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CHAPTER XVIII.

Ordo ARTIODACTYLA.

SUINA.

Sus palustris Rütimeyer. (Plate 72, figs. 3-S, and plate So.)

The remains of the pig are very common in the Anau kurgan. There are about 120 pieces, the greater part being remains of skulls. The hard frontal bones have shown themselves especially resistant. We have, therefore, parts of the frontalia of at least seven individuals, some older and some younger. In one of these pieces the bregma has a thickness of 2.5 cm., forming a real armor-plate over the brain, while this measurement in other individuals amounted only to to 1.5 cm. This animal was probably a very old boar. Only one brain-skull has all the bones complete. Even then the skull was split in the middle along the suture so that a restoration was necessary. The skull is decidedly that of a small adult pig, whose front shows a slight convexity, which we usually find in the Indian Sus cristatus or S. vittatus Müller & Schlegel. We shall consider with Nehring (Katalog, 1886, p. 54) Sus cristatus as the continental variety of Sus vittatus and employ for the south Asiatic pig the general name of S. vittatus. In colnpa,ring with the parts of this skull the frontal, parietal, or occipital pieces of the other individuals mentioned, one recognizes that the other individuals can have been no larger than this. The relations of the skull to those of different other small Suidx, as well as to two other small skulls from Anau, are shown clearly in the table on the following page.

This table shows that the skulls from Anau stand nearest to those of a wild Sus vittatus from Sumatra or to a tame Battak pig, not only in form but also in dimensions, and that they possess the greatest similarity to the skulls of the Torfschwein (turbary pig) of Schlossberg and La Tène, as appears from their general form. I think, therefore, that I shall. not go amiss if I pronounce these skulls to be the oldest known remains of the Torfschwein or turbary pig.

According to the researches of Rütimeyer,* Rollestone,f Otto,t and others, Sus palustris, the turbary pig, which first appears in the Swiss pile-dwellings during the later neolithic period, is derived from Sus vittatus, which would agree very well with our finding.

NehringA on the other hand, considers Sus palustris to have been autochthonous also in Germany and merely a starveling form (Kümmer f orm) of Sus scrofa domesticus. Which one of the opinions is correct can be determined with

*Rütimeyer, Einige weitere Beitraege, etc., Verhandlungen, Basel, 1876.

tRollestone, On the Domestic Pig of Prehistoric Time in Britain, Trans. Linn. Soc., ser. 2, vol. L $Otto, F., Osteolog. Studien z. Geschichte d. Torfschweines, Revue Suisse de Zoologie, 1901. §Nehring, Ueber das sog. Torfschwein (Sus palustris). Verhandl. Berl. anthrop. Gesell., pp. 181-187.

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