AND ENGIS CAVES.
Human Skeleton found in Cave near Dusseldorf.
Its geological Position and probable Age.
Its abnormal and ape-like Characters.
Fossil Human Skull of the Engis Cave near Liege.
Professor Huxley's Description of these Skulls.
Comparison of each, with extreme Varieties of the native
Australian Race.
Range of Capacity in the Human and Simian Brains.
Skull from Borreby in Denmark.
Conclusions of Professor Huxley.
Bearing of the peculiar Characters of the Neanderthal Skull
on the Hypothesis of Transmutation.
FOSSIL HUMAN SKELETON OF THE NEANDERTHAL CAVE NEAR DUSSELDORF.
Before I speak more particularly of the opinions which anatomists have
expressed respecting the osteological characters of the human skull from
Engis, near Liege, mentioned in the last chapter and described by Dr.
Schmerling, it will be desirable to say something of the geological
position of another skull, or rather skeleton, which, on account of its
peculiar conformation, has excited no small sensation in the last few
years. I allude to the skull found in 1857 in a cave situated in that
part of the valley of the Dussel, near Dusseldorf, which is called the
Neanderthal. The spot is a deep and narrow ravine about 70 English miles
north-east of the region of the Liege caverns treated of in the last
chapter, and close to the village and railway station of Hochdal between
Dusseldorf and Elberfeld. The cave occurs in the precipitous southern or
left side of the winding ravine, about sixty feet above the stream,
and a hundred feet below the top of the cliff. The accompanying section
(Figure 1.) will give the reader an idea of its position.
[Illustration: Figure 1]
When Dr. Fuhlrott of Elberfeld first examined the cave, he found it to
be high enough to allow a man to enter. The width was 7 or 8 feet, and
the length or depth 15. I visited the spot in 1860, in company with Dr.
Fuhlrott, who had the kindness to come expressly from Elberfeld to be my
guide, and who brought with him the original fossil skull, and a cast
of the same, which he presented to me. In the interval of three years,
between 1857 and 1860, the ledge of rock, f, on which the cave opened,
and which was originally 20 feet wide, had been almost entirely quarried
away, and, at the rate at which the work of dilapidation was proceeding,
its complete destruction seemed near at hand.
(FIGURE 1. SECTION OF THE NEANDERTHAL CAVE NEAR DUSSELDORF.
a. Cavern 60 feet above the Dussel, and 100 feet below the
surface of the country at c.
b. Loam covering the floor of the cave near the bottom of which
the human skeleton was found.
b, c. Rent connecting the cave with the upper surface of the
country.
d. Superficial sandy loam.
e. Devonian limestone.
f. Terrace, or ledge of rock.)
In the limestone are many fissures, one of which, still partially filled
with mud and stones, is represented in the section at a c as continuous
from the cave to the upper surface of the country. Through this passage
the loam, and possibly the human body to which the bones belonged, may
have been washed into the cave below. The loam, which covered the uneven
bottom of the cave, was sparingly mixed with rounded fragments of chert,
and was very similar in composition to that covering the general surface
of that region.
There was no crust of stalagmite overlying the mud in which the human
skeleton was found, and no bones of other animals in the mud with the
skeleton; but just before our visit in 1860 the tusk of a bear had
been met with in some mud in a lateral embranchment of the cave, in a
situation precisely similar to b, Figure 1, and on a level corresponding
with that of the human skeleton. This tusk, shown us by the proprietor
of the cave, was 2 1/2 inches long and quite perfect; but whether it was
referable to a recent or extinct species of bear, I could not determine.
From a printed letter of Dr. Fuhlrott we learn that on removing the
loam, which was five feet thick, from the cave, the human skull was
first noticed near the entrance, and, further in, the other bones lying
in the same horizontal plane. It is supposed that the skeleton was
complete, but the workmen, ignorant of its value, scattered and lost
most of the bones, preserving only the larger ones.*
(* Fuhlrott, Letter to Professor Schaaffhausen, cited
"Natural History Review" Number 2 page 156. See also
"Naturhistorischer Verein" Bonn 1859.)
