Page:Smithsonian Report (1909).djvu/710

574 That this may have been a burial is suggested by the disposition of the human remains which seemed to lie in a rectangular pit sunk to a depth of 30 centimeters in the floor of the cavern. They were covered by a deposit intact 30 to 40 centimeters thick, consisting of a magma of bone, of stone implements, and of clay. The stone implements belong to a pure Mousterian industry. While some pieces suggest a vague survival of the Acheulian implement, others presage the coming of the Aurignacian. Directly over the human skull were the foot bones, still in connection, of a bison—proof that the piece had been placed there with the flesh on, and proof, too, that the deposit had not been disturbed. Two hearths were noted also, and the fact that there were no implements of bone, the industry differing in this respect from that at La Quina and Petit-Puymoyen (Charente), as well as at Wildkirchli, Switzerland.

The human bones include the cranium and lower jaw (broken, but the pieces nearly all present and easily replaced in exact position), a few vertebræ and long-bones, several ribs, phalanges and metacarpals, clavicle, astragalus, calcaneum, parts of the scaphoid, ilium, and sacrum. The ensemble denotes an individual of the male sex, whose height was about 1.60 meters. The condition of the sutures and of the jaws prove the skull to be that of an old man. The cranium is dolichocephalic, with an index of 75. It is said to be flatter in the frontal and occipital regions than those of Neanderthal and Spy.

Beyond the loss of teeth, due evidently to old age, the skull is so nearly intact as to make possible the application of the usual craniometric procedure, thus leading to a more exact comparative study than has been possible, for example, in all previously discovered paleolithic human skulls dating from the same period, not excepting even Spy and Homo mousteriensis. This is particularly true of the basi-occipital region, the upper jaw, and the face-bones (pl. 15). We are thus enabled to supplement our knowledge of Mousterion craniometry at several points and to correct it at others. This is the first case, for example, in which the foramen magnum has been preserved in human crania of the Mousterian type. It is found to be elongated, and is situated farther back than in modern inferior races. The character of the inion and its relation to the cranial base is revealed for the first time. There is no external occipital protuberance, but the linea nuchæ superior (torus occipitalis transversus) is well marked. The character of the surface in the nuchal region indicates that the muscles here were highly developed. The palate is relatively long, the sides of the alveolar arch being nearly parallel; that is to say, the palate is hypsiloid—one of the two characteristic simian forms. Boule also notes the absence of the fossa canina. The nose, separated from the prominent glabella by a pronounced depression,