EARLIEST MAN

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 69, 18 September 1937, Page 10

EARLIEST MAN

FINDS IN PALESTINE

The earliest traces of man's existence in Palestine —and, it may be, almost the earliest evidence of man in the whole world —have been discovered in deposits now known as the Bone Beds of Bethlehem, says the "New York Times."

The discovery was made by Miss E. Gardiner and Miss D. Bate, excavating the deposits in what appears to be a swallow hole, near Bethlehem, on behalf of the Wellcome Archaeological Research Expedition to the Near East.

The discovery of the swallow hole was made a few years ago when excavations were being made for a water supply. Then a concession to excavate was granted to J. L. Starkey on behalf of the Wellcome Expedition. The actual examination of the deposits was entrusted to Miss Bate, an authority on paleontology, of the British Museum of Natural History, and Miss Gardiner lecturer on geology at London University. ■ ■, Two short seasons' work had produced some interesting and scientifically valuable paleontological specimens, but it was not until the season of 1937 that indubitable evidence -of man's handiwork was forthcoming. Specimens of the animal remains and worked flints associated with them are now on exhibition at the Wellcome Research Institution in London. STRIKING SPECIMEN. The most striking specimen among the animal remains is the hinder part of the shell of a gigantic tortoise of a species not yet identified. With it were several detached plates of the shell and a huge leg bone. Although only the tail part of the shell was found whole, it measured well over two feet across, as compared with a little over two inches for the same part in a tortoise of about a foot in diameter. There is also part of the tooth of an elephant—the elephant was first identified in Palestine in evidence from the Bethlehem bone beds—and cheek teeth of the rhinoceros. Most important, however, from the view of the paleontologist and geologist is what appears to be part of a leg bone of a very small form of horse, possibly hipparion, the three-toed horse of the Tertiary geological epoch. In the same beds, and associated with these animal remains were a number of worked flints, of which a selection has been brought to England and is now available for examination by experts on man's earliest handiwork. There can, however, hardly be any doubt as to the human origin of these specimens. One of them appears to be a core, from which flakes have been struck, while the others show the characteristic forms and chipping found in eolithic or pre-paleolithic implements.