OLD WORLD PREHISTORY MacCURDY 499 



Mesopotamia. — TIuto is evt'iv icason to hclievi' that records sim- 

 ilar to those reported from llic Upper Nile Valley will be found in 

 the upper stretches of the Kuphiates and Ti<rris Valleys. In fact, 

 Passenianl has reported the Hndinj,' of a Chellean hand ax from the 

 gravels at the hasc of the .'U)-meter terrace, right bank of the Eu- 

 phrates between Kakka and Deir ez Zor, Syria. In type anil patina 

 it is exactly like those foiind in the Thames Valley at Milton Street 

 and in the Sonune Valley. Passemaril also points out that in the 

 Enplirates Valley one finds a system of terraces at four levels — 15, 

 ;i(), CiO, and 100 meters respectively — comparable with the four ter- 

 races to be found in the river valleys of western Europe. 



France. — Even older than the Chellean of the 30-meter terraces 

 in the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates are the crude artifacts 

 found by Peyrony only last summer in the basal deposits of the sta- 

 tion known as La Micoque, near Les Eyzies (Dordoirne). The site 

 has been known for at least 35 years, bef2;inninLr with the excava- 

 tions of Chauvet ami Kiviere. Many prehistorians have since clone 

 at least some work on this spot. All were a<:reed as to the rela- 

 tively great antiqinty of the deposits, dating back at least to the 

 Acheulian Epoch. P]ach stopped at a thick sterile deposit supposed 

 to underlie the oldest relic-bearing level. It remained for Peyrony 

 to hazaril a sounding deeper than all the others. lie was rewarded 

 by finding a basal relic-bearing deposit far below the lowest hitherto 

 known. The artifacts are eolithic in type and are referred by Pey- 

 \\m\ to the Pre-Chellean Epoch (Lower Pleistocene). Pej'rony 

 has also just added another page to our knowledge of another site 

 in the Dordogne — the type station of Le Moustier. The oldest relic- 

 bearing level hitherto known at Le Moustier belongs to the Mous- 

 terian Epoch. Beneath this is a thick sterile deposit beneath which 

 Peyrony has found an additional relic-bearing deposit. IJut the 

 cultural remains are of a type similar to those in the level above. 

 Peyrony's successful soundings at La Micoque and Le Moustier 

 should serve as a reminder to all exca\ators to be sure they are at 

 the bottom of a section as soon as possible after their work is begun. 



By combining four rock shelters in the Dordogne — La Micoque, 

 Le Moustier, Laugerie-IIaute, and Laugerie-Basse — it is now pos- 

 sible to build U[) a composite section representing the entire gamut 

 of Stone Age cultures from the pre-Chellean to the Neolithic, 

 inclusive. 



Chou Kou Tien. — The year li>iiU will com|)are favorably with any 

 single year, in the past one hundred, in respect to pnliistoiic achieve- 

 ment. The discovery of an almost complete skull of an early type of 

 man at Chou Kou Tien southwest of Peiping (Peking), China, is per- 

 haps the outstanding event of the year (pis. 1-3) . The first discovery 

 of hominid remains at Chou Kou Tien was some four years ago. 



