November 9, 1893] 



NATURE 



in the grotto of the Arena CandLde. Another very close parallel 

 is afforded by the cusped bone instrument represented (Fig. 5), 

 which the Rev. J. E. Somerville, of Mentone, obtained from 

 the neighbourhood of one of the last discovered skeletons of 

 the Barma Grande. Though blunter and thicker, it greatly 

 resembles some of the bone arrow-heads from the Neolithic 

 burial-place in the Arene Candide cave. 



Of all the bone objects, however, discovered with the present 

 interments the most interesting are those already referred to as 



Fig. 6. — Bone ornaments, {a) with fish-vertebrae adhering. 



resembling two small eggs, or acorns, with their big ends united 

 with a connecting stem. The bossy part of these ornaments was 

 decorated with rows of parallel lines running up the sides like 

 the rungs of so many ladders. Seven or eight of these are 

 said to have occurred in all, but, like other relics found, most of 

 them have since disappeared. The shape of different specimens 

 varied slightly, some being more elongated than others. 



Fig. 7. — Scandinavian amber beads. 



But what at once struck me on seeing these objects was the 

 great resemblance they presented to certain amber ornaments 

 discovered with early Neolithic skeletons in the galleried tombs 

 of Scandinavia and North Germany. The objects in question 

 are certain double-bossed ornaments of amber, in Scandinavia 

 generally known as "hammer-shaped" beads, and which, from 

 their supposed resemblance to the stone-hammers of the same 

 period, have been by many supposed to have been worn as 

 amulets. (Fig. 7.) 



NO. 1254, VOL. 49] 



The geometrical system of ornamentation/ 

 ments from the Mentone Cave seems to be f/ 

 on bone and horn relics of the " Reindee 

 other hand, like the bone ornaments thems 

 occurs, it presents the closest analogy to a style or >w 

 very characteristic of the Later Stone Age in Northern Eufoj.^ 



The conclusion, then, to which we are led by these converg^~~ 

 ing lines of evidence is that the interments of the Barma Grande 

 and the other caves of the Balzi Rossi cliffs, though embedded 

 in a Palaeolithic stratum, are themselves of Neolithic date. 

 On the other hand, however, the entire absence of pottery, 

 of polished implements, of remains of domestic animals, 

 as compared with the abundance of all these features in 

 the Neolithic interments of the Finale Caves further up the 

 same Ligurian coast, is on any showing a most remarkable 

 phenomenon. A greater degree of petrification is also ob- 

 servable in the bone and other objects discovered. In allproba- 

 bility, therefore, tve Jiave here to deal with an earlier Neolithic 

 stratum than any of which we have hitherto possessed authentic 

 records. If the evidence of these Balzi Rossi interments is to 

 count for anything, it must henceforth be recognised that a race 

 representing the essential features of the later population of the 

 polished Stone Age was already settled on the Ligurian shores 

 of the Mediterranean at a time when many of the civilised arts, 

 which have hitherto been considered as the original possession 

 of Neolithic Man on his first appearance in Europe, were un- 

 known. It will no longer be allowable to say that these sup- 

 posed immigrants from Asia brought with them at their first 

 coming certain domestic animals, and had already attained a 

 knowledge of the potter's art, and of the polishing of stone 

 weapons. And, if this is the case, something at least will have 

 been done towards bridging the gap between the earlier and 

 later Stone Age in Europe. Till such time, however, as remains 

 of extinct animals are found in such association with human in- 

 terments as to prove their contemporaneity we must still allow 

 for a vast interval of years between the latest remains of the 

 " Reindeer Period " and interinents, such as those of the Men- 

 tone Caves. 



The racial characteristics of the skeletons of the Balzi Rossi, 

 while linking them at one end with the later Neolithic occu- 

 pants of the Finalese, show that they had essentially the same 

 physical type as the early skeletons found in Cro-Magnon Cave 

 with very similar ornaments of bored shells and teeth. The 

 same features occur again in the skeletons from the Neolithic 

 grotto of the Homme Mort, in Lozere, and in some of the French 

 dolmens, as that of Vignettes. The type recurs East of the 

 Apennines and in Central Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia ; and the 

 field of comparison extends to Southern Spain and the Canaries. 



The physical connection with the Dolmen people derives ad- 

 ditional interest from the comparisons established between the 

 bone ornaments found with the Barma Grande skeletons and the 

 amber hammer-beads of the Scandinavian Gallery Graves, and 

 the decorative system of the pottery found in the same. It 

 looks as if in the polished Stone Age the Neolithic settlers in 

 the North of Europe had transferred to the new materials, such 

 as amber and earthenware, forms and ornamentation which had 

 already been an ancient possession of a race settled on European 

 soil in still more primitive times. 



Two shells found with the Balzi Rossi interments, Pecten 

 maximus and Cypma viillepnnctata, seem to point to Atlantic 

 connexions. In the later Neolithic interments of the Finalese, 

 on the other hand, which may represent the same race in a more 

 advanced stage of development, we see new influences coming 

 in from a very different direction. Some of the shells found 

 with these seem to have been derived from the Southern 

 Mediterranean, and one, the Mitra oleacea, found by Prof. 

 Issel in Caverna della Arene Candide, must have made its way 

 by some primitive line of intertribal barter from the Indian 

 Ocean. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Oxford.— Mr. Theodore J Pocock, of Corpus Christi 

 College, has been elected to the Burdett-Coutts Scholarship in 

 Geology. For the Merton Biological Fellowship a strong list of 

 candidates is reported, including among others Messrs. F. E. 

 Beddard, M. S. Pembrey, E. A. Minchin, P. C. Mitchell, and 

 R. T. Gunther. 



