the careful excavation of the four caverns of Mentone by the Prince of
Monaco, where as many as sixteen human skeletons of the Pleistocene Age
have been brought to light, gives us a new point of view as to the
presence of more than one race in Europe in these immensely remote
times, as in later periods. In one of the caves, and in a position
showing them to date from the deepest layer of the middle Pleistocene,
or late Glacial Age, two complete skeletons have been found (and may be
seen alongside those of the Cromagnon race in the museum at Monaco),
which are obviously different from those of both the Neander and the
Cromagnon people. They have skulls which decidedly resemble that of the
modern negro race, so that they have been definitely assigned to a new
race hitherto unknown in European caves, and are spoken of as “the
negroid skeletons” and “the Grimaldi race.” This is indeed a startling
fact. There was land stretching across the Mediterranean in those days,
and these skeletons suggest that already there was a negroid race in
Africa, individuals of which had wandered north as far as the maritime
Alps.[9] Two or three negroid skulls of Neolithic (therefore very much
later) Age have been found in Brittany and in Switzerland. When we
reflect that the negroid skeletons of Mentone and those of the
contemporary Neander Men are probably more than 100,000 years old, we
are at once impressed with the important conclusion that already in that
remote period three great branches of the human race had come into
existence—the negroid, the Neander, and probably, at a more distant
spot, also the highly developed Cromagnards. The origin of the really
primitive race of man is thrown back in time by these facts to a still
more remote period, in fact, to an earlier geologic epoch. And it is to
be noted over and above these facts that we have no indication as to
where the much later race, the Neolithic Men, came from, nor who were
their contemporaries outside the European area; nor again do we know
where the historic races who succeeded the Neolithic Men took their
origin. When other regions of the earth have been examined as carefully
as Western Europe has been, we shall no longer be in such complete
darkness.
When one ventures to speculate as to the story of the earliest men in
Europe, one can but feel, even after handling the specimens and
carefully following the excavations, how small and fragmentary and
difficult to interpret is the evidence at present brought to light. And
yet there the evidence is, gathered with the utmost care and intelligent
method, discussed and interpreted by men of rare knowledge and
experience, who, after long comparison of contending opinions and the
discovery of an ever-increasing body of fact, have arrived at a definite
certainty as to the sequence of arts, races, animals, and climates which
I have given above, and is again summarised in the tabular statement on
page 384 _bis_.
Hereafter these conclusions will be modified and extended by excavations
in other parts of the world, at present untouched. The one point upon
which the best authorities will not commit themselves is the exact, or
even approximately exact, number of thousands of years which these
events have occupied. The whole story, so far as it is at present worked
out, is a marvellous result of patient research and scientific
reasoning. Some of the cave collections upon which it is based are to
be seen in London, in the British Museum.
[Illustration: FIG. 78.—The skull-top of the primitive kind of man from
Pleistocene sands in Java, called _Pithecanthropus_. One-third (linear)
of the natural size. Compare with Fig. 65, and refer to that figure for
the explanation of the letters and dotted lines.]
There is one other discovery of a fossil man which comes properly at
this point, to cap and confirm what has already been said. Fifteen years
ago a skull-top and a thigh-bone were found by Dr. Dubois at Trinil, in
the island of Java, at a depth of thirty feet in a sandy deposit,
considered by good authority (but not certainly) to be of Pliocene age.
From recent reports on the deposit it seems that it may very well be of
Pleistocene age. These remains have become celebrated as those of a
monkey-like man, and the name Pithecanthropus has been given to the
creature to which they belonged. This skull-top (or cranial roof) is now
in Utrecht, and is well known (Fig. 78). It indicates a race of men or
men-like creatures, with the flatness of skull, receding forehead, and
large bony eye-ridges, such as we see in the Neander Men and in some
South Australians, but greatly exaggerated. The skull was so low and
flat as greatly to resemble that of the Gibbon, though much larger. The
volume of the cranial cavity (showing the size of the brain) was about
900 units—far smaller than that of the average Australian—the skull of
smallest cavity among living races of men. The volume of the
brain-cavity of the largest ape (gorilla) amounts to about 500 units
(cubic centimetres); so that, allowing for rare individual fluctuations
of as much as one-fourth more or one-fourth less (an amount of variation
which, great as it is, is definitely known and recorded in specimens of
the skulls of human races), we get the following list of “cranial
capacities” or brain-sizes, forming a nearly unbroken series between the
highest European and the ape. The middle figure represents the normal or
average, and the first and last figure in each group the constant,
though rare, minimum and maximum. Gorilla, 350, 500, 650; Java race,
675, 900, 1125; Australians, 900, 1200, 1500; Cromagnard and European,
1165, 1550, 1940 (European skulls of this great capacity are known). The
Neander-man skulls are left out of the above list—although the Corrèze
specimen allows of a satisfactory measurement of its capacity—for a
very curious reason, which is explained in the next chapter.
