PREHISTORIC RACE

Hokitika Guardian, 25 June 1929, Page 8

PREHISTORIC RACE

EARLIEST KNOWN IRISHMAN

The skeleton of rile earliest man known to have inhabited Ireland has boon discovered in a cave in County Waterford. He was a member of a prehistoric race, and the unearthing of his remains throws important light on the anthropology and archaeology not only of Ireland, blit of Europe us a whole.

The discovery was described in a communication made to the It oval Irish Academy by Mr A. JO. K. Tratman, of the Bristol University Archaelogical Society. Members of this society, assisted by four 'Dublin students, with the aid of a substantial grant from the Royal Irish Academy, carried out excavations at Kilgreavy, County Waterford, in July last.

Excavations were made in a cave. The first objects of antiquity dis.dosed were an iron knife and other articles which have been identified with the period of the La Tone culture. Below the first hearth came a lighter •coloured layer representing a time when the cave was not occupied by man. This layer of earth and stones rested on a thin hand of charcoal. Tn the second hearth from this level came i considerable number of human bones. This hearth is dated, from part of a polished stone axe, as being about the end of the Neolithic period.

Below the second hearth was an intact stalagmite floor resting on yet an,tiler 1ie,..i11. un tins tin rtf hearth had been placed a body with the left side against the cave wall, and a pile of stones on tiie outer side to keep the 1 1 :dy in position. The skull was extracted from the stalagmite almost intact.

Eminent anthropologist whom the skull was submitted, are of opinion that it is probably of late Palaeolithic date. This opinion is supported by the presence of bones of the brown bear, wolf, ox, wild cat, an early ( form of ox, Irish elk, reindeer and a field vole, Microtiis Arvalis, the first vole recorded from Ireland. This fauna, in the opinion of the experts to whom the remains were submitted is undoubtedly of the late Pleistocene. The fauna, also allows the tentative speculation that the remains are of the period known as Magd alenian on the Continent.

In the opinion of the anthropologists, the individual to whom the skull belonged was aged a»out 40. At present the individual is put down as a member of the Celtiberian race—that is, a Mediterranean type. This is the first discovery of Palaeolithic man in Ireland. The remains are at present in England, hut they will shortly be returned fo Dublin and placed in the National Museum.