I have endeavoured to show, in the preceding Essay, that the ANTHROPINI,
or Man Family, form a very well defined group of the Primates, between
which and the immediately following Family, the CATARHINI, there is, in
the existing world, the same entire absence of any transitional form or
connecting link, as between the CATARHINI and PLATYRHINI.
It is a commonly received doctrine, however, that the structural
intervals between the various existing modifications of organic beings
may be diminished, or even obliterated, if we take into account the long
and varied succession of animals and plants which have preceded these
now living and which are known to us only by their fossilized remains.
How far this doctrine is well based, how far, on the other hand, as our
knowledge at present stands, it is an overstatement of the real facts of
the case, and an exaggeration of the conclusions fairly deducible from
them, are points of grave importance, but into the discussion of which I
do not, at present, propose to enter. It is enough that such a view of
the relations of extinct to living beings has been propounded, to lead
us to inquire, with anxiety, how far the recent discoveries of human
remains in a fossil state bear out, or oppose, that view.
I shall confine myself, in discussing this question, to those
fragmentary Human skulls from the caves of Engis in the valley of the
Meuse, in Belgium, and of the Neanderthal near Düsseldorf, the
geological relations of which have been examined with so much care by
Sir Charles Lyell; upon whose high authority I shall take it for
granted, that the Engis skull belonged to a contemporary of the Mammoth
(_Elephas primigenius_) and of the woolly Rhinoceros (_Rhinocerus
tichorhinus_), with the bones of which it was found associated; and that
the Neanderthal skull is of great, though uncertain, antiquity. Whatever
be the geological age of the latter skull, I conceive it is quite safe
(on the ordinary principles of paleontological reasoning) to assume that
the former takes us to, at least, the further side of the vague
biological limit, which separates the present geological epoch from that
which immediately preceded it. And there can be no doubt that the
physical geography of Europe has changed wonderfully, since the bones of
Men and Mammoths, Hyænas and Rhinoceroses were washed pell-mell into the
cave of Engis.
The skull from the cave of Engis was originally discovered by Professor
Schmerling, and was described by him, together with other human remains
disinterred at the same time, in his valuable work, "Recherches sur les
ossemens fossiles découverts dans les cavernes de la Province de Liège,"
published in 1833 (p. 59, _et seq._), from which the following
paragraphs are extracted, the precise expressions of the author being,
as far as possible, preserved.
"In the first place, I must remark that these human
remains, which are in my possession, are characterized,
like the thousands of bones which I have lately been
disinterring, by the extent of the decomposition which
they have undergone, which is precisely the same as that
of the extinct species: all, with a few exceptions, are
broken; some few are rounded, as is frequently found to be
the case in fossil remains of other species. The fractures
are vertical or oblique; none of them are eroded; their
colour does not differ from that of other fossil bones,
and varies from whitish yellow to blackish. All are
lighter than recent bones, with the exception of those
which have a calcareous incrustation, and the cavities of
which are filled with such matter.
"The cranium which I have caused to be figured, Plate I.,
figs. 1, 2, is that of an old person. The sutures are
beginning to be effaced: all the facial bones are wanting,
and of the temporal bones only a fragment of that of the
right side is preserved.
[Illustration: FIG. 22.--The skull from the cave of Engis--viewed from
the right side. _a_, glabella, _b_, occipital protuberance, (_a_ to _b_
glabello-occipital line), _c_, auditory foramen.]
"The face and the base of the cranium had been detached
before the skull was deposited in the cave, for we were
unable to find those parts, though the whole cavern was
regularly searched. The cranium was met with at a depth of
a metre and a half [five feet nearly] hidden under an
osseous breccia, composed of the remains of small animals,
and containing one rhinoceros tusk, with several teeth of
horses and of ruminants. This breccia, which has been
spoken of above (p. 30), was a metre [3-1/4 feet about]
wide, and rose to the height of a metre and a half above
the floor of the cavern, to the walls of which it adhered
strongly.
