Page:Smithsonian Report (1909).djvu/649

Rh Each layer varies in thickness from 10 centimeters to 30 or 40 centimeters. In section the thicker parts appear like nests and are marked by the presence of hearths. About these hearths are found bones and stone implements in large numbers. These artifacts and bones are not confined to the culture layers only, but here and there occur in the alternating layers. Seven meters below the lowest culture layer, and about 3 meters above loess bottom, there were found a hornstone chip with traces of utilization (possibly an eolith) and a fragment of bone.

The lowest (first) culture-bearing layer is characterized by a very crude industry made of materials not utilized in the upper layers. Charcoal and a few bone fragments also occur. Fauna: Reindeer and bison.

Second layer: Varieties of quartz and jasper; also Danube River stone used as hammer-stones, a poor quality of flint, and incomplete examples of the lower Aurignacian type. Fauna: Reindeer, bison, wolf.

Third layer: Industry similar to that of second layer in respect to forms as well as the kinds of materials used, and characterized by the appearance of the keel-shaped scraper.

Fourth layer: Abundance of small keel-shaped scrapers, whitish-gray patinated hornstone; bone points, both blunt and sharp; a stag antler with end hollowed out for insertion of a stone implement. Fauna: Mammoth, reindeer, stag.

Fifth layer: Rich in well-fashioned hornstone implements. Especially noteworthy are the hornstone points (à tranchant rabattu). Fauna: Mammoth, reindeer, stag.

Sixth, seventh, and eighth layers: Hornstone points (à tranchant rabattu). In the seventh layer an Aurignacian bone point with cleft base. Appearance of the forerunners of the Solutréan laurel-leaf point, pieces of reindeer horn that served as haftings for stone implements. Fauna: Mammoth, horse, reindeer, cave lion, wolf.

Ninth layer: Rich and beautiful stone industry of the upper Aurignacian types. Points with lateral notch at the base. The most important piece of all was a female statuette of stone—the so-called Venus of Willendorf (pl. 2, fig. a). The piece was found in the yellow loess 25 centimeters below a charcoal stratum belonging to the ninth layer and near a hearth of this layer. Szombathy, Bayer, and Obermaier were all present when the discovery was made. The figure is 11 centimeters high and complete in every respect. It is carved from fine porous oölitic limestone. Some of the red color with which it was painted still adheres to it. It represents a fat pregnant woman with large pendent mammæ and large hips, but no real steatopygy. It corresponds closely in form to the Venus of Brassempouy, an ivory figurine of Aurignacian age from the grotte du