THE DATING OF EARLY HUMAN REMAINS. 43
PROBLEMS OF INTERMENT.
The greatest difficulty in the dating of early human remains
centres round the problems of interment. Many of the human
remains which are alleged to be the earliest consist of complete
skeletons—or at least so much of the skeleton was present as
to show that it was originally complete when buried in the
deposit. Fragmentary human remains also occur in Pleistocene
deposits, but the number of complete skeletons, as compared
with the extreme rarity of complete skeletons of wild animals,
is strikingly disproportionate. The explanation of this anomaly
is not far to seek—the human remains are for the most part
interments and not contemporary fossils.
We formerly thought that Palaeolithic man did not inter his
dead, consequently it was an easy matter to say that if a skeleton
was an interment it was not Palaeolithic. This simple solution
of our difficulties must now be abandoned. The evidences
obtained upon the continent during recent years have shown that
Palaeolithic man carried on a somewhat elaborated ritual of
interment. The problem is therefore much complicated.
It is not, moreover, always certain that fragmentary human
remains are not interments. Some years ago I excavated two
Saxon graves near Walmer, in Kent. One contained a complete
skeleton, the other had only four or five broken fragments of
the skull, carefully placed together at the bottom of the grave
(which was only a small hole) with two iron war knives.
Broadly speaking, we are thus unable to accept as contem-
porary fossils the human remains which may be found in a
Pleistocene deposit with the same easy assurance which we
grant to remains of extinct species of elephant or rhinoceros.
After the lapse of centuries, the agencies of percolating water,
roots, and earth-worms, tend to obliterate the signs of disturbance
of the soil. Such evidences of disturbance can only be recognized
by an expert, while even he is baffled in the case of an unstratified
deposit.
This was illustrated in a striking manner during the exploration
of the Saxon graveyard at East Shefford (Berks), by Mr. H.
Peake and Dr. E. A. Hooton. The sub-soil was unstratified
Clay-with-flints, but it was hoped that shallow trenching would
reveal the disturbed soil of the graves, and thus save deeper
digging over the area. It proved to be impossible to recognize