Palestinian Remains at the British Museum

Abstract

THE next special exhibition of prehistoric material at the British Museum will be opened on February 5 and will remain open for two or three months. Two cases at the head of the main staircase, in the Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities, will be devoted to a display of a typical series from stratified caves near Mount Carmel, where excavations have been carried out by the British School of Archæology in Jerusalem and the American School of Prehistoric Research, with Miss D. A. E. Garrod as field-director. Skeletal remains of palæolithic man will be shown (Palœanthropus palestinensis), and a sequence of implements from an early phase of the Palæolithic to Mesolithic, the latter being known as Katufian. A special feature of the excavations is the blend of St. Acheul and Le Moustier elements for a period; and a long succession of Aurignac types gives place to the post-palæolithic with a different and peculiar fauna. The abundant yield is incidentally useful for its similarities and contrasts to the better-known European industries, and special interest is attached to the beginnings of agriculture in Palestine.