Human Remains From the Early Pleistocene in Czechoslovakia

Abstract

FIG. 1. Exposure at PIrezletice, near Prague, 1967; at the base, about 4.0 m. below the surface, is dark layer 6. DETAILED INVESTIGATION since 1965 by the Central Geological Survey in Prague of fauna from Pirezletice has brought to light not only a number of primitive stone tools and stratigraphically identifiable species of mammals of the Early Pleistocene, but also extremely important human skeletal remains. The earliest human remains in Europe have previously been represented by a lower mandible found in a sandpit at Mauer, southeast of Heidelberg, Germany, in 1907 (Schoetensack 1908) and by the occipital portion of an. adult skull (Homo II) and four isolated fragments of deciduous teeth (Homo I), discovered in 1965 by Hungarian archaeologists and paleontologists in travertines at Vertesszollos, about 50 km. west of Budapest (Kretzoi and Vertes 1965; Thoma 1966, 1967; Stq9licka 1968). While the finds from Mauer and Vertesszollos are probably of the same ageUpper Biharian-(the latter being somewhat younger), their taxonomic relations are still obscure. Pre-Neanderthal cultures of various types are attested by the more or less primitive stone implements collected through Europe, Asia and Africa. Such implements were found at both Mauer and Vertesszollos and are thus documented by the accompanying fauna and human remains. Tools have also recently been found in association with Early Pleistocene fauna at Stranska' Skala, near Brno (Musil 1965). For the most part, however, tools occur in sediments or on the surface of river terraces without skeletal remains or other paleontological material (Zebera 1962, 1965). The Pirezletice site, between Prague and the town Brand's near Labe, was discovered during operations in a small