Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 6 (1902).djvu/385

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
PREHISTORIC MAN IN BURMA.
325

and instead we occupied ourselves in collecting Tertiary mammalian remains from the neighbourhood. Among these, however, we obtained an upper premolar of a small species of Rhinoceros, which will be mentioned hereafter in connection with the worn femur of Hippopotamus found by Dr. Noetling. At Christmas, 1901, Col. Nichols and I made a second visit to Yenangyoung for the purpose of searching for the flints, but since our first visit we had, through the kindness of Mr. T. D. LaTouche, of the Geological Survey of India, and in the absence on leave of Dr. Noetling in Europe, obtained a tracing of a portion of the latter's original map of the Yenangyoung oil-field, showing No. 49.[1] We had also, during the year 1901, made a collection of Tertiary mammalian remains from a long strip of sandstone almost opposite Mandalay, the locality having been accidentally discovered by means of a stray bone which I picked up on the river-bank at Mandalay Shore, and which we were able to trace as having been brought across the river, together with some large stones used for strengthening the Bund. The sandstone in which these remains were found appears to be a derived bed, and to contain remains of animals ranging from Pliocene, or earlier, to Post-Tertiary times. Out of several hundred specimens, some merely fragmentary, and others distinct and well preserved, which we have carefully examined, not one bears any trace of having been manipulated by man, and though this is only negative evidence, which may be upset any day by the discovery of a specimen exhibiting cuts or deliberate scratchings, it is entitled to some weight, especially having regard to the fact that the flint chips at Yenangyoung, as will be seen hereafter, are to be found in considerable numbers. If these are but the survivors of the changes and chances of this world since Pliocene times in this one locality, they would indicate a large population in Burma at this period overrunning the country, and living on the flesh of wild animals.

We spent four days at Yenangyoung, and so difficult and confusing is the country, that even with our previous knowledge

  1. The map published in the 'Memoirs' of the Geological Survey of India, vol. xxvii. part 2, on "The Occurrence of Petroleum in Burma, and its Technical Exploitation (Noetling)," is reduced from the original, and No. 42 is not marked on it.