Existing comment:
The Man of Combe Capelle -- Homo aurignacensis
(Homo sapiens)
The Combe Capelle skeleton was found in 1909 in the Dordogne region of France. The burial was ornamented with seashells and lay beneath layers of sediment which held flints, stone tools, and bone needles. At first it was named Homo aurignacensis, but this was later changed.
The burial was found by Otto Hauser, a wealthy German-Swiss amateur archeologist who sold his discovereies to museums and private collectors. He sold the Combe Capelle skeleton to the Ethnological Museum in Berlin for 125,000 gold francs. The French archeologists were furious when their fossils were taken to Germany, but they were delighted when the Swiss bank holding Hauser's money "went broke." Accounts tell that once a year Hauser visited the museum and placed flowers on the cases holding the two skeletons. During World War II, the Ethnological Museum was looted and the skeletons disappeared. The 35,000-30,000 year old skull of Combe Capelle is reported to be in the German Academy of Science, Berlin, but the rest of the skeleton is lost. |