IN A TER Aim EIN C ie 
A Monthly Review of Scientific Progress. 

No. 14 -Vor ol: APRIL, 1893. 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 
PREHISTORIC MAN IN SWITZERLAND. 
TuoseE interested in the study of prehistoric man should read an 
important paper which has just appeared in the “‘ Nouvelles aychives des 
Missions scientifiques et littévaives” (vol. iil., pp. I-25, pls. i.—iv.) In 
this paper M. Marcellin Boule gives a clear and readable account of 
the excavations undertaken by Dr. Niiesch in deposits under a rock- 
shelter at Schweizersbild, near Schaffhausen, in Switzerland. The 
explorations are particularly valuable, not only from the interest of 
the objects discovered, but on account of the care that has evidently 
been taken to note the exact conditions under which each object was 
found. 
The highest deposit is of recent origin, and contains Neolithic and 
Paleolithic implements mixed pell-mell with coins, etc. Bed 2 is 
entirely of Neolithic age, and yields not only implements, but graves 
with human skeletons (nine have already been found.) It contains, 
also, bones of various animals, all still living in Switzerland with the 
exception of the reindeer, the bones of which, however, are thought 
by M. Boule to have been dug out of the lower strata when the 
Neolithic graves were excavated. Next comes a rubbly deposit, 
without trace of man, but containing a loamy seam full of bones of 
small rodents. Though this bed 3 is of great importance, separating 
as it does Neolithic from Paleolithic strata, we are not told what 
the rodents are, or whether they point to warm or cold conditions. 
The omission is unfortunate, for we should like to know whether any 
climatic change coincided with the change of races. In bed 4 the 
reindeer is the dominant form, and with it are found bone tools, har 
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