Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/195

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
CHAP. VI.]
HUMAN SKELETONS IN RIVER-DEPOSITS.
167

related to the present fauna, just as the European fauna of the late Pleistocene is related to that now alive in Europe. In both regions there was a similar mixture of extinct and living forms; from both the genus hippopotamus has disappeared in the lapse of time, and in both man forms the central figure. Mr. Medlicott's conclusion, therefore, may be accepted, that the fauna of the Narbadá belongs to the late Pleistocene age in India.

Human Skeletons in River-deposits.

The bones of the River-drift man[1] are, as might be expected from the small size of human bones and the rarity of the hunters as compared with the enormous numbers of the animals on which they lived,[2] but very seldom met with in the river-deposits; and are so fragmentary as to give but little indication of his physique. Omitting those cases which are doubtful, the following examples may be quoted of the discovery of his remains. In 1867 a portion of a cranium was found at Eguisheim near Colmar by M. Faudel, along with the mammoth and other animals in the loam, proving that the Palæolithic hunter in the Upper Rhine possessed a skull of the long type (Dolichocephalic). In the following year at Clichy, in the valley of the Seine, a human skull and bones were obtained, by M. Eugene Bertrand, from a gravel-pit underneath undisturbed strata of loam, sand, and grave], at a depth of 5⋅45 mètres from the surface,

  1. For an account of the human remains mentioned in this paragraph, see Hamy, Paléontologie Humaine, 8vo, 1870, p. 210 et seq.; and Quatrefages and Hamy, Crania Ethnica, 4to, Parts I.-IV.
  2. On the necessary rarity of the hunter as compared with the game see Sir John Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, 4th edit. p. 364 et seq.