Discovery of A Large Bone Cave in Bavaria

Abstract

DURING the cutting of the railway from Nuremberg to Regensburg by the Bavarian Eastern Railway Co., it was necessary to cut directly through a piece of mountain chain in Schelmengraben near Regensburg. It was owing to this that this bone cave was discovered, and its miscellaneous contents were able to be examined and arranged. Since the railway cut right across the middle of the cave, it allowed it to be very thoroughly examined, and under the most favourable circumstances and in daylight, as has been the case in very few other instances. The railway company have given every facility in their power that the cave should be thoroughly examined, and under the direction of Profs. Fraas and Zittel, a gang of men were actively employed for many days, and the objects so obtained were carefully preserved. From the local German papers the following particulars have been obtained, which, allowing for a little local colouring and exaggeration, show the find to have been a most important one, and one that may well come under the notice of the International Congress of Archæology and Anthropology at their meeting this year, where the whole question of bone caves and their contents is to form a prominent subject for discussion.