Page:Palæolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in Europe.djvu/238

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
178
ANTHROPOLOGY

ments were, however, so broken or badly preserved that they are of little scientific value. Some of them were found among the ashes and cinders around the hearths— a fact which suggests the hypothesis which Dr Kramberger adopts, that the inhabitants of Krapina were cannibals. Portion of an underjaw is here figured (Fig. 58, Nos. 1 and 2), from Kramberger's illustration, which shows that the chin is undeveloped, in which respect it harmonises with the Naulette jaw and others of the Moustérien period. The discoveries at this station have given rise to much controversy, and among the literature thus produced the article of M. Obermaier in L' Anthropologie, 1905, p. 13, may be consulted with advantage.

Homo Heidelbergensis.

Professor Schoetensack of Heidelberg has lately described a human mandible found at a depth of 24 metres from the surface, in ancient fluviatile deposits of the river Neckar, at a place called Mauer, 10 kilometres south-east of Heidelberg (Der Unterkiefer des Homo Heidelbergensis Leipzig, Engelmann, 1908). A section shows the following deposits from above downwards :—

(1) Recent loess, 5 metres.
(2) Ancient loess, 6 metres.
(3) A series of sandy beds alternating with strata of rolled gravel, about 15 metres thick, and containing erratic blocks transported by ice. Near the bottom of these beds was a layer of rolled gravels, mostly cemented by a calcareous infiltration, in which the jaw was discovered. It had not been water worn, and was in excellent preservation. Along with it, in the same bed, bones of the following animals were found :— Stag, elk (Alces latifrons), cavelion, horse (Stenonis?), Rhinoceros etruscus, and Elephas antiquus. The bones of the latter were very abundant, and among them, quite close to a mandible, lay the human jaw. Shells similar to those of the Cromer Forest beds were also found in the same deposits. M. Capitan, who writes a short notice of the Heidelberg jaw (R.E.A., 9th March 1909), says that geologically the position of the jaw precisely dates it to the end of the Pliocene or beginning of the Quaternary epoch, which in his opinion corresponds with the