PL.

��13, 1885.]

��problem, many refused to admit the human origin of the flints ; Bniong them John Evans, whose competency to prooounce an opinion cannot be ijuestioned. Of those who believed them to be the work of men, some thought that they were of more recent origin than the beds in which they were found. In their judg- ment, the Qints came fVom lite surface, and bad b«en washed by floods into crevices previously existing in the miocene clays. Thus the ques- tioQ was practically left in the same condition in which it stood tiefore : the sanguine believet.! that the existence of the tertiary man had been demonstrated, while the cautious waited for forther eridence. We do not find in the report any thing essential added to the abstracts of the various arguments that have been previ- ously published ; and the editor apologizes for not having given any figures of the particular objects that served as the basis for discussion, on the ground, that, as Ribeiro had not made the necessary selection, he feared to do it him- self, leet he might by chance omit some capital piece of evidence.

Many im|X)rtant papers in various depart- ments of archeology, read before the congress, are here given at length, of which we have only space to allude to a few, especiallj' such aa relate to the antiiuities of Portugal.

The publication of the carefnl account of the researches of .Sen. Vasconcelios in the valley of the Douro, with the accompanying plates, will have a tendency to add I'ortugal to the list of the countries of Europe in which the quaternary gravels have yielded human imple- raents. The objects found consist of a num- ber of very rude quartzites of the St, Adieul type, which, however, some of the members refused to admit to be artificial at all. Thus far, no organic remains have been found ac- compan\'ing them in this locality ; but in a cavern at Furninha, near Peniche, on Cape Canoeiro, .Sen. Delgado has discovered a de- posit of quaternary gravel, which had been introducctl by a natural opening in the roof, and in this he found a fragment of a lower human jiiw, together with a Sue specimen of a flint axe of the St. Acheul type. These are all the instances given of the discover}' of ves- tiges of the quaternary man in Portugal, al- though Sen. Ribeiro, in his opening address, alludes to them as having been made in the valley of the Tagus, in the district of Alemlejo, and near Coimbra.

One of the most interesting pai)er8 is Sen. Delgado'3 methodical and lucid narrative of his exploration of the cavern of Furninha, and of the discoveries made in it pertaining to the

��neolithic period. Great quantities of human bones were found, and many of tliem were broken, as if to extract the marrow, and cal- cined, precisely like those of animals used for food; so that the explanation of cannibalism at once suggests itself. But as pottery, pol- ished stone axes, and other implements and ornaments were also found with them, Car- tailhac stoutly maintained the theory that the cavern had been used as a place of sepulture. Although cannibalism has undoubtedly been practised by many modern savage races, its existence among the prehistoric peoples of western Europe is much disputed. An ani- mated discussion upon this point, and a refer- ence of the facts and arguments to a commission of experts, resulted in about an equal division

Sen. Ribeiro gave an account of his explora- tion of kitchen -middens situated on the soulli- ern bank of the Tagus, about forty miles above Lisbon. The largest covered an area of some three hundred feet by a hundred and eighty, and was about twenty-one feet thick in its dee|)est part. The most remarkable circum- stance connected with it was the discovery, in this restricted space, of no less than a hundred and twenty human skeletons, without any of the usual objects that accompany prehistoric inter- ments. Not a trace of potterj- was found, and such implements as were met with were of the rudest description, made of quartzite or flint and bone. Many bones of animals were scat- tered thi'oughout the mass, but none of domestic animals except the dog. Like the kitchen- middens of Denmark, these seem to belong to the very beginning of the neolithic period. The study of the crania found in them, shows, according to Quatrefages, a type quite distinct from that of Cro-Magnon.

An enlertaiuing paper by Sen. Pedroso gives an account of certain popular forms and cus- toms in reference to marriage, still lingering in out-of-the-way villages in Portugal, which seem directly traceable to the ancient practices of polyandry and maniage by force.

The recent discoveries by Dr. Pmni^res in la Ixizere, of several sepulchral caverns con- taining bones, in some of which stone arrow- heads are still embedded, are briefly noted. As the crania are all purely dolichocephalic, it is a fair inference that we have here proof of a struggle between the early race of Cro-Magnon and a brae hy cephalic, neolithic race of dolmen- builders who were acquainted with the use of the bow, since the arrow-heads precisely re- semble those found in the dolmens.

We regret that we have no space to allude

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