150,000 YEARS OLD.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 7 May 1914, Page 7

150,000 YEARS OLD.

A TEN-FOOT FOSSIL TOOTH.

Dr. Hans Beck, of the Geological Institute of Berlin University, has discovered at Oldoway, in the north of German East Africa, a human skeleton which, for the anthropologist, seems to be of the first importance. He brought the skull home with him* among his linen for greater safety while the rest of the skeleton and trio animal remains found near it are still upon their way. The remains were round with mammoth fossils of which ■ one is , a tooth 10ft. sin. long. At present all Dr. Reck can say :s that the man is, roughly, 150,000 years old, and belongs to the Diluvial period of Afvica, which synchronises with the lee period of Northern Europe. m-1 * ,is_ a, w«nderful skull (says the rimes Berlin correspondent), and wonderfully preserved. It is long and narrow, with an unmistakably negroid jaw, and the back of the head finely developed and deep. The "ribs and breast are akin to those of an ape but the skull is unmistakably human. There are indications that the muscles of the neck were enormously strong and that the man did not walk quite, upright. His thirty-six teeth are complete and beautifully preserved. There are marks uoon the:n as if they had been filed The formation of the eyesockets and the bridge of the nose is akin to that of the primitive African Bushman.

Th& man was found lying on his back with his head turned over to the right, his hands before Mb face, and his legs drawn up in a crouching position. Dr. Beck is almost certain that the position is not one of burial. On the spot where the man was found there was once a lake, and it is coniectured that* the man was drowned. The body was gradually covered with deposits of Band and chalk, which in the course of centuries turned into the volcanic tufa in which the skeleton was found.