Neanderthal man in Malta

Abstract

IN the summer of 1918 a Committee of the Anthropological Section of the British Association met in the Conservator's Office at the College of Surgeons to arrange for the publication of reports from Research Committees. Among the reports received was one from Dr. G. Despott, Curator of the Natural History Museum, Malta, giving an account of excavations carried out in Ghar Dalam during July and August of 1917. These excavations were conducted on behalf of a Committee of the British Association, of which the Chairman was Professor J . L. Myers and the Secretary Dr. Thomas Ashby. Amongst the photographs which Dr. Despott submitted as illustrations for his report was one reproduced on Plate XXXIII. Eight teeth are represented; those numbered 1 and 2 are peculiar in shape; the remaining six conform in every respect to the types now prevalent in modern Europeans. A glance at this photograph was sufficient to convince anyone who had made a special study of teeth, particularly those of Homo neanderthalensis that Nos. 1 and 2 belong to this strange species of man, and that Dr. Despott's discovery had carried the distribution of this species-already known at Gibraltar-right to the middle of the Mediterranean.