276 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL.83 



The skeleton lay 80 cm. (2.6 ft.) deep in the sand, and was not 

 surrounded by any objects which would indicate an intentional burial. 

 Its location and position seemed to show that the body had been de- 

 posited where it lay accidentally. The clayey sand contained a few 

 disseminated worked stones and a few bones that had been utilized 

 by man, but showed none of the handsome pieces which characterized 

 the upper Mousterian epoch. The skeleton is, in all probability, ref- 

 erable to the earliest part of the middle Quaternary. 



The remains have suffered from prolonged submersion and pressure, 

 as a result of which the cranial bones were disjointed and in part 

 broken; but from the first instant it could readily be seen that the 

 jaws, particularly the mandible, were heavy ; and the teeth were large 

 in size, besides showing other remarkable features. 



The easily accessible prehistoric station of La Quina is known from 

 the earlier days of prehistoric research in France. As early as 1873 

 excavations were carried on there by Gustave Chauvet ; and in 1896 

 he published an account of them (Bull. Soc. archeol. et hist. Charente, 

 p. 313, 1896). 



Dr. Henri Martin began its exploration in 1905. In 1906 he an- 

 nounced before the Societe prehistorique, the finding, among the 

 upper Mousterian industry of the site, of phalanges of prehistoric 

 horses, bovidae and large deer, and some lower ends of animal 

 humeri that showed utilization by man (as anvils and perhaps ham- 

 mers in the working of flints).'' A little later in the same year and be- 

 fore the same society. Dr. Martin reports on some remarkably well 

 made flint implements from the same depoits, and on the evident dif- 

 ferentiation of the stone industry towards forms of more advanced 

 varieties." In 1907 Dr. Martin reports on new excavations at La 

 Quina ^ and gives details as to the stratigraphy of the deposits. 



The entire deposit exists in the wooded slope — in places a sloping 

 terrace — lining the southwestern limestone cliffs of the small valley 

 of the Voultron. The cliffs themselves, it was learned later, contain 

 some caves. The mass of deposits at the site explored by Dr. Martin 

 is shown in plates 74 and 75. It consisted of the following : 



Surface vegetal earth overgrown with bushes and trees, 40 cm. 



A thick layer of fallen rocks and debris — -1.20 to 5 m. [The great amount of 

 fallen rock, among which are very large blocks, indicates the former existence 

 here of one or more rock-shelters, such as found about Les Eyzies — Hrdlicka.j 



* Ossements utilises par L'Homme mousterien de la station de La Quina. Bull. 

 Soc. prehist. France, 1906. 



^ Industrie mousterienne perfectionnec station de La Quina. Ibid. 



^ Nouvelle coupe de la station mousterienne de La Quina. L'Homme prehistor- 

 ique, Vol. 3, No. II. 



