A FACE OF THE STONE AGE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 124, 26 May 1900, Page 3 (Supplement)

A FACE OF THE STONE AGE.

From Germany comes the statement that two remarkable attempts have been made to reconstruct the countenance of persons who lived in prehistoric times. Professor Kollmann, a distinguished sur> geon and anthropologist of Basle, was the first who attempted this feat. Being a gallant man, he selected a lady for the purpose of the experiment. She lived during the stone age, at a place near where Auvernier; near Neufchatel, now is. Either' by accident or design, her skull was broken before she had reached her 30th year, and her body, was laid to rest at the bottom of a lake, near her home. This curious human fossil was discovered a short time ago, and Professor Kollmann at once determined to reproduce as far as possible the features of this mysterious lady of the lake. Her skull was in an excellent state of preservation. The first act necessary was to reconstruct the head, and this he did by placing thin layers of clay or other soft material around the skull until the proper size and shape was reached. The next step was to gain an idea of how much flesh there was originally on the head and face, and to this end he experimented oa the skulls of several women who had just died. He inserted a needle here and there in the faces, in order to ascertain the thickness of the flesh in each place. He thus obtained some idea of the manner in which the flesh may have clothed the head and. face of the lady of the lake. Among the corpses on which Professor Kollmann experimented was that of a young woman whose skull was almost exactly like the stone one. The professor did his work with extreme precision, making exact measurements of the flesh on the faces of various corpses, and only reproducing in plaster on the stone face the exact amount and thickness of flesh which were necessary. He pourtrays the lady of the lake as a rather modern-looking young wo>mau, with a small face, a broad forehead, a nose somewhat turned up, and lips thick and ruddy. Soon after Professor Kollmann had completed his work Professor Merkel made a similar experiment on the skull of a man which was found in the graveyard at Rosdorf, near Goettingen. This skull is not as old by several thousand years as the one reconstructed by Professor Kollmann. The face as reproduced by him is that of a sturdy peasant about 50 years old. The remarkable fact about it, however, is tho wonderful resemblance which it bears to the very faces of the peasants living in that district to-day. Those who have seen it say that it is exactly the same typo of face, and that it is a proof of tha parman* ence and purity of race.