"The earth which contained this human skull exhibited no
trace of disturbance: teeth of rhinoceros, horse, hyæna,
and bear, surrounded it on all sides.
"The famous Blumenbach[38] has directed attention to the
differences presented by the form and the dimensions of
human crania of different races. This important work would
have assisted us greatly, if the face, a part essential
for the determination of race, with more or less accuracy,
had not been wanting in our fossil cranium.
"We are convinced that even if the skull had been
complete, it would not have been possible to pronounce,
with certainty, upon a single specimen; for individual
variations are so numerous in the crania of one and the
same race, that one cannot, without laying oneself open to
large chances of error, draw any inference from a single
fragment of a cranium to the general form of the head to
which it belonged.
"Nevertheless, in order to neglect no point respecting the
form of this fossil skull, we may observe that, from the
first, the elongated and narrow form of the forehead
attracted our attention.
"In fact, the slight elevation of the frontal, its
narrowness, and the form of the orbit, approximate it more
nearly to the cranium of an Ethiopian than to that of an
European: the elongated form and the produced occiput are
also characters which we believe to be observable in our
fossil cranium; but to remove all doubt upon that subject
I have caused the contours of the cranium of an European
and of an Ethiopian to be drawn and the foreheads
represented. Plate II., Figs. 1 and 2, and, in the same
plate, Figs. 3 and 4, will render the differences easily
distinguishable; and a single glance at the figures, will
be more instructive than a long and wearisome description.
"At whatever conclusion we may arrive as to the origin of
the man from whence this fossil skull proceeded, we may
express an opinion without exposing ourselves to a
fruitless controversy. Each may adopt the hypothesis which
seems to him most probable: for my own part, I hold it to
be demonstrated that this cranium has belonged to a person
of limited intellectual faculties, and we conclude thence
that it belonged to a man of a low degree of civilization:
a deduction which is borne out by contrasting the capacity
of the frontal with that of the occipital region.
"Another cranium of a young individual was discovered in
the floor of the cavern beside the tooth of an elephant;
the skull was entire when found, but the moment it was
lifted it fell into pieces, which I have not, as yet, been
able to put together again. But I have represented the
bones of the upper jaw, Plate I., Fig. 5. The state of the
alveoli and the teeth, shows that the molars had not yet
pierced the gum. Detached milk molars and some fragments
of a human skull, proceed from this same place. The Figure
3, represents a human superior incisor tooth, the size of
which is truly remarkable.[39]
"Figure 4 is a fragment of a superior maxillary bone, the
molar teeth of which are worn down to the roots.
"I possess two vertebræ, a first and last dorsal.
"A clavicle of the left side (see Plate III., Fig. 1);
although it belonged to a young individual, this bone
shows that he must have been of great stature.[40]
"Two fragments of the radius, badly preserved, do not
indicate that the height of the man, to whom they
belonged, exceeded five feet and a half.
"As to the remains of the upper extremities, those which
are in my possession, consist merely of a fragment of an
ulna and of a radius (Plate III., Fig. 5 and 6).
"Figure 2, Plate IV., represents a metacarpal bone,
contained in the breccia, of which we have spoken; it was
found in the lower part above the cranium: add to this
some metacarpal bones, found at very different distances,
half-a-dozen metatarsals, three phalanges of the hand, and
one of the foot.
"This is a brief enumeration of the remains of human bones
collected in the cavern of Engis, which has preserved for
us the remains of three individuals, surrounded by those
of the Elephant, of the Rhinoceros, and of Carnivora of
species unknown in the present creation."
* * * * *
From the cave of Engihoul, opposite that of Engis, on the right bank of
the Meuse, Schmerling obtained the remains of three other individuals of
Man, among which were only two fragments of parietal bones, but many
bones of the extremities. In one case, a broken fragment of an ulna was
soldered to a like fragment of a radius by stalagmite, a condition
frequently observed among the bones of the Cave Bear (_Ursus spelæus_),
found in the Belgian caverns.
