284 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 83 



Martin, as is well known, they represent simply so much refuse, except 

 in the case of the skeleton, which he believes was buried accidentally 

 in the mud of the river. 



These views offer some difficulties. The writer, both as a medical 

 man and as an anthropologist, has seen accidental as well as intentional 

 burials of many sorts. In accidental drownings the body, as soon as 

 decomposition sets in and the abdominal cavity is extended by gases, 

 rises to the surface. It might, of course, l)e deposited in the bushes or 

 the mud at the edge of a river, but in the case of a relatively small 

 and sluggish stream such as the Voultron it is difficult to conceive 

 how a body thus deposited or caught could be so completely and 

 rapidly covered with silt as to be sufficiently buried and remain so. 

 It would seem much more likely that the body was buried intentionally 

 in the dry river silts by its congeners. In such a formation and after 

 such a long time as has elapsed since the burial it could not be ex- 

 pected that any marked traces would remain of the fossa. 



As to the other human skeletal remains disseminated through the 

 higher deposits, the conditions would seem to agree with what may 

 be noticed in many much more recent intentional burials. Decay, bur- 

 rowing of animals, and movements in the earth itself are not seldom 

 found to have played havoc with skeletal remains. There are Indian 

 burials, for example, in which practically nothing remains of the 

 skeletal parts. In others the bones of the same skeleton are found 

 widely scattered. The skull may be in situ, with the lower jaw at 

 a distance ; the bones from the knees downward may be fairly well 

 preserved and still almost in their natural position, with all or most 

 of the rest of the body missing, barring perhaps a few teeth ; and 

 individual bones, especially those of the smaller kind, may be found 

 at an unexplainable distance from its skeleton. The same agencies were 

 active both in historic and in prehistoric times, and the far greater 

 time elapsed must have been all the more potent in producing all 

 sorts of irregularities. The conditions at La Quina would be easier 

 of explanation if, as at Krapina, there had been detected evidences of 

 cannibalism ; but none of the human remains shows signs of intentional 

 breaking, of fire, or of scraping and disarticulation. 



That the remains were simply thrown out is inconceivable ; and it is 

 still more inconceivable that in some instances the parts thrown out 

 would have been merely the astragali or the patellae or a few pieces of 

 the frontal bones, etc. And these parts were not likely the remnants 

 left by wolves or hyenas, for after the feasts of such animals, as I 

 had ample occasion to see in Mongolia where all bodies are thrown to 



