478 



NA rURE 



[October 14, 1909 



district b}' peoples in the Stone age of culture. Kitchen 

 middens and camp sites are abundant ; stone implements, 

 almost invariably of the tj'pe common to the Algonquin 

 areas, are numerous, while there is a considerable amount 

 of pottery which in material and shape closely resembles 

 Algonc|uiii wares, but shows interesting varieties of 

 ornamentation. 



An interesting series of copper implements from a site 

 in western Ontario was exhibited by Prof. E. Guthrie 

 Perry. The collection consisted of a large number of fish- 

 hooks and of spear- and arrow-heads. .\\\ were of cold- 

 hammered copper from the Lake Michigan district. 



In a paper on the archaeology of Ontario and Manitoba, 

 Prof. H. Montgomery, who has spent many years in 

 e.xcavating mounds and other early sites in America, gave 

 a general account of his work on the antiquities in this 

 part of Canada, and e.\hibited many of the objects dis- 

 covered. 



Miss A. Breton presented a paper on race types in the 

 ancient sculptures and paintings of Mexico and Central 

 America. There is an enormous mass of material avail- 

 able for study, including terra-cotta or clay statuettes, 

 small jadeite heads and figures, archaic stone statuettes, 

 portrait statues and reliefs, steUe, MS. frescoes and 

 vases. Among distinctive types are the chiefs on the reliefs 

 at_ Xochicales, the shaven clay heads at Teotihuacan, the 

 priests, with protruding lower lip, of the Palenque reliefs, 

 the caryatid statues, in feather inantles, at Chichen Itza, 

 and the sixteen warriors, at the same place, of a tvpe 

 similar to some of the modern Indians of the villages 

 near Tlaxcala. Portraits of the Mexican kings are on 

 the border of a picture map, representing the western 

 quarter of the town of Tenochlitlan. Of female types 

 there are the painted clay figures of Jalises with compressed 

 heads. The figures of some of these are short and broad, 

 while others are slender, and it is interesting to note that 

 the type still survives. Finally, on the Guatemalan stela; 

 two female types are shown, the women-chiefs being 

 obviously of a different caste to the victims prepared for 

 sacrifice. 



In another paper Miss Breton described the arms and 

 accoutrements of the ancient warriors at Chichen Itza, 

 where the walls of the Temple of the Tigers are covered 

 with sculptured rows of chiefs, carrying a variety of 

 weapons. Among these are stone implements, harpoons, 

 spears, and the throwing stick. For defensive armour the 

 warriors wear protective sleeves in a scries of puffs, breast 

 plates and helmets, and carry round or oblong shields. 

 _ Dr. G. B. Gordon gave an account of his recent expedi- 

 tion to .Alaska on behalf of the University of Pennsylvania. 

 The tribes investigated were those inhabiting the Kos- 

 kokuljn valley, who preserve to a marked degree their 

 aboriginal characteristics. In the upper vallev were found 

 Deni5 tribes preserving the characteristics of the Deni^ 

 stock. Seven hundred miles from the mouth of the river 

 Eskimo culture began, and two hundred miles further 

 Eskmio culture had entirely replaced the native customs, 

 even in those communities where there was little or no 

 admixture of Eskimo blood. The tendency of the Den^ 

 in this region to adopt Eskimo culture, which has intruded 

 from the Bering Sea district, is most marked, and shows 

 th= aggressive nature of the Eskimo civilisation. At the 

 rnouth of the river the Eskimo have retained in full vigour 

 their peculiar customs and mode of life, because that part 

 of the coast has not been visited bv trading vessels or 

 whalers. 



As is usual at meetings of the section, papers dealing 

 wiHt Aledltprranean arrhn?ologv and with the work of the 

 British Schools at Athens and Rome were again a 

 prominent feature. 



In a paper on recent Hittite research, Mr. D. G. 

 Hogarth gave a most valuable resume of the present state 

 of our knowledge of this interesting subject, and sum- 

 marised the n-sults of the explorations which have taken 

 place. At first the general opinion was that the Hittite 

 race and civilisation were Syrian, but gradually opinion has 

 changed, and it is now held that the original' home of the 

 Hittites must be looked for in Cappadocia, and that onlv 

 at a later period were they domiciled south of the 

 laurus. .•\t Boghaz Koi has been discovered what amounts 

 to the collection of royal archives, among them a duplicate 

 NO. 2085. VOL. 81] 



of the treaty between Rameses 1 1 and Khetasar, inscribed 

 on the wall of Karnak ; this discovery shows that Boghaz 

 Koi was the centre of the Hittite confederacy as early as 

 1280 B.C., and proves that the Hittite power was centred 

 in north-west Cappadocia long before it is mentioned as 

 being at Carchemish by the Assyrian records. 



