256 LECTURE IX. 



mucli as the bones of the cave-bear and the elephant^ imbedded 

 in tlie same loam^ present similar dendritic crystallisations. 

 "This indication/' says Fuhlrott^ "is confirmed by the circum- 

 stance^ that the country between the Diissel valley and the 

 neighbouring railroad station, Hochdahl, to the level of the 

 margins of the Neanderthal ravine_, is covered with a stratum of 

 loam fifteen feet thick, which seems identical with the loam of 

 all the grottoes and caves which contained human bones. That 

 this loam bed belongs to the diluvial period is, apart from other 

 reasons, confirmed by the last palgeontological discovery in that 

 spot by the mammoth remains, which were found December 27, 

 1858, in one of the Dornap lime-stone quarries (on the Steele- 

 Vohwinkel railroad), about thirteen feet under the surface in a 

 fissure fourteen inches wide, which was filled up with a loamy 

 mass, analogous to that of Hochdahl. These mammoth remains 

 shew that the inclosing mass belongs to the diluvium. Now, 

 since the Dornap (Devonian) lime-stone forms the eastern con- 

 tinuation of the Neanderthal lime-bed, and as the spot where 

 the mammoth remains were found is scarcely more than four 

 miles distant from the Neanderthal, it becomes more than 

 probable that the respective loam deposits in the fissures and 

 grottoes of both localities have the same geological origin, and 

 both belong to the diluvial period. But if the mammoth 

 remains are undoubted fossils, then the human bones im- 

 bedded in the same diluvial mass may also be fossil, and we are 

 thus sorely tempted to assign to the human race, perhaps to 

 a primitive form of it, as high an antiquity as to the antedilu- 

 vian pachydermata." 



The decomposing corpse was undoubtedly washed into the 

 grotto along with the loam and the rolled gravel, when the 

 waters stood high, and as there is no trace of a more recent 

 deposition, and the age of the loam is sufiiciently proved by 

 the presence of bear and mammoth bones found in this 

 loam, and as, moreover, this skull presents peculiar characters, 

 which distinguish it from all modern skulls, there can be but 

 little doubt that the owner of that skull lived at the time of 

 the mammoth and the cave bear. We shall term this skull, to 

 be described hereafter, the Neander skull. 