The cranium, which Dr. Fuhlrott showed me, was covered both on its outer
and inner surface, and especially on the latter, with a profusion of
dendritical crystallisations, and some other bones of the skeleton were
ornamented in the same way. These markings, as Dr. Hermann von Meyer
observes, afford no sure criterion of antiquity, for they have been
observed on Roman bones. Nevertheless, they are more common in bones
that have been long embedded in the earth. The skull and bones,
moreover, of the Neanderthal skeleton had lost so much of their animal
matter as to adhere strongly to the tongue, agreeing in this respect
with the ordinary condition of fossil remains of the Pleistocene period.
On the whole, I think it probable that this fossil may be of about the
same age as those found by Schmerling in the Liege caverns; but, as no
other animal remains were found with it, there is no proof that it
may not be newer. Its position lends no countenance whatever to the
supposition of its being more ancient.
When the skull and other parts of the skeleton were first exhibited at
a German scientific meeting at Bonn, in 1857, some doubts were
expressed by several naturalists, whether it was truly human. Professor
Schaaffhausen, who, with the other experienced zoologists, did not share
these doubts, observed that the cranium, which included the frontal
bone, both parietals, part of the squamous, and the upper third of the
occipital, was of unusual size and thickness, the forehead narrow and
very low, and the projection of the supra-orbital ridges enormously
great. He also stated that the absolute and relative length of the thigh
bone, humerus, radius, and ulna, agreed well with the dimensions of a
European individual of like stature at the present day; but that the
thickness of the bones was very extraordinary, and the elevations and
depressions for the attachment of muscles were developed in an unusual
degree. Some of the ribs, also, were of a singularly rounded shape and
abrupt curvature, which was supposed to indicate great power in the
thoracic muscles.*
(* Professor Schaaffhausen's "Memoir" translated "Natural
History Review" April 1861.)
In the same memoir, the Prussian anatomist remarks that the depression
of the forehead (See Figure 3.), is not due to any artificial
flattening, such as is practised in various modes by barbarous nations
in the Old and New World, the skull being quite symmetrical, and showing
no indication of counter-pressure at the occiput; whereas, according
to Morton, in the Flat-heads of the Columbia, the frontal and parietal
bones are always unsymmetrical.*
(* "Natural History Review" Number 2 page 160.)
On the whole, Professor Schaaffhausen concluded that the individual
to whom the Neanderthal skull belonged must have been distinguished by
small cerebral development, and uncommon strength of corporeal frame.
When on my return to England I showed the cast of the cranium to
Professor Huxley, he remarked at once that it was the most ape-like
skull he had ever beheld. Mr. Busk, after giving a translation of
Professor Schaaffhausen's memoir in the "Natural History Review," added
some valuable comments of his own on the characters in which this skull
approached that of the gorilla and chimpanzee.
Professor Huxley afterwards studied the cast with the object of
assisting me to give illustrations of it in this work, and in doing so
discovered what had not previously been observed, that it was quite
as abnormal in the shape of its occipital as in that of its frontal
or superciliary region. Before citing his words on the subject, I will
offer a few remarks on the Engis skull which the same anatomist has
compared with that of the Neanderthal. [10]
FOSSIL SKULL OF THE ENGIS CAVE NEAR LIEGE.
Among six or seven human skeletons, portions of which were collected by
Dr. Schmerling from three or four caverns near Liege, embedded in the
same matrix with the remains of the elephant, rhinoceros, bear, hyaena,
and other extinct quadrupeds, the most perfect skull, as I have before
stated, was that of an adult individual found in the cavern of Engis.
This skull, Dr. Schmerling figured in his work, observing that it was
too imperfect to enable the anatomist to determine the facial angle, but
that one might infer, from the narrowness of the frontal portion, that
it belonged to an individual of small intellectual development. He
speculated on its Ethiopian affinities, but not confidently, observing
truly that it would require many more specimens to enable an anatomist
to arrive at sound conclusions on such a point. M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire
and other osteologists, who examined the specimen, denied that it
resembled a negro's skull. When I saw the original in the museum at
Liege, I invited Dr. Spring, one of the professors of the university, to
whom we are indebted for a valuable memoir on the human bones found in
the cavern of Chauvaux, near Namur, to have a cast made of this Engis
skull. He not only had the kindness to comply with my request, but
rendered a service to the scientific world by adding to the original
cranium several detached fragments which Dr. Schmerling had obtained
from Engis, and which were found to fit in exactly, so that the cast
represented at Figure 2 is more complete than that given in the first
plate of Schmerling's work. It exhibits on the right side the position
of the auditory foramen (see Figure 6), which was not included in
Schmerling's figure. Mr. Busk, when he saw this cast, remarked to
me that, although the forehead was, as Schmerling had truly stated,
somewhat narrow, it might nevertheless be matched by the skulls of
individuals of European race, an observation since fully borne out by
measurements, as will be seen in the sequel.
