492 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1913. 



ancient skeletal remains representing men coeval with long-extinct 

 animals, and with them dating far back into the Quaternary or Ice 

 Epoch. 



The aggregate of the precious skeletal material here referred to is 

 still far from being satisfactory from the standpoint of completeness, 

 but it is already sufficient to afford solid groundwork for important 

 scientific deductions as to man's development; and happily explo- 

 ration is going on with ever-increasing interest as well as precision. 

 Hundreds of well-trained students are now watching and searching 

 for new accessions with which to corroborate previous observations, 

 to fill in the gaps, and to bring about a fuller understanding of the 

 physical progress of man in the course of the ages. 



Europe, particularly in its more western and southern portions, 

 has thus far proved the richest in ancient human remains. Africa, 

 Asia, and those parts of Oceanica which were formerly connected 

 with the Asiatic continent have as yet been but little explored. The 

 island of Java, however, which is within the last-named region^ has 

 furnished an intensely interesting specimen bearing on man's evo- 

 lution and antiquity. As to America, the researches have thus far 

 yielded nothing that could possibly be accepted as representing man 

 of geological antiquity.^ For the present, therefore, an account of 

 the very ancient remains of man, with the exception of the Java 

 specimen, must be Ihnited to early European forms. 



Such an account, in condensed form, is here presented. With the 

 view of preparing this summary the writer, during part of the spring 

 and summer of 1912 and under the auspices of the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution, undertook a personal examination of all the more important 

 skeletal remains relating to early man now preserved in the museums 

 of Europe. The cultural remains were given only passing attention, 

 partly on account of their great numbers and partly because they 

 pertain to a collateral branch of science, prehistoric archeology, 

 which is rapidly making them known to the world.^ The sites of the 

 more noteworthy discoveries were visited, however, whenever cir- 

 cumstances permitted. 



In this communication there will be described only the very oldest 

 of the human skeletal remains so far recovered. Besides these, the 

 European museums possess numerous human crania and bones be- 

 longing to more recent time and therefore not of such decided gen- 

 eral interest as the older forms, and also some whose reported age 



^The question of Early Man in North and South America is dealt with in Bulletins 33 

 and 52 (published respectively in 1907 and 1912) of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 

 Smithsonian Institution ; these publications also contain the bibliography of the subject. 



2 See " Recent discoveries bearing on the antiquity of man in Europe," by G. Q. Mac- 

 Curdy, Smithsonian Report for 1909, Washington, 1910 ; the Comptes Rendus du Congrfes 

 International d'Anthropologie et d'Arch<5ologie Pr<5historlques. especially the sessions at 

 Monaco and Geneva ; also L'Anthropologie," " Man," and other anthropological periodicals. 