FOOTNOTES
[9] In this connection it seems to be important to note the “Ethiopic”
character of the arrangement of the hair in the little carving of a
woman’s head from the Brassempouy Cave (dep. Landes), shown in Fig. 7.
XLIII
MORE ABOUT THE NEANDER MEN
Since writing what precedes I have been able more than once to gratify
my keen desire to examine the wonderful human skull from the
Chapelle-aux-Saints in the Corrèze (Central France). The skull has been
photographed, and an excellent figure of it is reproduced in our Fig.
65. But it is one thing to look at a picture of such a specimen, and
another to take it into one’s hands and closely examine it. The skull is
in the care of my friend, Professor Marcelin Boule, who is at the head
of the great collection of remains of extinct animals in the Jardin des
Plantes.
It has been treated by him with great skill so as to render the bone
firm and hard, whilst detached portions have been fitted into place, so
that it is fairly complete (Fig. 65). The skull was found (together with
many bones of the skeleton of the same individual) by two enthusiastic
local archæologists buried at such depth and in such position in the
cave known as the Chapelle-aux-Saints as to leave no doubt as to its
belonging to one of a race of men contemporary with the mammoth and
hairy rhinoceros—a race which inhabited Europe in the great glacial
period—called by prehistorians “the Moustierian period,” which cannot
be less than a hundred thousand years behind us, and probably is more.
The chief importance of this skull lies in the fact not only that its
position in the cave-deposits, and therefore its relative age, was
carefully ascertained, but that it agrees in its very peculiar form with
the Neanderthal skull (from the Rhineland), the Spy skulls (Belgium),
and the Gibraltar skull. It, in fact, confirms the conclusion that at
this period the caves of Western Europe were inhabited by a race of men
with peculiar skulls, which may be called the Neander race in reference
to the first-discovered skull of the kind. They were altogether
different from the Reindeer Men, or Cromagnards, who came later upon the
scene.
[Illustration: FIG. 79.—Drawing one-third the size of nature, of the
left side of the lower jaw of a modern European. Observe the small size
as compared with the jaw in Figs. 80, 81, and 82, also the prominent
chin: the small breadth of the up-turned ramus, and the deep bay or
notch (not seen in the other lower jaws) separating the coronoid process
from the condyle.]
[Illustration: FIG. 80.—Outline (one-third the size of nature) of the
skull of the Neander Man from the Chapelle-aux-Saints, with all
fractures and defects made good. The bony sockets of the teeth and the
teeth themselves (lost and atrophied by inflammatory disease in the
actual skull) are here given their full size and healthy condition. The
lower jaw is seen to be very similar to that from Heidelberg (Fig. 82).
From a photograph taken by Professor Marcelin Boule from a cast of the
actual skull. The cast was “made good” by modelling upon it the
deficient parts.]
The fact was published some four months ago that the new Corrèze skull
agrees with the celebrated skull-top (called a “calvaria” by anatomists)
of the Neanderthal (Fig. 76) in the extraordinary shallowness or absence
of “dome,” in the retreating forehead, the thick prominent eyebrow
ridges, and in the excessive “lowness,” or want of elevation of the back
region. But further study of the new skull has enabled Professor Boule
to show, as he demonstrated to me, that the outline of the new skull
looked at from above coincides not merely approximately, but exactly
with that of the Neanderthal skull. There is the same great length from
eyebrows to occiput, and the same great breadth at a series of
corresponding regions. The curious thing is that both these skulls are
of enormous size—a good deal bigger in length and breadth than modern
European skulls, and not small and ape-like, though they are far
shallower (that is, less high in the dome) than any skulls of living
men. I had, myself, always been astonished by the great breadth and
length of the casts of the Neanderthal skull which we possess in
England, and supposed that possibly the casts were carelessly made. Now
Professor Boule shows that both the Neanderthal and the Corrèze skull
are so much larger in breadth and length than average European skulls,
that in spite of its flat, depressed shape, the Corrèze skull (and
consequently the Neanderthal skull, too) has a brain-cavity holding 1600
cubic centimetres, whilst the average modern European skull only holds
1500 to 1550. The estimate given by former observers for the Neanderthal
skull was as low as 1200. This calculation was based on the diminution
of volume caused by the flatness of the skull, and would be correct were
the skull of the Neander race no longer or broader than an ordinary
European skull. If we imagine a skull of the ordinary European
proportionate height, but as long and as broad as the Neander skulls,
then its volume would be something like 2000 cubic centimetres. This is
a very remarkable result. The ancient Neander Men’s brain was not
smaller, but actually a little bigger than that of modern Europeans; it
was bigger in regions where the modern European is small, and smaller
where that is large!
