Februakt 26, 1909] 



SGIEISCE 



359 



On the evening of February 1 Professor Albrecht 

 Penok, of Berlin, delivered before the Washington 

 Academy of Sciences an illustrated lecture on 

 " The Antiquity of Man." Professor Penek kindly 

 furnished the following abstract: 



" The antiquity of man dates far back beyond all 

 historical record. It is a purely geological ques- 

 tion which must be treated by means of geological 

 observation. It has been known for quite a long 

 time that in western Europe man existed during 

 the glacial epoch. The French geologists and 

 anthropologists, however, who maintained this, 

 assumed only one glacial epoch, while we know 

 to-day that the great ice age consisted of different 

 glacial times separated from one another by inter- 

 glacial times. The traces of the various glacial 

 epochs consist of moraines of different geological 

 and morphological age, and there is a very strong 

 similarity between the Wisconsin, Illinoian and 

 Kansan moraines of North America and the 

 Wiirm-, Hiss- and Mindel-moraines in the circum- 

 ference of the Alps, and the Griinz-moraines which 

 can be compared with the pre-Kansan moraines 

 of North America. The traces of the interglacial 

 periods consist of deposits with a fauna or flora 

 which is not reconcilable with glacial conditions. 

 The glacial conditions are determined by a lower- 

 ing of the snow-line of three to four thousand feet 

 below the snow-line of to-day as can be shown by 

 the evolution of old glaciers, while there are indi- 

 cations in the Alps, judging from the correspond- 

 ing flora, that the snow-line of interglacial times 

 lay about one thousand feet higher than to-day. 



" The traces of paleolithic man are found gen- 

 erally outside of the morainic deposits of central 

 Europe, but there are some places where we find 

 those traces above the moraines even of the last 

 glacial epoch, of the Wiirm or Wisconsin. These 

 are the very well-known ertations of MagdaWnien 

 near Schaffhausen in Switzerland, of the Schwei- 

 zersbild and the Kessler Loch. Surely man ex- 

 isted here after the retreat of the ice, but the 

 accompanying fauna is still a glacial one. Man 

 existed here just after the maximum of the last 

 glacial epoch. We have abundant evidence of the 

 existence of man during the beginning of the last 

 glacial epoch as indicated by many paleolithic 

 implements found in the loess deposits, especially 

 those of the valley of the Danube and the valley 

 of the Rhine, which all belong to the Solutrgen. 



" Of the greatest importance is the occurrence of 

 human relics in the cavern of the Wildkirchli on 

 Mt. Santis in Switzerland. Here Mr. Bachler 

 discovered, at a height of nearly five thousand 

 feet, together with the relics ol one thousand cave 



bears, several hundred paleolithic instruments of 

 Moustgrien type. As we know that the Moustgrien 

 is older than the Solutrfen and Magdalfinien, and 

 since it is quite impossible that man existed here 

 during the glacial epoch, we have to deal here with 

 traces of an interglacial man who had alreacy 

 appeared in the Alps, and this conclusion is cor- 

 roborated by the fact that the cavern of the Wild- 

 kirchli exists in a region which overlooked the old 

 glacier of the Rhine and the local glaciers of the 

 Santis, so that it was protected against glacial 

 erosion. Probably during the last ice age the 

 whole cavern was filled up with ice, so that the 

 formation of the loam in the cavern ceased and no 

 deposit was forming during the whole glaciation. 



" The excavations made by order of the Prince of 

 Monaco in the caverns near Mentone proved in- 

 deed that man existed there during the last inter- 

 glacial epoch, for we find in the Grotto of the 

 Prince beneath the cavern deposits of the glacial 

 fauna, such deposits as an interglacial fauna con- 

 tain: human skeletons and the implements of the 

 Moustgfien type. At other places, especially in 

 France, the Moustgrien implements are found to- 

 gether with a glacial fauna. All these localities 

 lie outside of the Riss glaciation, and they are 

 never met with in the realm of the old moraines, 

 as for example, the Magdal^nien. We, therefore, 

 must believe that the MoustSrien with the cold 

 fauna is contemporaneous with the Riss ice age. 



" Quite recently Mr. Hauser has discovered at 

 Le Moustiers a human skeleton, the skull of which 

 is of Neanderthal type, such as has been also 

 found at Spy and Krapina. The recently discov- 

 ered human jaw of Heidelberg described by Sehoe- 

 tensack belongs evidently to an older interglacial 

 epoch, probably to that very long time between 

 the Mindel and Riss ice ages, where we have also 

 to place the Chellfen implements. Thus we have 

 full evidence that man existed already before the 

 Riss or Illinoian glaciation. Now it can be shown 

 that the time elapsed since the last glaciation is 

 far shorter than the time between the last and the 

 glaciation before the last, between the Wiirm and 

 Riss ice age. This interglacial time, however, is 

 again far shorter than that long interval between 

 the Mindel and Riss ice age. If, therefore, we 

 have some reasons to believe that the time since 

 the last glaciation was at least twenty thousand 

 years, we must believe that the Heidelberg man 

 dates back about two hundred thousand years. 



" Far older are those eoliths found in Belgium 

 and in southeast England. They belong to the 

 early Pleistocene epoch. And indeed we must 



