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[[underline]] Chapter III. [[/underline]]   39.

ly distinguishable in both hue and composition from the yellowish-gray earth about it. Obviously the cross-section of a pit or trench of some sort, it was flat above and rounded off beneath. At its top, nearly half a meter below the existing surface, it was some 2 meters wide, while its bottom was 1.20 meters still farther down. It was situated about 9 meters almost directly north, as well as I could determine, from the spot once occupied by the body. Its contents owed their color to their admixture with quantities of charcoal, mainly in the form of minute particles but sometimes of larger pieces. They included also fragments of both the gray and the rarer reddish-buff "Neolithic" wares already mentioned, as well as remains of various creatures used by the ancient Chinese for food. Among the latter were long bones of the ox, the sheep (or goat?) the dog, the pig, and a large bird, either bustard or goose. [[superscript]] (21) [[/superscript]]
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   (21) 
      For these identifications I am indebted to Dr. Walter Granger, of the American Museum of Natural History, in New York, and to Dr. Paul H. Stevenson, of the Peking Union Medical College, both of whom were in Peking when we returned thither from our visit to Hsin Chêng Hsien.
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One, apparently that of a bovid, had been split as if for the purpose of extracting the marrow. In none of this material were there evidences of stratification or even of normal articulation; it all had the look, on the contrary, of having been thrown into the trench pell-mell.
   On our earlier visit to Hsin Chêng Hsien I had noticed in the side of a vertical shaft south of the body a similar deposit, also blackish in color and containing bones and potsherds. This I had then had no time to examine, much less to trace; and before our return it had been entirely dug away. As nearly as I could fix its form[[strikethrough]] m [[/strikethrough]]er position, however, it was in alignment with the like deposit on the north, just described. As the intervening ground had been so much disturbed, it was no longer possible to determine whether the two sections had originally