Again, in 1882, Mas̆ka[(39)] found in a cave near Šipka, in Moravia, south of Sternberg, and six miles east of Neutitschein, fragments of a child's lower jaw, extraordinarily strong, thick, and large, and showing the incoming of the permanent teeth. From this very same region is the jaw of Ochos, Moravia, found by Rzehak[(40)] about 1906. Only the alveolar part of the jaw was found, but it served to demonstrate the very wide geographical distribution of the Neanderthal race.
At this time the Dordogne region, long known to be an intensive centre of Mousterian industry, from the time of Lartet's discovery of Le Moustier, in 1863, had not yielded a single skeleton, or any anatomical evidence of the type of man which in Mousterian times inhabited it. But beginning in the spring of 1908 there came in succession a whole series of such discoveries, mostly of ceremonial burials, at La Chapelle-aux-Saints, at the type station of Le Moustier itself, at La Ferrassie, another station on the lower Vézère, and at La Quina.
In October, 1910, was discovered the skull known as La Ferrassie II, of late Mousterian age; it is probably that of a female, and the remains were arranged in what was presumably a special form of ceremonial burial, because the bones, instead of being laid out straight in a certain direction, were in a crouching or flexed position.
The Le Moustier skeleton was found by Hauser in the lower grotto of Le Moustier, in the Vézère valley, in the spring of 1908, and carefully removed with the aid of Professor Klaatsch.[(41)] It belonged to a youth some sixteen years of age. The most interesting feature of the discovery was the manner in which the skeleton was laid out.[(42)] The head rested on a number of flint fragments carefully piled together—a sort of stone pillow; the dead lay in a sleeping posture, with the head resting on the right forearm. An exceptionally fine coup de poing was close by the hand, and numerous charred and split bones of wild cattle (Bos primigenius) were placed around, indicative of a food offering. The flints were believed to belong to the Acheulean stage, which underlies the layer of true Mousterian industry, long known in this locality; but by French archæologists and by Schmidt these implements are regarded as of the earliest Mousterian age, in which it is well known that the Acheulean coup de poing still persisted. Unfortunately, the skeleton was not very well preserved and, while Klaatsch was entirely justified in classifying it with the Neanderthaloids, it should be regarded not as a distinct species (Homo mousteriensis hauseri) but rather as a member of the true Neanderthal race (Homo neanderthalensis). It also proves to be a rather stocky individual, robust and of low stature: the arms and legs are relatively short, especially the forearm and the shin-bone.
Fig. 109. Grotto of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, Corrèze, a few miles to the eastward of Le Moustier. After Boule.
Fig. 110. Entrance to the grotto of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, where the finest of all the Neanderthaloid fossils was discovered in 1908. After Boule.
At the same time that the skeleton of Le Moustier was being disinterred, the Abbés A. and J. Bouyssonie, and L. Bardon[(43)] were exploring the Mousterian culture of the grotto near La Chapelle-aux-Saints, a few miles to the eastward of Le Moustier, and came upon a skeleton which has proved to be by far the finest of all the Neanderthaloid fossils, including a remarkably well-preserved skull, almost the entire back-bone, twenty ribs, bones of the arm and of the greater part of the leg, and a number of the bones of the hands and feet. This was also a ceremonial burial of an individual between fifty and fifty-five years of age, most carefully laid out in an east-and-west direction in a small, natural depression. With it were found typical Mousterian flints, also a number of shells and remains chiefly of the woolly rhinoceros, the horse, the reindeer, and the bison. The finding of a mature skull with the bones of the face in position, and in a relatively perfect state of preservation without distortion of the entire cranium, afforded for the first time the opportunity of finally determining not only all the skeletal characters and proportions of Neanderthal man but also the actual size and proportions of the brain. This superb specimen was sent to the Paris Museum, and Boule's preliminary descriptions[(44)] and finally his almost faultless monograph[(45)] aroused world-wide interest in the Neanderthal race.