Abstract
AT a meeting of the Royal Anthropological Institute on March 4, the president, Prof. C. G. Seligman, in the chair, a paper by Sir Arthur Keith on “The Discovery of Neanderthal Man in Malta, with an account of the Survey of the Cave in which the evidence was found (Ghar Dalam), by Mr. George Sinclair,” was presented by Dr. A. Burkitt, of the University of Sydney, in the absence of the author The discovery was made in 1917 by Mr. G. Despott, curator of the Malta Natural History Museum, who in digging a trench across the deposits on the floor oof Ghar Dalam found two human teeth of a remarkable character. They lay in the second stratum of the cave-a deposit of red cave earth, which varies in depth from 6 to 8 feet. Over the cave earth is a superficial stratum varying from ij to 2-| feet in depth and of neolithic date, while under the cave “arth is the third stratum, a bone breccia 3 feet in thickness, made up chiefly of rolled fragments of fossil bones belonging to two species of hippopotamus and three species of extinct elephants. The two teeth were found i| feet and 2j feet deep in the red cave earth with remains of stag, elephant (E. Mnaidrensis), and hippopotamus (H. pentlandi). These bones and the teeth were in the same state of fossilisation. At the same levels and mingled with the above were found chards of neolithic pottery, teeth, and also other remains of neolithic man. Men of the neolithic period and of later dates had lived in the cave and wrought some degree of confusion in the upper levels of the cave earth. In spite of extensive excavations carried out under the auspices of the British Association, no trace of the culture of palaeolithic man has been found-neither of the Mousterian period, which is that of Neanderthal man, nor of the later Aurignacian period. All that can be assigned with certainty to palaeolithic man are the two molar teeth.
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Neanderthal Man in Malta. Nature 113, 405 (1924). https://doi.org/10.1038/113405a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/113405a0