[Illustration: FIG. 81.—The skull of a male chimpanzee. Drawn one-third
the natural size (linear) to compare with the human skulls and jaws here
figured. The dotted lines and the letters _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_, _e_, and
_f_ have the same signification as in Fig. 65, to which reference should
be made. The flatness of the cranial dome and the reduction of the
frontal boss (_d_) are very marked. So are the relatively large size of
the jaws and teeth. Compare the shape of the lower jaw with that from
Heidelberg (Fig. 82), and with that of a modern European (Fig. 79).]
[Illustration: FIG. 82.—The Heidelberg jaw, from a lower Pleistocene
deposit, near Heidelberg. Observe the absence of chin and the great
breadth of the up-turned part of the jaw. Compare with the lower jaws
drawn to the same scale in Figs. 79, 80, and 81. One-third the size of
nature.]
If we had any sufficient knowledge of the mental qualities which belong
to different regions of the brain (if, indeed, such localisation of
qualities is possible), we might draw some interesting conclusions from
this difference between the two races. But unfortunately our knowledge
on that matter is very defective. We are not in a position to say that
length and breadth of the brain either can or cannot compensate (so to
speak) for shallowness. It is probable that the mental qualities of the
two forms of brain were in important respects different, but that is all
that can at present be said. No accredited brain student would, until
more is known, venture to draw conclusions as to mental quality from
such facts as mere breadth, length, and depth of the cranial cavity.
The Corrèze skull has a strongly-projecting face, depending not merely
on a protrusion of the dentary border of the upper jaw, but on a forward
thrust of the entire face. This is not shown by the Gibraltar skull
(Fig. 77). It is not improbable that this region has been flattened in
the Gibraltar skull whilst it was buried in the cave deposit and
softened by water. The lower jaw is preserved in the new French
specimen, and is very remarkable on account of the retreating chin and
the lowness and backward flexion of the articular process, as well as
for the large size of the surface by which it articulates with the
skull. All the cheek-teeth have been shed (see Fig. 65), and the sockets
closed owing to inflammation, showing that primitive European man was
subject to the same trouble with his teeth from which civilised men of
to-day suffer. In comparing the skull with the skulls of modern races,
Professor Boule is not inclined to insist much on the resemblance to
Australian and Tasmanian skulls presented by the thick and large
brow-ridges. A careful study of the skull is giving to Professor Boule
many facts of importance which will be published ere long. The articular
surfaces or “condyles” of the skull (for instance) by which it was set
on the neck vertebræ are so set that the head must have been habitually
carried with a droop like that of an animal, and not poised upright on
the neck as in modern races of man.
Not less important than the skull are some of the bones of the arm and
leg. Indeed, they show more novel characters than the skull, and
definitely distinguish the Neander Men so as to justify us in regarding
them as a distinct species, _Homo Neanderthalensis_. The thigh-bone is
very short: as compared with that of a modern European, it is as 14 to
18. Also it is thick and _curved_. This was already known in the Neander
Man of the Spy cave, and its confirmation by the specimen from the
Corrèze establishes this shortness of the thigh as a specific character.
There are also strange features in the articulation of the bones of the
thumb and of the heel which Professor Boule will make known when he
publishes his full account of this most astonishing skeleton.
It is worth noting here that another skull of the same race—that of a
young individual—was dug out in 1908 at Moustier by Mr. Hauser, a Swiss
explorer. The specimen was broken into many fragments and has not been
satisfactorily put together, so that at present it is not possible to
say whether it gives any further information as to the Neander Man. Also
in 1909 the French explorers have found another skull and skeleton of
the same age and race at Ferassi, near Moustier, on the Veyzere. It has
been carefully removed, but not yet studied. The bones of the hand and
of the foot are complete, and will be available for confirming the
observations made on the skeleton of the Chapelle-aux-Saints.
We have, a few pages back, noted that behind the Glacial or Moustierian
period of the Pleistocene (the second of our list, the Reindeer period
being the latest), geologists recognise a third or warm period which is
represented by deeper cave-deposits and by some of the older sands,
clays, and gravels of our river valleys. As in the Moustierian deposits,
so in these older deposits (called “Chellean” after a French township)
we find abundant large flint implements (Figs. 73, 74) indicating the
presence of man. But the animals associated with him were not the
mammoth and the hairy rhinoceros; they were the _Elephas antiquus_ and a
distinct kind of rhinoceros, and most distinctively the hippopotamus.
