WHOLE VOL. SKELETAL REMAINS OF EARLY MAN — HRDLICKA 305 



sand, containing water-rolled pebbles. Throughout the layer were blocks of 

 fallen rock, but tliey never formed a continuous layer, as they had done at a 



depth of 120 cm Fortunately only a small part of the deposits had thus 



become hardened, and throughout the layer numerous fragments of bone and 



many worked flints in good condition were found No implements were 



found anywhere above the dividing layer of rock, showing conclusively that the 

 deposits had undergone no serious disturbance since their deposition. 



Towards the bottom of this layer of palaeolithic occupation, at a depth of 2 m. 

 below the modern floor level, were four fragments of a human skull. Their 

 approximate resting-place is marked X on the plan. They were lying in a shal- 

 low depression formed by irregularities in the cave floor, and were covered by 

 two blocks of rock apparently fallen from the roof. The frontal bone has been 

 separated from the skull to which it originally belonged along the line of suture, 

 but there is nothing to indicate that the separation was produced by force, or 

 least of all to suggest that the individual may have been killed by the fall of 

 the rocks beneath which the fragments lay. Nor was there anything in the posi- 

 tion of the bones and arrangement of the blocks of rock to suggest an intentional 

 burial. It is difficult to surmise what may have become of the rest of the skull. 

 Careful sieving of all the earth taken from the surrounding area and from 

 numerous other parts of the layer failed to disclose any further human remains. 

 The fact that the four fragments, namely the frontal bone, part of the right 

 zygomatic bone, and two fragments of the sphenoid, were all found together, 

 indicating that they have become separated since reaching their final resting- 

 place, seems to preclude the probability of their having been washed into the 

 cave from outside, for in such a process the projecting sphenoid portions would 

 almost inevitably have become detached ; nor is it possible that they could have 

 fallen through from a higher level, for if so, how did they come to lie beneath 

 two large blocks of rock, themselves entirely covered by palaeolithic deposits? 

 The bone itself is in a hard, highly mineralized state, extremely heavy and red- 

 dish in colour, in fact in every way similar to the other bone fragments found 

 in the layer ; it differs absolutely from the soft light pieces of a yellowish colour 

 found in the superior layers. 



In 1926 the work in the cave was finished, without further dis- 

 coveries of note. Sections through the water-laid deposits below the 

 paleolithic layer showed no earlier traces of occupation, human or 

 animal. 



The fauna recovered from the paleolithic layer, as determined by 

 Miss Bate, was in the main as follows : 



Hippopotamus sp. Felis cf. sylvcstris 



Bison or Bos Felis chaus 



Equus sp. Hystrix sp. 



Ursus cf. arctos Cervus sp. (C claphus group) 



Hyaena cf. striata Dania mesopotamica 



Hyaena crocuta Gacella arabica 



Sus sp. Gazella sp. 



Vulpes cf. nilotica Capra primigenia 



Felis cf. pardus Capra sp. 



