Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
a. Cavern 60 feet above the Dussel, and 100 feet below the
surface of the country at c.
b. Loam covering the floor of the cave near the bottom of which
the human skeleton was found.
b, c. Rent connecting the cave with the upper surface of the
country.
d. Superficial sandy loam.
e. Devonian limestone.
f. Terrace, or ledge of rock.)
In the limestone are many fissures, one of which, still partially filled
with mud and stones, is represented in the section at a c as continuous
from the cave to the upper surface of the country. Through this passage
the loam, and possibly the human body to which the bones belonged, may
have been washed into the cave below. The loam, which covered the uneven
bottom of the cave, was sparingly mixed with rounded fragments of chert,
and was very similar in composition to that covering the general surface
of that region.
There was no crust of stalagmite overlying the mud in which the human
skeleton was found, and no bones of other animals in the mud with the
skeleton; but just before our visit in 1860 the tusk of a bear had
been met with in some mud in a lateral embranchment of the cave, in a
situation precisely similar to b, Figure 1, and on a level corresponding
with that of the human skeleton. This tusk, shown us by the proprietor
of the cave, was 2 1/2 inches long and quite perfect; but whether it was
referable to a recent or extinct species of bear, I could not determine.
From a printed letter of Dr. Fuhlrott we learn that on removing the
loam, which was five feet thick, from the cave, the human skull was
first noticed near the entrance, and, further in, the other bones lying
in the same horizontal plane. It is supposed that the skeleton was
complete, but the workmen, ignorant of its value, scattered and lost
most of the bones, preserving only the larger ones.*
(* Fuhlrott, Letter to Professor Schaaffhausen, cited
"Natural History Review" Number 2 page 156. See also
"Naturhistorischer Verein" Bonn 1859.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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