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BONES OF CANNIBALS A PALESTINE RIDDLE
Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES.
New York Times 1857; Aug 4, 1932; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2003)
pg. 21


Negroid people of 5000 B. C. Unlike Any Modern Race Described by Keith.

ATE BODIES OF ENEMIES
Men, Short of Stature, Burned Bones of Dead After Burial, London Session Hears.
TEETH OF WOMEN DRAWN
Linking relics to Burnt Skeletons from Ur scientist speculate an old cremation custom.

Wireless to NEW YORK TIMES London Aug. 3

Seven or eight thousand years ago in what geologist call modern times a race of negroid cannibals lived In Palestine, burned the bones of their dead after burial, and devoured the bodies of their enemies.
Skulls and thighbones of this race were unearthed within the last four years, first at Shukbah near Jerusalem and later in caves at Mount Carmel, and because they puzzled the excavators who found them they received the new name “Natufians.”

Today the first authoritative account of them was given by Sir Arthur Keith to the congress of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences and showed them to be one of the greatest riddles of archaeology.


They were clearly a Negroid people, said Sir Arthur, with wide faces flat- noses and long large heads.

They were short of stature 5 feet 3 or 4 inches tall-and their thighs and legs were remarkably strong. While their arms and shoulders were weak.


Alone Among prehistoric peoples they had a custom of extracting the two upper central incisor teeth of their women. Jagged holes in the fronts of their skulls indicate that they ate human brains.

Unlike Any present Race.

They may have been ancestors or the Arabs or Semites of biblical times, in Sir Arthur's opinion. They had some facial characteristics like those of the Neolithic or late Stone Age men of Malta and the remoter Aurignacian men of Southern Europe. But whatever the similarities sir Arthur declared, they lived between 5000 and 6000 B. C. and cannot be identified with any race on earth today.
In addition to all these riddles, Sir Arthur propounded another linking them unaccountably to ancient Ur of the Chaldees and the prehistoric man of South Africa.

From piles of charred and fragmented bones found in Palestine-mostly women's bones- Sir Arthur concluded they did not cremate their dead, but burned them long after burial.
"By a strange coincidence," he said. "At the time the burnt remains came to me Leonard Woolley sent me a box of human remains from under the foundations of Ur. These burnt bones from Ur-of about the third dynasty also represented not ordinary cremation-cremation of dead bodies clothed with flesh-but Cremation of dried skeletons. In the remains from Ur women's bones were preponderant.
“Two years ago Miss Gertrude Catton-Thompson sent me burned bones from under the foundations of Zimbabwe in Southern Rhodesia.
These represented the skulls of two women which had been burned long after the flesh had disappeared from them.
Was there once a custom in ancient times of digging up the bones of ancestors and then subjecting them to an ordeal of fire?”
Boxes of charred bones from Palestine were on the table while Sir Arthur spoke, together with a dozen curiously shaped reddish skulls that stared across the lecture room. Scientists who listened were startled and bewildered. Miss Dorothy Garrod, British Archaeologist, who had found the remains while working for the British School of Archaeology and the American School of Prehistoric Studies, assured the audience that they were comparatively modern and they were of the Mesolithic period.
Natufian remains, it should be remembered, are in no way connected with the more recent discoveries of a new race of fossil men, also in caves, near Mt Carmel. The fossil men, so remarkably different from all others yet found, became extinct in the remotely distant past, while the Natufians may still have been living when the first city-states of Sumeria arose.
Sir Arthur based his conclusions today on twenty comparatively complete skulls of eighty-seven found by Miss Garrod.

Cites Features of Race

“Several features stand out quite definitely'' he asserted; first the Natufians were a long-headed people - they had cap-shaped occiputs (the lower back part of the head). Secondly, the dimensions or their heads were greater than in the pre-dynastic Egyptians. Thirdly, their faces were short and wide. Fourthly, they were prognathous (with projecting jaws). Fifthly, their nasal bones were not narrow and high, but formed a wide, low arch. Sixthly, their chins were not prominent, but were masked by the fullness of the teeth-bearing parts of the jaw.
“The Natufians at Shukbah seem to have practiced cannibalism, for it is only by making this supposition that one can explain the cutting and fracturing of bones. The characters of the cuts and the broken surfaces show the bones were still in a fresh state when the damage was done. I believe the Shukbah people ate human brains.”
The cannibalism theory was strongly disputed by Professor Elliott smith, eminent geologist, who said he was entirely skeptical of it. Also Professor Smith said it was not uncommon in Egypt to find burned bones in graves.
“But it is a question of remarkable interest to know what these charred bones mean,” he said. “And if it should be shown that cutting teeth was in vogue it will make us revise all our knowledge, for the earliest instance we know is in 300 B.C.”
Professor Smith objected, too, that it was hardly possible that these people had had Negro blood, but Sir Arthur speedily corrected him. By the word Negroid he meant merely Negro-like characteristics such as are found throughout Europe and even in Scandinavia. Sir Arthur drew the inference that the Natufians had carried Aurignacian culture into Palestine after the last glacier age, which was approximately 35000 years ago.

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negroid, caucasoid, mongoloid...negroid, caucasoid, mongoloid...negroi....

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People from around the Mediterranean, and even up to India may share similar phenotype

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