It was in the cavern of Engis that Professor Schmerling found, incrusted
with stalagmite and joined to a stone, the pointed bone implement, which
he has figured in Fig. 7 of his Plate XXXVI., and worked flints were
found by him in all those Belgian caves, which contained an abundance of
fossil bones.
A short letter from M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, published in the Comptes
Rendus of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, for July 2nd, 1838, speaks
of a visit (and apparently a very hasty one) paid to the collection of
Professor "Schermidt" (which is presumably a misprint for Schmerling) at
Liège. The writer briefly criticises the drawings which illustrate
Schmerling's work, and affirms that the "human cranium is a little
longer than it is represented" in Schmerling's figure. The only other
remark worth quoting is this:--"The aspect of the human bones differs
little from that of the cave bones, with which we are familiar, and of
which there is a considerable collection in the same place. With respect
to their special forms, compared with those of the varieties of recent
human crania, few _certain_ conclusions can be put forward; for much
greater differences exist between the different specimens of
well-characterized varieties, than between the fossil cranium of Liège
and that of one of those varieties selected as a term of comparison."
Geoffroy St. Hilaire's remarks are, it will be observed, little but an
echo of the philosophic doubts of the describer and discoverer of the
remains. As to the critique upon Schmerling's figures, I find that the
side view given by the latter is really about 3/10ths of an inch shorter
than the original, and that the front view is diminished to about the
same extent. Otherwise the representation is not, in any way,
inaccurate, but corresponds very well with the cast which is in my
possession.
A piece of the occipital bone, which Schmerling seems to have missed,
has since been fitted on to the rest of the cranium by an accomplished
anatomist, Dr. Spring of Liège, under whose direction an excellent
plaster cast was made for Sir Charles Lyell. It is upon and from a
duplicate of that cast that my own observations and the accompanying
figures, the outlines of which are copied from very accurate Camera
lucida drawings, by my friend Mr. Busk, reduced to one-half of the
natural size, are made.
As Professor Schmerling observes, the base of the skull is destroyed,
and the facial bones are entirely absent; but the roof of the cranium,
consisting of the frontal, parietal, and the greater part of the
occipital bones, as far as the middle of the occipital foramen, is
entire or nearly so. The left temporal bone is wanting. Of the right
temporal, the parts in the immediate neighbourhood of the auditory
foramen, the mastoid process, and a considerable portion of the squamous
element of the temporal are well preserved (Fig. 22).
The lines of fracture which remain between the coadjusted pieces of the
skull, and are faithfully displayed in Schmerling's figure, are readily
traceable in the cast. The sutures are also discernible, but the complex
disposition of their serrations, shown in the figure, is not obvious in
the cast. Though the ridges which give attachment to muscles are not
excessively prominent, they are well marked, and taken together with the
apparently well developed frontal sinuses, and the condition of the
sutures, leave no doubt on my mind that the skull is that of an adult,
if not middle-aged man.
The extreme length of the skull is 7.7 inches. Its extreme breadth,
which corresponds very nearly with the interval between the parietal
protuberances, is not more than 5.4 inches. The proportion of the length
to the breadth is therefore very nearly as 100 to 70. If a line be drawn
from the point at which the brow curves in towards the root of the nose,
and which is called the "glabella" (_a_), (Fig. 22), to the occipital
protuberance (_b_), and the distance to the highest point of the arch of
the skull be measured perpendicularly from this line, it will be found
to be 4.75 inches. Viewed from above, Fig. 23, A, the forehead presents
an evenly rounded curve, and passes into the contour of the sides and
back of the skull, which describes a tolerably regular elliptical curve.