These beds and their animal remains and worked flints occur abundantly
in the South of England, and have been more or less mistaken for and
confused with the glacial Moustierian deposits which also are common in
England. No bones or skulls of the men of this Chellean period have been
found, excepting a lower jaw, which was not long ago discovered in a
deposit of this warmer and earlier age, near Heidelberg (Fig. 82). This
jaw-bone is remarkably well preserved, and the great difference between
it and that of a modern European may be seen by comparing our Figures 79
and 82. In the absence of chin, the great breadth of the up-turned part
of the jaw and the shallowness of the notch separating the condyle or
articulating knob from the more forwardly placed “coronoid” process (a
well-marked triangular process in the modern European jaw), the
Heidelberg jaw differs from the modern European, and resembles that of
the chimpanzee (Fig. 81).
Dr. Schoettensack of Heidelberg, who has described this remarkable
jaw-bone and has very kindly presented casts of it to the Natural
History Museum, to Oxford, to Cambridge, and to myself, was of the
opinion that it indicated a distinct race or even a distinct species of
man. But Professor Marcelin Boule has found that when the lower jaw of
the skull from the Chapelle-aux-Saints is “reconstructed,” not only by
replacing the parts broken away, but by restoring the teeth and the
absorbed sockets of the teeth, it comes out very closely identical with
the Heidelberg jaw. In Fig. 80 I have reproduced the profile of
Professor Boule’s complete restoration of the “Chapelle” skull, and it
will be seen that the lower jaw differs very little from that of the
Heidelberg specimen. Indeed, Professor Boule has published a photograph
in which he attaches the Heidelberg lower jaw to the restored Chapelle
skull in place of its own, and the similarity of the two becomes very
obvious.
As will be seen by the drawings which I give here, the Heidelberg jaw
is even more powerful than that of the Chapelle skull. The lower jaw of
a modern European (Fig. 79), drawn to the same scale as the other two,
and as that of the chimpanzee (Fig. 81), is an elegant little thing with
its forwardly-projecting chin, its short measurement from front to back,
and the narrowness and delicacy of its up-turned part or ramus, with its
well-marked angle at the lower corner and deeply cut upper border
between the condyle (hindermost projection with knob) and the coronoid.
The imperfect lower jaw (without teeth and with the articular condyle
broken away) of the Cromagnon skull, drawn in Fig. 75, should also be
compared: it is, though broken, similar to that of the modern European.
Lower jaws differ in some of the points which we have been looking at,
from one another, but there is no known living race of men the lower jaw
of which is not far nearer to that of the modern European (Fig. 79),
than to that from the Chapelle-aux-Saints or from Heidelberg (Fig. 82);
and I may add that the imperfect lower jaw of the Neander-man skull,
from the Spy Cave in Belgium, agrees in the absence of chin and in other
points with that of Heidelberg and of the Chapelle skull. There is not
sufficient ground afforded by the characters of the lower jaw for
considering that the race indicated by the Heidelberg specimen was
distinct from the Neander race, as may be seen by comparing Fig. 80 with
Fig. 82.
As these pages are going to press, I am able to add that I have seen in
Paris a very interesting and striking restoration of the appearance in
the flesh or during life of the head of the man of the Chapelle-aux-Saints,
carefully modelled in Professor Boule’s laboratory by a young sculptor,
by applying his clay to a cast of the completed restoration of the
skull. It is, I understand, proposed to publish this restoration firstly
as strictly determined by anatomical fact and devoid of hair, and then
to add the hair of the scalp, the eyebrows, eyelashes, and beard, and to
place artificial eyes in position. We shall thus get a representation of
this ancient race or species of man, based on the sure foundation of the
actual bones. Fanciful portraits of “primitive man” have before to-day
been produced by some imaginative artists, but this will be the first
portrait of him with an inner framework of truth.
