PREHISTORIC MAN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22455, 27 December 1934, Page 7

PREHISTORIC MAN

DISCOVERIES IN PALESTINE SKELETONS IN A CAVE (United Press Association.) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, December 25. Delving into the caverns of Mount Carmel, in Palestine, which men_ inhabited' 200,000 years ago, an expedition comprising members of the British School of Archaeology and the American School of Prehistoric Research, were rewarded by discoveries opening the moat remote chapter in the evolution of prehistoric man yet disclosed. Mr Theodore M’Cown, 'who is cooperating with Sir Arthur Keith in examining the expeditions’ specimens at the Royal College of Surgeons, told the News-Chronicle that the Palestine discoveries included a cave inhabited almost continuously for 50,000 years, in which was the best Neanderthal skeleton ever found, and the skeletons of a man aged 30, a girl aged H, and a woman aged 25. ~ , Mr M’Cown said that these people were more progressive than the previous Neanderthals, who were an unsatisfactory experiment in Nature’s evolutionary process. The male skeletons had chins, but that of the woman was chinless. The story of countless centuries was revealed as the scientists excavated one cave, layer after layer, to_ a depth ot 25ft. The remains of a hippopotamus, a crocodile, a rhinocerous, an elephant, a wolf, a gazelle, rats, and mice were found among flints and pottery of the Bronze Age, but these were absent m the lower layers. , ... Mr M’Cown believes that the discoveries show that Palestinian cultures were allied with African cultures on the one hand and Asiatic and European cultures on the other, and that modern man was evolved from an intermediate type which followed the Neanderthals.

Neanderthals were a Paleolithic race inhabiting Europe during the Moustenan period. This race was first revealed by the discovery of a human burial in a errotto of the Neanderthal ravine near Dusseldorf in 1856. Its fossil remains, representing about 30 individuals and industrial products, have since been found in widely scattered caves and summer-camp stations, including the Ghar Dalara cave at Malta.