The front view (Fig. 23, B) shows that the roof of the skull was very
regularly and elegantly arched in the transverse direction, and that the
transverse diameter was a little less below the parietal protuberances,
than above them. The forehead cannot be called narrow in relation to the
rest of the skull, nor can it be called a retreating forehead; on the
contrary, the antero-posterior contour of the skull is well arched, so
that the distance along that contour, from the nasal depression to the
occipital protuberance, measures about 13.75 inches. The transverse arc
of the skull, measured from one auditory foramen to the other, across
the middle of the sagittal suture, is about 13 inches. The sagittal
suture itself is 5.5 inches long.
The supraciliary prominences or brow-ridges (on each side of _a_, Fig.
22) are well, but not excessively, developed, and are separated by a
median depression. Their principal elevation is disposed so obliquely
that I judge them to be due to large frontal sinuses.
If a line joining the glabella and the occipital protuberance (_a_, _b_,
Fig. 22) be made horizontal, no part of the occipital region projects
more than 1/10th an inch behind the posterior extremity of that line,
and the upper edge of the auditory foramen (_c_) is almost in contact
with a line drawn parallel with this upon the outer surface of the
skull.
A transverse line drawn from one auditory foramen to the other
traverses, as usual, the forepart of the occipital foramen. The
capacity of the interior of this fragmentary skull has not been
ascertained.
[Illustration: FIG. 23.--The Engis skull viewed from above (_A_) and in
front (_B_).]
* * * * *
The history of the Human remains from the cavern in the Neanderthal may
best be given in the words of their original describer, Dr.
Schaaffhausen,[41] as translated by Mr. Busk.
"In the early part of the year 1857, a human skeleton was
discovered in a limestone cave in the Neanderthal, near
Hochdal, between Düsseldorf and Elberfeld. Of this,
however, I was unable to procure more than a plaster cast
of the cranium, taken at Elberfeld, from which I drew up
an account of its remarkable conformation, which was, in
the first instance, read on the 4th of February, 1857, at
the meeting of the Lower Rhine Medical and Natural History
Society, at Bonn.[42] Subsequently Dr. Fuhlrott, to whom
science is indebted for the preservation of these bones,
which were not at first regarded as human, and into whose
possession they afterwards came, brought the cranium from
Elberfeld to Bonn, and entrusted it to me for more
accurate anatomical examination. At the General Meeting of
the Natural History Society of Prussian Rhineland and
Westphalia, at Bonn, on the 2nd of June, 1857,[43] Dr.
Fuhlrott himself gave a full account of the locality, and
of the circumstances under which the discovery was made.
He was of opinion that the bones might be regarded as
fossil; and in coming to this conclusion, he laid especial
stress upon the existence of dendritic deposits, with
which their surface was covered, and which were first
noticed upon them by Professor Mayer. To this
communication I appended a brief report on the results of
my anatomical examination of the bones. The conclusions at
which I arrived were:--1st. That the extraordinary form
of the skull was due to a natural conformation hitherto
not known to exist, even in the most barbarous races. 2nd.
That these remarkable human remains belonged to a period
antecedent to the time of the Celts and Germans, and were
in all probability derived from one of the wild races of
Northwestern Europe, spoken of by Latin writers; and which
were encountered as autochthones by the German immigrants.
And 3rdly. That it was beyond doubt that these human
relics were traceable to a period at which the latest
animals of the diluvium still existed; but that no proof
of this assumption, nor consequently of their so-termed
_fossil_ condition, was afforded by the circumstances
under which the bones were discovered."