In their paper on prehistoric antiquities of Malta, Dr. 

 .Ashby and Mr. Peet, of the British School at Rome, 

 described the excavations on the Corradino Hill, now 

 being conducted by the Maltese Government with the active 

 cooperation of the British School at Rome. The excava- 

 tion of the rock-cut hypogeum at Halsaflieni shows that 

 its architectural features imitate in a most surprising way 

 the sanctuaries above ground, and it has, moreover, pro- 

 duced an adequate series of Maltese pottery of the Neolithic 

 period. Excavation has shown that the Megalithic build- 

 ings on the Corradino Hill are of irregular plan. They 

 were constructed of rough masonry, with large slabs at 

 the bottom and smaller ones higher up. The walls con- 

 verge as if to form a roof. The use of standing slabs at 

 the base of the walls, with coursed masonry above, is 

 paralleled by the giants' tombs in Sardinia and the pre- 

 historic huts of Lampedusa. 



In the report of the committee appointed to carry out 

 archjeological and ethnological researches in Sardinia, Dr. 

 Duncan Mackenzie showed that the tombs of giants were 

 the burial places of the dwellers in the Nuraghi, and that 

 these tombs, with their elongated chamber and crescent- 

 shaped front, were derived from the more ancient dolmen 

 type. In one case the chamber of an original dolmen 

 tomb had been elongated so as to resemble a giant's tomb. 

 In another example the large covering slab was supported 

 by upright slabs at the sides and back, and behind are 

 traces of an apse-like enclosing wall, a characteristic of 

 some of the dolmens of northern Corsica and Ireland, 

 where giants' tombs do not exist. A new type of giant's 

 tomb was also discovered in which the mound was entirely 

 faced with stone, upright slabs being used below and poly- 

 gonal work above. .Another feature, hitherto unique, is the 

 discovery of a hidden entrance into the chamber on one 

 side in addition to the usual small hole in front, through 

 which offerings were probably introduced. 



The work of the British School at Athens on the site of 

 the shrine of Artemis Orthia at Sparta was fully described 

 by Mr. R. M. Dawkins, the director of the school. .^t 

 previous meetings of the association the work of excava- 

 tion for the past year has been described in detail, but in 

 this paper Mr. Dawkins gave a general risumi of the 

 work on this interesting and important site. 



Two other important contributions to Mediterranean 

 anthropology were the reports of the committees to con- 

 duct researches in Crete and on Neolithic sites in 

 Thessaly. The former committee issued an interim report 

 bv Mr. C. H. Hawes, who has been conducting somato- 

 logical investigations. He reported the discovery of human 

 remains certainly not later than Middle Minoan I. These 

 remains consisted of four skulls, two portions of other 

 crania, and several pelvic and long bones. .Ml were in a 

 wonderful state of preservation, and it is hoped that com- 

 plete measurements will be published at an earlv date. 

 Mr. Hawes has also been investis'ating the craniologv of 

 the modern pooulation of the island with the view of 

 comparison with that of the ancient population, and it is 

 expected that most important results will be obtained from 

 this investigation. 



The work of excavating Neolithic sites in Thessaly has 

 been continued during the past year, and it is now Quite 

 clear that there existed, in this isolated part of Greece, a 

 people who were unaffected, until a compnrativelv late 

 period, by the bronze culture around them, and who re- 

 mained in the .Stone age almost until the beginning of the 

 age of Iron. It is important, too, to note that an 

 analogous state of culture has been discovered in similar 

 Latitudes in southern Italy. 



A paper on excavations at the Nubian cemetery at 

 .Anibeh was presented by Dr. R.andall-Maclver. The ceme- 

 tery, which dates during the first five centuries .\.D., ex- 

 hibits a culture, apparentlv of negro origin, but strongly 

 , innuenced by Egyptian, Greek, and Roman art. .\ most 

 important feature was the discovery of a form of script 

 which has not up to the present been deciphered. 



