280 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 83 



Neanderthal child. The report of the discovery in the form of a 

 letter from Mme. Martin which reached the Doctor in a military 

 hospital reads as follows : " As a result of a falling down of some of 

 the deposits we have seen appear, in the course of the diggings, the 

 skull of an infant. It was taken out with the hlock of surrounding 

 earth and transix)rted to the laboratory in Peyrat " — Peyrat being the 

 summer chateau of the Martin family, a little over a mile from the 

 excavations. The skull was found in the deposits of the upper Mous- 

 terian. There were no marks of a regular burial. Judging from its 

 position the skull is somewhat less ancient than the skeleton found 

 in 191 1. 



The first report on the new specimen appears in the Bulletins et 

 Memoires de la Societe d'Anthropologie de Paris, in 1920 (pp. 113- 

 125). Actually the skull was the eighteenth separate piece of human 

 skeletal remains found in the Mousterian deposits of La Quina. The 

 same report gives a good illustration of the skull as contrasted with 

 the skull of a motlern child. The interesting specimen has belonged 

 evidently to a child about eight years of age. The skull is fairly large 

 but relatively low, and approaching the Neanderthal skulls in type. 

 The supraorbital arches are not yet strongly developed, though much 

 more indicated than they are in a modern male child of that age. 



After giving detailed descriptions and numerous measurements on 

 the specimen, Dr. Martin concludes : " By its form and other char- 

 acters the skull offers the infantile stage of the Neanderthal type. While 

 still presenting numerous primitive features the skull is marked by its 

 good cranial capacity. The specimen enables us to see that the specific 

 characters of the Neanderthal man became accentuated quite early 

 in Hfe." 



In August, 1 92 1, at the meeting of the French Association for the 

 Advancement of Science,* Dr. Martin reports still an additional find 

 of interest, from the deposits of La Quina, consisting of a neander- 

 thaloid patella, which he designates as No. 19 of the human skeletal 

 remains in the deposits. This piece was found in the Mousterian 

 layers in 1920. It differs from recent patellae by its stout summit, and 

 by the conformation of its posterior surface which is concave and 

 lacks the median ridge. The bone is also relatively high in relation to 

 its breadth. 



Principal measurements: Height, 4.8; breadth, 4.3 cm. The bone 

 was a trace higher, but considerably narrower than the patellae of 

 Spy No. 2. 



'Rouen Session: fitude d'une rotule humain trouvee dans le mousterien de 

 La Quina, pp. 955-958. 



