SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I927 I23 



skeleton in 1856, no serious explorations have ever been carried on 

 there, and but few scientists have visited the spot. The valley is a 

 limestone gorge cut by the small stream Diissel. It took its name from 

 Joachim Neander, a song composer of the Reformed Church, who 

 frequented the valley in 1674-79. In 1856, workmen engaged in quar- 

 rying the limestone uncovered an ancient and very primitive human 

 skeleton, buried in the deposits of a cave. They tossed the bones and 

 earth down the slope with the other refuse. Later the owner of the 

 quarries, hearing of the find, asked that the bones be gathered. The 

 workmen found 14 pieces of the skeleton and these were placed in 

 the hands of Dr. Fuhlrott of Elberfeld. who eventually brought them 

 to the notice of the scientific world. 



Some prominent scientists of the day were inclined to look upon 

 the low brow and the heavy supraorbital ridges of the skull, the thick- 

 ness of the bones, as well as many other characters of anthropological 

 inferiority, as evidences of an accidental monstrosity, or of a patho- 

 logical condition. But gradually new examples of this same early 

 type appeared in difi:'erent parts of Europe, so that for a long time 

 now science has been sure they represent a regular phase in the 

 earlier evolution of man. 



New finds of importance have recently been made in the Neander 

 Valley. Paleolithic implements in conjunction with the fossilized bones 

 of the mammoth and reindeer are now being found on the other side 

 of the valley from the earlier discovery, at the base of the very thick 

 layer of loam covering the limestone. So far the new site has not 

 revealed any skeletal remains of man. 



There is need for systematic research in the Neanderthal Valley. 

 The rest of the original skeleton not recovered by the workmen after 

 they threw it in the debris must still be there. With this may possibly 

 be stone implements or fossil animal bones that were not noticed by 

 the laborers. Vestiges of the limestone cave in which the original 

 skeleton was found still exist (fig. 142) and ought to be searched for 

 extensions and possi]:)le additional clues to early man. And new dis- 

 coveries of the remains of early man in other as yet unexplored parts 

 of the valley are quite probable. 



From Neanderthal the writer went to Berlin, where he secured addi- 

 tional observations on the Le IMoustier and the La Combe skeletons. 



The journey then led to Prague where, at the invitation of the 

 Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and Arts, a lecture was given 

 before the Academy on the " Ice Age and its Relation to Early Man." 

 At Brno, the capital of Moravia, many of the new as well as older 



