114 SCIENCE. [Vol. II.. No. 25. 



Nomenclature of the squamosal bone {tem,poral ecailleux) of the Vertebrata piseiformes. 



ANTHROPOLOGY. 



Domestication of the horse. — M. Cornevin, dis- 

 cussing the earliest evidence of taming the liorse, 

 very pertinently sets out with the question, "What 

 is a domestic animal?" and replies, " One that partici- 

 pates in the domus, submits itself to the domination 

 of a master, to whom it renders its products or its 

 services, reproduces in captivity, and gives birth to 

 young, which become more and more submissive to 

 control." The idea of domestication comports with 

 that of property in some form. M. Cornevin, for 

 reasons mentioned in his communication, places the 

 time of the event in the bronze age contemporaneous 

 with the bronze bit. The fact seems incontestable 

 that the use of bronze was imported into Europe and 

 Africa from the orient. M. Pietrement, in bis work 

 on the origin of the domestic horse, and, before him, 

 M. Pictet, in his OHr/ines indo-europeennes, have 

 proved that the Aryans, of the central Asiatic plateau, 

 utilized the horse at a time when Europe was in the 

 stone age. In the discussion which followed M. 

 Cornevin's paper, M. Faure remarked, that, while 

 the bronze bit was good proof of the domestication 

 of the horse, the latter may have been tamed long be- 

 fore bronze was known. Indeed, the Gauchos catch 

 the wild horses with a simple lasso. Could not pre- 

 historic man, after catching a horse by means of a 

 lasso, like tbe Gaiichos, have made a simple bridle of 

 raw hide, and have managed the animal thereby? — 

 (Bull. soc. anthrop. Lyon, i. 116.) j. w. p. [130 



The troglodytes. — M. Alex. Bertrand, conser- 

 vator of the museum of national antiquities of St. 6er- 

 maine-en-Laye, delivered an address in December 

 last on the cave-dwellers, now published with copious 

 illustrations in the first part, vol. ii., of the Bevue 

 d' ethnographie (Jan. -Feb., 1883). The address is in 

 popular language, and gives many valuable particu- 

 lars, deduced from their remains, of the environment, 



habits, utensils, and art of the prehistoric inhabit- 

 ants of Europe. Perhaps the most interesting points 

 are the evidences presented of their domestication 

 of the reindeer, and the parallel drawn between 

 their supposed mode of life and that of the modern 

 hyperboreans. — j. w. p. [131 



The Serers of Joal and Portudal. — Dr. A. 

 Corre of the French marine service gives an interest- 

 ing and illustrated ethnographic sketch of the re- 

 markable people on the west coast of Africa, chiefly 

 near Cape Verd, and mentioned by Brue, towards the 

 end of the seventeenth century, as being strongly dis- 

 tinguished from the surrounding negroes. In many 

 particulars, these people show cbaracteristics similar 

 to those of tribes separated from them by half the 

 circumference of the globe. A short sentence may 

 be literally translated in illustration : "They call the 

 uncle, father ; tbe aunt, mother ; the cousins, male 

 and female, brothers and sisters." The writer of the 

 sketch did not appear to understand, or at least to fol- 

 low up, this evidence of the system of consanguinity 

 and afl5nity so frequently found in the stage of 

 savagery. — (Bev. d' ethnographie, Jan. -Feb., 1SS3.) 

 J. w. p. [132 



Roumanian ethnology. — Trajan conquered 

 Dacia in A.D. 106, colonizing it with subjects drawn 

 from various parts of the empire. When this same 

 country became known to the inhabitants of western 

 Europe, they found there a people speaking a lan- 

 guage derived from the Latin, and evidently descended 

 from Roman provincials. With their imperfect 

 knowledge of the intervening centuries, it was but 

 natural, says A. J. Patterson, that they should 

 connect these facts together, and assume that the 

 Wallachs of their own times were the direct descend- 

 ants of Trajan's colonists, and that they had dwelt 

 uninterruptedly on Dacian soil. As soon, however, 

 as the Kouman language and Eouman institutions 



