and classic Greek, Latin and Lydian. Discoveries of the past few years have added appreciably to our knowledge of the Asylian. One of these at Ofnet (Bavaria) will be discussed in the following chapter.
HUMAN REMAINS.
The decade has witnessed the discoveries of skeletal remains of man that have added much to our knowledge of the races inhabiting Europe during the Quaternary. Because of the stratigraphic position in which it was found and of its somatological characters, the human lower jaw discovered by Dr. Otto Schoetensack[1] on October 21, 1907, in a sandpit near the village of Mauer, 10 kilometers southeast of Heidelberg, ranks as the most important single specimen. Mauer lies in the valley of the Elsenz, a tributary of the Necker. The human lower jaw was found in situ in the so-called Mauer sands, at a depth of 24.10 meters and 0.87 meter from the bottom of the deposit. The first 10.92 meters at the top of the sections are composed of loess, which is classed as upper Quaternary, while the Mauer sands forming the rest of the section are lower Quaternary. The loess itself represents two distinct periods, an older and a younger.
The horizon (fig. 19) from which the human lower jaw came has furnished other mammalian remains, including Felis spelæa, Felis catus, Canis, Ursus arvernensis, Sus scrofa var. priscus, Cervus latifrons, Bison, Castor fiber, Equus, Rhinoceros etruscus, and Elephas antiquus.
Schoetensack likens the fossil mammalian fauna of the Mauer sands to the preglacial Forest beds of Norfolk and the upper Pliocene of southern Europe. This is particularly true of Rhinoceros etruscus, and the horse of Mauer, which is a transition form between Equus stenonis cocchi and the horse of Taubach, both of which may be referred definitely to the Pliocene. The rest of the mammalian fauna belongs to the lower Quaternary.
The coexistence of man with Elephas antiquus at Taubach, near Weimar, gave Schoetensack special reasons for expecting to find human remains also at Mauer. The possibility of such a discovery had kept him in close touch for twenty years with the owner of the sandpit, Herr J. Rösch. The discovery was made by one of the workmen, with whom at the time were another workman and a boy. Schoetensack was immediately informed, and arrived the following day. The lower jaw was intact, but the stroke of the workman's
- ↑ Der Unterkiefer des Homo Heidelbergensis aus den Sanden von Mauer bei Heidelberg: Ein Beitrag zur Paläontologie des Mensehen, von Otto Schoetensack. Mit 13 Tafeln, davon 10 in Lichtdruck. Leipzig: Verlag von Wilhelm Engelmann, 1908.
