anterior to the principal quaternary station of man, for the archeological stratum above the burials showed no sign of disturbance.
SKELETON OF BRNO (BRÜNN) MORAVIA.
In 1891 a human skeleton was found at the depth of 412 meters in the loess, in Brno, the capital of Moravia. The surroundings had furnished, before that, bones of quaternary animals and cut flint implements. According to the publications of A. Makovský,[1] who was called to the locality immediately after the discovery of the human bones, a tusk with a shoulder blade of a mammoth lay over, and some ribs of a rhinoceros not far from, the skeleton. The latter, partly destroyed in the excavation, showed profuse decoration. There were gathered about it more than 600 pieces of the Dentalium badense, which served as a collar or a breast plate; great flat limestone disks with central perforation; 3 small, flat disks with incised marginal decorations; 3 other disks made from the ribs of the rhinoceros or the mammoth, also 3 disks cut from the molars of the latter animal, and 5 of ivory; finally there was a masculine figure or "idol," 25 cm. high, made of ivory. The skull was much damaged by the workingmen. It is extremely dolichocephalic. (Figured in Makovský's Der Mensch der Dihivialzeit, pls. VIII and IX.)
The report of Makovský proves clearly that the skeleton was found in situ in an undisturbed laver. Besides this, the Maška collection from Předmost contains several stone disks identical in character with those of the Brno burial, which points to the fact that both finds belonged to the same period. Other facts, notably the presence of the ivory "idol," range the Brno find with the "glyptic " epoch of the mammoth hunters and would make its incorporation into any other period very difficult.
The Brno skeleton and a few objects found near it present, besides other features, an intense red coloration. Makovský regarded this coloration as incontestably artificial, and Virchow expressed the opinion, based on these data, that such coloration could be produced only after the bones have become devoid of flesh, wherefore it is necessary in this case to suppose a secondary burial. As a similar feature was several times observed with skeletons from the neolithic period, the Brno bones also were attributed to this epoch. In 1902 I had occasion to examine the skeleton preserved in the Brno polytechnic school, and it was still possible to see samples of the loess which had surrounded the bones. After an examination of the whole, I came to the conclusion that the coloration of the bones and neighboring
- ↑ Mittheil. Anthrop. Gesellsch. In Wein, XXII, 1892, 73; Verhandle. d. Berl. Gessellsch. f. Anthrop., etc., Zeitschr. f. Ethnol., 1898, 62; Der Mensch der Diluvialzeit Mährens, Brünn, 1899.
