488 ANNUAL, REPOKT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 3 5 



figures, attained a height of about 100 feet, 65 of which were repre- 

 sentative of the Neolithic cukure.-^ But that is not all of the Old 

 World story, for below this tremendous thiclmess of Neolithic and 

 post-Neolithic debris there lies, chronologically speaking, a no less 

 impressive stratum of Paleolithic camp refuse, amounting at the 

 Prince's Cave in Italy to 521/2 feet and at the Castillo Cave in 

 Spain to over 55 feet.-* Clearly, the Old World was formerly 

 ahead of the New as regards quantity of production, or else it 

 had a very much earlier start. 



Geologic situation of culture deposits. — The precise relations of 

 these archeological deposits to their geologic and topographic sur- 

 roundings are also of no little importance as affording possible clues 

 to the passage of time. As stated, most of our rubbish heaps lie 

 actually on the surface of the ground or, what amounts to the same 

 thing, in open caves. There are instances, however, here as in the 

 Old World, in which the culture debris has been sealed up, as it 

 were, in the earth's crust by various natural forces — covered up, that 

 is, by vegetal mold either on dry land or in water, by wind or 

 water-borne deposits, by earth slides and lava flows, by stalagmitic 

 formations, and even by the gradual accumulation of scaling or dis- 

 integrating cave-roof material. Fairly common also are vertical 

 coast-line movements, which by subsidence bring about the submerg- 

 ence and, perhaps, subsequent silting over of cultural deposits and 

 by elevation leave what were once beach settlements some distance 

 higher up and inland. Some of these processes are accomplished 

 only by slow stages, and in given situations consequently afford a 

 rough estimate of time elapsed. 



The New^ World furnishes examples of all these indicated ]30ssi- 

 bilities. Hearth sites and habitation floors have been reported di- 

 rectly to the writer as occurring, for example, at some depth in the 

 vertical banks of both the Missouri and Columbia Rivers, and he 

 has himself observed minor indications of the same sort in various 

 arroyos of the Southwest. -Possibly our much-disputed Trenton 

 argillite or yellow soil culture may belong to this type of inhumation. 

 Stalagmitic formations covering culture debris are not unknown 

 occurrences in our caves, and we are just now waiting to learn 

 exactly how much sterile cave debris has accumulated over the oldest 

 apparent culture level in the Gypsimi Cave being excavated in 

 Nevada.-^ Partially submerged shell-heaps have been reported and 



^ De Morgan, J., Prehistoric man, p. 13, London, 1924. 



=* Obermaier, H., Fossil man in Spain, pp. 84, 162, New Haven, 1924. But meanwhile 

 Tabun Cave in Palestine has yielded a culture deposit measuring about 70 feet in thick- 

 ness. See Garrod. D. A. E., Excavations at the Wady al- Mughara (Palestine) 1922-33, 

 Bull. 10, Amer. School Prehist. Res., pp. 7-11, May 1934. 



=» stock, Chester, Sci. Monthly, pp. 22-23, Jan., 1931 ; Harrington, M. R.. The Gypsum 

 Cave, etc., The Masterkey, vol. 4, no. 2, 1930 ; Sci. Amer., pp. 34-36, July, 1930. 



