défenses, épars." (C.A.P., 1900, p. 130.)

The industrial remains numbered some 15,000 flint implements, together with a few specimens of rock-crystal and