As Dr. Fuhlrott has not yet published his description of these
circumstances, I borrow the following account of them from one of his
letters. "A small cave or grotto, high enough to admit a man, and about
15 feet deep from the entrance, which is 7 or 8 feet wide, exists in the
southern wall of the gorge of the Neanderthal, as it is termed, at a
distance of about 100 feet from the Düssel, and about 60 feet above the
bottom of the valley. In its earlier and uninjured condition, this
cavern opened upon a narrow plateau lying in front of it, and from which
the rocky wall descended almost perpendicularly into the river. It could
be reached, though with difficulty, from above. The uneven floor was
covered to a thickness of 4 or 5 feet with a deposit of mud, sparingly
intermixed with rounded fragments of chert. In the removing of this
deposit, the bones were discovered. The skull was first noticed, placed
nearest to the entrance of the cavern; and further in, the other bones,
lying in the same horizontal plane. Of this I was assured, in the most
positive terms, by two labourers who were employed to clear out the
grotto, and who were questioned by me on the spot. At first no idea was
entertained of the bones being human; and it was not till several weeks
after their discovery that they were recognised as such by me, and
placed in security. But, as the importance of the discovery was not at
the time perceived, the labourers were very careless in the collecting,
and secured chiefly only the larger bones; and to this circumstance it
may be attributed that fragments merely of the probably perfect skeleton
came into my possession."
My anatomical examination of these bones afforded the following
results:--
The cranium is of unusual size, and of a long elliptical form. A most
remarkable peculiarity is at once obvious in the extraordinary
development of the frontal sinuses, owing to which the superciliary
ridges, which coalesce completely in the middle, are rendered so
prominent, that the frontal bone exhibits a considerable hollow or
depression above, or rather behind them, whilst a deep depression is
also formed in the situation of the root of the nose. The forehead is
narrow and low, though the middle and hinder portions of the cranial
arch are well developed. Unfortunately, the fragment of the skull that
has been preserved consists only of the portion situated above the roof
of the orbits and the superior occipital ridges, which are greatly
developed, and almost conjoined so as to form a horizontal eminence. It
includes almost the whole of the frontal bone, both parietals, a small
part of the squamous and the upper-third of the occipital. The recently
fractured surfaces show that the skull was broken at the time of its
disinterment. The cavity holds 16,876 grains of water, whence its
cubical contents may be estimated at 57.64 inches, or 1033.24 cubic
centimetres. In making this estimation, the water is supposed to stand
on a level with the orbital plate of the frontal, with the deepest notch
in the squamous margin of the parietal, and with the superior
semicircular ridges of the occipital. Estimated in dried millet-seed,
the contents equalled 31 ounces, Prussian Apothecaries' weight. The
semicircular line indicating the upper boundary of the attachment of the
temporal muscle, though not very strongly marked, ascends nevertheless
to more than half the height of the parietal bone. On the right
superciliary ridge is observable an oblique furrow or depression,
indicative of an injury received during life.[44] The coronal and
sagittal sutures are on the exterior nearly closed, and on the inside
so completely ossified as to have left no traces whatever, whilst the
lambdoidal remains quite open. The depressions for the Pacchionian
glands are deep and numerous; and there is an unusually deep vascular
groove immediately behind the coronal suture, which, as it terminates in
a foramen, no doubt transmitted a _vena emissaria_. The course of the
frontal suture is indicated externally by a slight ridge; and where it
joins the coronal, this ridge rises into a small protuberance. The
course of the sagittal suture is grooved, and above the angle of the
occipital bone the parietals are depressed.
mm.[45]
The length of the skull from the nasal
process of the frontal over the vertex
to the superior semicircular lines of the
occipital measures 303 (300)=12.0".
Circumference over the orbital ridges and
the superior semicircular lines of the
occipital 590 (590)=23.37" or 23".
Width of the frontal from the middle of
the temporal line on one side to the
same point on the opposite 104 (114)=4.1"-4.5".
Length of the frontal from the nasal
process to the coronal suture 133 (125)=5.25"-5".
Extreme width of the frontal sinuses 25 (23)=1.0"-0.9".
Vertical height above a line joining the
deepest notches in the squamous border
of the parietals 70 = 2.75".
Width of hinder part of skull from one
parietal protuberance to the other 138 (150)=5.4"-5.9".
Distance from the upper angle of the
occipital to the superior semicircular
lines 51 (60)=1.9"-2.4".
Thickness of the bone at the parietal
protuberance 8.
---- at the angle of the occipital 9.
---- at the superior semicircular line of
the occipital 10 = 0.3".