380 QUATERNARY HUMAN REMAINS IN CENTRAL EUROPE. 



anterior to the principal quaternary station of man, for the archeo- 

 logical stratum above the burials showed no sign of disturbance. 



SKELETON OF BRNO (BRUNN) MORAVIA. 



In 1891 a human skeleton was found at the depth of 4| meters in 

 the loess, in Brno, the capital of Moravia. The surroundings had 

 furnished, before that, bones of quaternary animals and cut flint 

 implements. According to the publications of A. Makovsky," who 

 was called to the locality immediately after the discovery of the 

 human bones, a tusk with a shoulder blade of a mammoth lay over, 

 and some ribs of a rhinoceros not far from, the skeleton. The latter, 

 partly destroyed in the excavation, showed profuse decoration. 

 There were gathered about it more than 600 pieces of the Dentalium 

 baclense, which served as a collar or a breast plate; great flat lime- 

 stone disks with central perforation ; 3 small, flat disks with incised 

 marginal decorations; 3 other disks made from the ribs of the rhi- 

 noceros or the mammoth, also 3 disks cut from the molars of the 

 latter animal, and 5 of ivory; finally there was a masculine figure or 

 " idol," 25 cm. high, made of ivory. The skull was much damaged 

 hy the workingmen. It is extremely dolichocephalic. (Figured in 

 Makovsky's Der Mensch der Dihivialzeit, pis. viii and ix.) 



The report of Makovsky proves clearly that the skeleton was found 

 in situ in an undisturbed laver. Besides this, the Maska collec- 

 tion from Pfedmost contains several stone disks identical in char- 

 acter with those of the Brno burial, which points to the fact that 

 both finds belonged to the same period. Other facts, notably the 

 presence of the ivory " idol," range the Brno find with the " glyptic " 

 epoch of the mammoth hunters and would make its incorporation 

 into any other iDeriocl very difficult. 



The Brno skeleton and a few objects found near it present, besides 

 other features, an intense red coloration. Makovsky regarded this 

 coloration as incontestably artificial, and Virchow expressed the opin- 

 ion, based on these data, that such coloration could })e produced only 

 after the bones have become devoid of flesh, wherefore it is necessary 

 in this case to suppose a secondary burial. As a similar feature 

 was several times observed with skeletons from the neolithic period, 

 the Brno bones also were attributed to this epoch. In 1902 I had 

 occasion to examine the skeleton preserved in the Brno polytechnic 

 school, and it was still possible to see samples of the loess which had 

 surrounded the bones. After an examination of the whole, I came to 

 the conclusion that the coloration of the bones and neighl)oring 



oMittheil. Anthrop. Gesellsch. In Wein, XXII, 1892, 7^ ; Verhandle. d. Beii. 

 Gessellsch. f. Anthrop., etc., Zeitschr. f. Ethnol., 1898, 62; Der Mensch der 

 Diluvialzeit Mahrens, Briinn, 1899. 



