450 Ancient Men of Wirtemberg. 



ANCIENT MEN IN WIETEMBERG. 



The following paper is taken from the Archives des Sciences. 

 It gives an account of recent discoveries of the remains of 

 human industry in Wirtemberg as described by Professor 

 Fraas. 



In 1866, a mason of Schussenried, in Wirtemberg, was 

 obliged to dig a long and deep channel to carry off some water 

 that had been diverted by the drainage of an adjacent swamp. 

 This work led to the discovery of a large quantity of fragments 

 of bone and reindeer horn, and of implements wrought in 

 flint and bone. Dr. Fraas had special diggings made to ex- 

 plore this deposit, and examined the results with great care. 

 The ground cut through in these diggings showed the follow- 

 ing succession, beginning at the bottom — a bed of erratic 

 gravel, a layer of tuff containing terrestrial and fluviatile 

 shells, identical with living species, and lastly, a thick bed of 

 turf, forming the existing surface. The bones and wrought 

 objects were discovered in a sort of excavation, or pocket, dug 

 in the gravel and filled with moss and sand. The moss, which 

 formed a thick layer between the gravel and the tuff, was in a 

 state of such perfect preservation, that the species could be 

 exactly determined by M. Schimper. They were Hypnum 

 sarmentosum (Wahl.), Hypnum aduncum, var. Grcenlandicum 

 (Hedwig), and Hypnum flidtans, var. tenuissimum. These 

 mosses now live either in high latitudes or at considerable 

 elevations above the sea-level, usually near the snow, or the 

 nearly frozen water running from it. They belong to a very 

 northern flora — about 70°, — and the Hypnum sarmentosum, in 

 particular, to the limits of perpetual snow. The lower gravel 

 is evidently erratic, and the marshy plain which the cutting 

 traverses rests against a gravel-hill, which is nothing but an 

 ancient moraine, and M. Desor states that in the vicinity of 

 glaciers, hollows are found similar to this one containing vari- 

 ous objects, and believed by Dr. Fraas to have been the rubbish 

 hole of an ancient people, living at the time when the reindeer 

 inhabited the neighbourhood. 



All the bones found in the moss, which is kept wet by 

 numerous springs, are completely preserved, while those in the 

 gravel are entirely decomposed. The recent diggings exposed 

 a prodigious quantity of bones and reindeer horns. The bones 

 are all broken, having been split to extract their marrow ; the 

 horns were in great number, some whole, and belonging to 

 young animals, others had been put to divers uses, and 

 rejected as worn out. It is curious that the teeth had been 

 carefully extracted from the jaws, for what purpose is un- 



