APRIL 18, 1884.] 
THE BONE-CAVES OF POLAND. 
The bone-caves of Ojcow in Poland. By Prof. Dr. 
Ferp. ROMER. Translated by John Edward 
Lee, F.G.S., F.S.A. London, Longmans, 1884. 
4lp.,14pl. 4°. 
Our knowledge of primitive man in Europe, 
during the paleolithic age, is mainly confined 
to what has been learned in regard to the life 
and habits of the so-called ‘ cave-dwellers.’ 
This has been principally obtained from the 
scientific exploration of numerous caverns, 
mostly situated in western Europe, in France, 
Belgium, and England; although inhabited 
caves are not wanting in other countries, espe- 
cially in Germany, Spain, and Italy. The 
farthest point to the south to which they have 
been traced, is Sicily and the extreme south- 
eastern promontory of Italy ; in central Europe 
they are quite rare; while the most easterly 
part in which any similar discovery has been 
made is Russian Poland. There, in the neigh- 
borhood of the village of Ojcow (pronounced 
Oizoff), some fifteen miles or more north of 
Cracow, several caves have been discovered 
within the last ten years in the Jurassic lime- 
stone, which forms the sides of some of the 
beautiful valleys, in which there have been 
found human remains associated with the 
bones of animals, both those extinct and those 
still living. In the year 1874 Count Johann 
Zawisza of Warsaw began to publish in the 
scientific journals of that city, in Polish and 
French, the results of his careful explorations 
of many of them; and the Matériaux for 
that year contained a résumé of two of these 
papers. At the prehistoric congress held in 
Stockholm, also in 1874, Count Zawisza gave 
a brief account of his work in a paper entitled 
‘The age of polished stone in Poland.’ He 
again called attention to his discoveries at the 
next congress at Buda-Pesth in 1876, mainly 
in the one called ‘ The cave of the mammoth ;’ 
about which he has since published more in 
the memoirs of the Anthropological society of 
Paris in 1878 and 1879. 
In the Matériaux for January, 1882, M. G. 
Ossowski has given an account of the researches 
undertaken by him in 1879, on behalf of the 
Academy of sciences of Cracow, in several 
caverns situated in the eastern part of the 
arrondissement of Cracow, especially in the val- 
ley of Mnikow. About twenty of them yielded 
objects of human fabrication, all belonging to 
the neolithic period. Those fashioned out of 
bone were the most remarkable, and these are 
figured in two plates. 
This comprises all that had been given to 
the world, so far as we are aware, in regard to 
SCIENCE. 
489 
the caves of Poland, prior to the appearance 
of the present work at Breslau in 1883. In it 
Professor Romer has given quite an elaborate 
report upon the explorations carried on by 
himself in 1878 and 1879, more especially in 
the cave of Jerzmanowice ; together with an 
account of the results of Count Zawisza’s ex- 
plorations of ‘ The cave of the mammoth,’ and 
some slight notice of what has been discovered 
by other persons in six different caverns. It 
is evidently intended to serve as a complete 
monograph upon the Ojcow caves; and from 
the fact that it has been deemed worthy of an 
English dress by the accomplished translator 
of Dr. Keller’s ‘ Lake-dwellings,’ and the 
handsome manner in which it is printed and 
‘ illustrated, we hoped to find in it a fit com- 
panion to such classic works of prehistoric 
archeology as Lartet and Christy’s ‘ Reliquiae 
Aquatanicae,’ Dupont’s ‘ L’homme pendant les 
ages de la pierre,’ and Boyd Dawkins’s ‘ Cave- 
hunting.’ We regret to be obliged to state that 
our expectations have been disappointed, and 
that we have found the work quite unsatis- 
factory, at least upon the archeological side. 
In the paleontological department, there is 
evidence of knowledge and experience, leay- 
ing little to desire; but it is plain that neither 
the author nor the translator has any clear 
and adequate comprehension of the distinction 
between the paleolithic and the neolithic ages. 
We find the statement on p. 41, that ‘‘ the 
remains of the ancient inhabitants consist 
of implements of hammered flint (paleolithic 
Tr.),’’ ete.; while on p. 7 it is said that in 
the cave of Jerzmanowice ‘‘ no polished flint 
tools were found. The flint implements all 
belong to the older stone age.’’ Evidently, 
‘implements of hammered flint ’ and ‘ polished 
flint tools ’ are intended to be contrasted ; but, 
if we turn to the plates, we find that all the 
objects represented are either flakes, knives, 
or scrapers, and not a single true paleolithic 
implement is either delineated in them or de- 
scribed in the text. Very different is Count 
Zawisza’s careful statement, that, ‘‘ of the four- 
teen caverns I have excavated, one only had 
been inhabited by quaternary man; three be- 
longed to the age of polished stone; two had 
served for a habitation of cave-bears; and in 
the others I found nothing ’’ (Cong. of Stock- 
holm, p. 260). Again: ‘* The deeper we dug, 
the larger became the implements of the Mous- 
tier type, or of those of the quaternary gravels 
of Mesvin”’ (Matériausx, vol. ix. p.90). So, 
too, Dr. Rémer evidently is not aware that 
pottery was unknown in paleolithic times; for 
in his account of the cave of Jerzmanowice, 
