54 



NA TURE 



[July 8, 1922 



Research Items. 



The Peopling of Asia. — Dr. Ales' Hrdlicka, the 

 distinguished American ethnologist, contributes to 

 the Proceedings of the American Philosophical 

 Society (vol. lx. No. 4) an important paper on the 

 peopling of Asia, which " constitutes one of the 

 greatest problems of anthropology." He concludes 

 that the cradle of humanity was essentially south- 

 western Europe, with, later, the Mediterranean 

 basin, Western Asia, and Africa. It is primarily 

 from Europe and secondarily from these regions 

 that the earth was peopled, and this peopling was 

 comparatively recent. Early man was unable to 

 people the globe owing to his insufficient effective- 

 ness, and until the end of glacial times and his old 

 stone culture he had evidently all he could do to 

 preserve mere existence. Only an advance in culture 

 could enable him to control his environment and 

 secure a steady surplus of births over deaths. The 

 cause of man's peopling of the world was not a mere 

 wish to do so, but the necessity arising from growing 

 numbers and correspondingly decreasing supply of 

 food. It was this which eventually led to agriculture. 

 This spreading over the globe was conditioned by 

 three great laws — movement in the direction of least 

 resistance ; movement in the direction of the greatest 

 prospects ; movement due to a force from behind, or 

 compulsion. 



Coins of Croesus. — A party of American arch- 

 aeologists working in Anatolia, among the ruins of 

 Sardis, has discovered thirty gold staters of Croesus, 

 dating from the period between 561 B.C., when Croesus 

 ascended the throne, and 546 B.C., when his capital was 

 taken by Cyrus, king of Persia. They are in excellent 

 condition, although some are a little worn. The only 

 five staters hitherto known to exist are in the British 

 Museum, but only one is in good condition. Dr. 

 Leslie Shear, the archaeologist of Columbia Univer- 

 sity, who has brought the news of this discovery, 

 states that the coins were found in a small earthen 

 vessel in the ruins of a tomb, where they may have 

 been hidden by a Lydian merchant during the siege 

 of the city by Cyrus. The coins, which are in charge 

 of the discoverers, cannot be brought to America 

 until the right of ownership is decided, but according 

 to the treaty of Sevres, such articles discovered in 

 territory assigned to Greece should be divided, half 

 to the Constantinople Museum, and half to the finders. 

 The coins of Croesus are made of electrum, or mixed 

 gold and silver, and are of two types, weighing 

 respectively 8-40 grams and 11-20 grams. Those 

 hitherto discovered are oblong in shape, bearing the 

 heads of a lion and a bull. 



An Upper Palaeolithic Station, Aveline's 

 Hole. — The report of the Spelaeological Society, 

 University of Bristol, for 1920-21, describes the 

 excavation of Aveline's Hole, a rift cavern in the 

 mountain limestone forming the east wall of Burring- 

 ton Combe. It was first discovered in 1797, and 

 Rutter, writing in 1829, states that nearly 50 skeletons 

 were found lying with their heads under the north 

 side of the rock and feet extended towards the centre 

 of the cave. The Society commenced work in 1919, 

 and it has continued regularly ever since. Associated 

 with numerous animal remains characteristic of the 

 late Pleistocene were found artifacts of the early 

 Tardenoisian or late Magdalenian periods, agreeing 

 with the determination of the fauna. The human 

 remains belong to the same horizon, since no trace of 

 polished stone or metal weapons, or of any culture 

 other than late Palaeolithic, has been found in the 

 cave, which seems to have been closed with a block 



NO. 2749, VOL. 1 io] 



of stone very shortly after the bodies were deposited. 

 The people whose remains were found were con- 

 temporaries with the late Magdalenians of southern 

 France, and their culture was Tardenoisian, possibly 

 a transitional stage between the Magdalenian and 

 Aurignacian, an industrial evolution which may have 

 taken place in England. 



The Red Crag Flints of Foxhall. — In the June 

 issue of Man Mr. S. Hazeldene Warren discusses the 

 question of the signs of human handiwork on flints from 

 the Red Crag, Foxhall. He sums up his conclusions as 

 follows : " The Foxhall flints give us another instance 

 of the association of striated surfaces with exclusively 

 mechanical characters in the flakes themselves and 

 in their trimmed edges. And that this association 

 and limitation to the mechanical group of forms does 

 not constitute an unsatisfactory, or doubtful case of 

 not proven, but (from the point of view of a human 

 industry) a definite, complete, and conclusive case 

 of ' proven not '." 



Parasitic Copepods. — Mr. C. B. Wilson contri- 

 butes to the Proceedings U.S. Nat. Mus. (vol. 60, 

 art. 5, 1922, 100 pp., 13 plates) his sixteenth paper 

 on the parasitic copepods in the museum collection. 

 The present paper is devoted to the Dichelesthiidas, 

 which are parasites on the gills of fishes, but do not 

 burrow into the tissues of their host after the manner 

 of the Lernaeidae, though one genus, Castrodes, pro- 

 duces irritation of the gill tissue, causing the latter 

 to grow up as a flap or fold entirely surrounding the 

 body of the copepod and holding it securely in place. 

 Other genera provoke irritation by their prehensile claws 

 sufficient to cause the gill tissue to grow up around 

 the claws. The transformations common in the 

 Lernaeidas are not met with in the Dichelesthiida?. No 

 material change in the bodily form or structure of 

 these copepods takes place subsequent to their 

 attachment. The author gives a history of the family, 

 a short account of the ecology, external features, 

 and internal organs, systematic descriptions of and 

 keys to the 20 genera and 107 species. The only 

 stage of development known for any of the members 

 of this family is the nauplius, and a description of 

 the known nauplii is given. In the account of the 

 internal structure is included a short note on the 

 closed vascular system of the genus Lernanthropus, 

 which consists of two ventral longitudinal trunks 

 below the intestine, and a single dorsal trunk above 

 the intestine, from all three of which branches pass 

 to the appendages, and there is a network of capillaries 

 over the dorsal surface and in the laminate swimming 

 legs. No part of this system is connected with the 

 body cavity (haemoccel). The trunks and capillaries 

 contain a yellowish red fluid which streams backwards 

 and forwards under the influence of the peristaltic 

 movements of the alimentary canal. Neither blood 

 corpuscles " nor any other definite constituents " 

 were found in this fluid. 



Intersexuality. — Dr. R. de la Vaulx has given 

 (Revue generate des Sciences, March 30, 1922) a short 

 review of recent work on intersexuality — the 

 occurrence of examples intermediate between the 

 normal male and female of the species. Some of 

 these are intersexes, others are more correctly termed 

 gynandromorphs. The former are intermediate in 

 structure between male and female, and are the same 

 on both sides, whereas gynandromorphs consist 

 typically of a mosaic of male and female structures — 

 often one side is male and the other female — and 

 these cases are comparatively rare. The author cites 

 examples of intersexuality from invertebrates — the 