INDEX
Amœba, term applied to proteus animalcule, 194
Andrews, discoveries of, with regard to ozone, 252
Animalcules, bell, unicellular structure exemplified in, 197-199
ciliated unicellular, graceful movements of, 207
dried, examples of “suspended animation” in, 168, 169
proteus, processes of protoplasm in, 195
sun, processes of protoplasm in, 195
unicellular plants and, essential differences between, 204-207
Animals, aquatic, excess of egg production to ensure survival
to maturity, 143, 144
aversions and cautious proceedings of, 269
blindness of, congenital, 272, 273
colour-protection and invisibility of, 304, 312
“concealment” and “warning” marks, distinction between, 310-313
destructive invasions made by various, 339, 340
devices adopted for protection of young by, 138, 139, 144
domesticated, reasons for continued congenital defects in, 271, 272
hibernation of, 165, 166
lower, various thread-producing, 293, 294
mankind and, causes of congenital defects in, 273
parthenogenetic powers possessed by certain, 330, 331
poisonous, methods of self-protection used by, 101
“warning” coloration possessed by, 107
propagation of, 132-137, 144-145, 329-330
sleep of, salient features connected with, 161-164
structure of multicellular and unicellular, comparisons between, 207-208
unicellular, uses made of cilia by, 194-197, 207
wild, congenital defects less obvious in, 271, 272
wood-boring, 346, 347
_Anopheles_ Gnat, 3
Ants, aphides and, friendship between, 324, 325
Aphides—
enemies of, 319, 325
hop-blight caused by species of, 317, 319
parthenogenetic propagation of, 326-327, 330, 334, 336
rapid propagation of, 326, 338
relationship of _Coccidæ_ to, 322, 323
secretive productions of, 323-325
various species of, 322
Archæology, discoveries in connection with pre-historic man, 371-372, 391,
394-395, 398, 400, 402
Art, knowledge compatible with, 45
Astronomers, stupendous nature of work, 224
Astronomy, Halley’s discoveries in connection with, 226
Newton’s discovery of law of gravitation as affecting, 230
photography as affecting study of, 222
spectroscope as affecting study of, 224, 225
Atavism, feeble-mindedness resulting from, suggestion as to, 274
Athletes, experiments as to possible use of pure oxygen by, 260-263
Auzout, M., astronomical predictions attempted by, 229, 230
Bacon, Lord, quotation from, 1, 14
Bacteria, destructive invasion made by, 340
microscopic observation of, improvement in, 239
Balfour, Rt. Hon. Arthur, speech at Manchester by, 6, 7 (quotation)
Bananas, cultivated varieties of, 369
plantains and, identity of, 368
Bayeux tapestry, 231
Becquerel, M., experiments of, 183
Beetles, book-worm, depredations of, 350-351
death-watch, tapping made by, 351, 352
wood-boring, 351, 352
wood-boring, 349-350
lady-bird, beneficial activity of, 319, 325, 326
origin of name, 325
perforation of soft metal by grubs of, 353
Bell-animalcules, 197
Birth-rate, increased, amongst poorer classes, 285, 286
Blood, lack of red colour in, cause of, 148, 149
red-coloured, cause and special duty of, 148
Bonaparte, Prince Roland, French representative at Darwin Centenary
Celebration, 39
Book-worm beetle, 350
Boulenger, Charles, Egyptian fresh-water jelly-fish described by, 64
Boys, C. V., fine quartz threads spun by, 294, 295
Caddis-worms, movable cases made by grubs of, 343
Calandruccio, discovery of young of the eel by, 71-72
Cambridge—Darwin Centenary Celebration, Address by Sir Ray Lankester at, 33-37
held at, 18, 33, 38
notable representatives at, 33, 38, 39
Cave-men, ancient, artistic skill of, 80, 81
horse mastered and muzzled by, 80, 81
Caves, care taken in excavation of, 388
discoveries of human remains in deposits of, 371, 374, 383, 393, 395, 402,
407-409
discovery of bones of ancient men in, rarity of, 372-374
French and English, evidences of human occupation found in, 78-79
Cells, definition and origin of term, 170-173, 328
egg-cell, process of fertilisation, 202-204, 330, 332
important part played by nucleus in life of, 198-200, 328, 329
individual character and co-ordinated activity of, 170, 180-182, 184, 328
process of division, 200-202, 328
“Cell-theory,” explanation of Professor Schwann’s, 174-176
Chapelle-aux-Saints, discovery at, important, 371, 374, 390, 402
Children, feeble-minded, number attending schools provided for, 278
result of neglect to provide supervision for, 279-281
China, introduction of opium smoking into, 366, 367
Chinese primrose, similarity between poisonous properties of _Rhus
toxicodendron_ and, 104
Cholera, bacillus of, organisms favouring or checking growth, 242, 243, 246-249
carriers of, 245
causes of, 237
Metchnikoff’s and Pettenkofer’s experiments in connection with, 240-241
definition of word, 237, 238
germs, destruction of, 244, 245
Indian, active development of sanitation in Great Britain,
due to panic caused by, 239
date of first appearance in England, 238
diffusion through water-supply, 239
discovery by Koch of bacillus producing, 240
epidemic nature of, 238
Europeans first attacked by, 238
recognition of, by Hindu writers, 238
precautions to be observed for prevention of, 244, 245, 246