OBSERVATIONS BY PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON THE HUMAN SKULLS OF ENGIS AND THE
NEANDERTHAL.
[Illustration: Figure 2]
"The Engis skull, as originally figured by Professor Schmerling, was in
a very imperfect state; but other fragments have since been added to it
by the care of Dr. Spring, and the cast upon which my observations are
based (Figure 2) exhibits the frontal, parietal, and occipital regions,
as far as the middle of the occipital foramen, with the squamous and
mastoid portions of the right temporal bone entire, or nearly so, while
the left temporal bone is wanting. From the middle of the occipital
foramen to the middle of the roof of each orbit, the base of the skull
is destroyed, and the facial bones are entirely absent.
"The extreme length of the skull is 7.7 inches, and as its extreme
breadth is not more than 5.25, its form is decidedly dolichocephalic.
At the same time its height (4 3/4 inches from the plane of the
glabello-occipital line (a d) to the vertex) is good, and the forehead
is well arched; so that while the horizontal circumference of the skull
is about 20 1/2 inches, the longitudinal arc from the nasal spine of
the frontal bone to the occipital protuberance (d) measures about 13 3/4
inches. The transverse arc from one auditory foramen to the other across
the middle of the sagittal suture measures about 13 inches. The sagittal
suture (b c) is 5 1/2 inches in length. The superciliary prominences
are well, but not excessively, developed, and are separated by a median
depression in the region of the glabella. They indicate large frontal
sinuses. If a line joining the glabella and the occipital protuberance
(a d) be made horizontal, no part of the occiput projects more than
1/10th of an inch behind the posterior extremity of that line; and the
upper edge of the auditory foramen is almost in contact with the same
line, or rather with one drawn parallel to it on the outer surface of
the skull.
(FIGURE 2. SIDE VIEW OF THE CAST OF PART OF A HUMAN SKULL
FOUND BY DR. SCHMERLING EMBEDDED AMONGST THE REMAINS OF
EXTINCT MAMMALIA IN THE CAVE OF ENGIS, NEAR LIEGE.
a. Superciliary ridge and glabella.
b. Coronal suture.
c. The apex of the lamboidal suture.
d. The occipital protuberance.)
"The Neanderthal skull, with which also I am acquainted only by means
of Professor Schaaffhausen's drawings of an excellent cast and of
photographs, is so extremely different in appearance from the Engis
cranium, that it might well be supposed to belong to a distinct race
of mankind. It is 8 inches in extreme length and 5.75 inches in extreme
breadth, but only measures 3.4 inches from the glabello-occipital line
to the vertex. The longitudinal arc, measured as above, is 12 inches;
the transverse arc cannot be exactly ascertained, in consequence of
the absence of the temporal bones, but was probably about the same, and
certainly exceeded 10 1/4 inches. The horizontal circumference is
23 inches. This great circumference arises largely from the vast
development of the superciliary ridges, which are occupied by great
frontal sinuses whose inferior apertures are displayed exceedingly well
in one of Dr. Fuhlrott's photographs, and form a continuous transverse
prominence, somewhat excavated in the middle line, across the lower part
of the brows. In consequence of this structure, the forehead appears
still lower and more retreating than it really is. To an anatomical eye
the posterior part of the skull is even more striking than the anterior.
The occipital protuberance occupies the extreme posterior end of the
skull when the glabello-occipital line is made horizontal, and so far
from any part of the occipital region extending beyond it, this region
of the skull slopes obliquely upward and forward, so that the lambdoidal
suture is situated well upon the upper surface of the cranium. At the
same time, notwithstanding the great length of the skull, the sagittal
suture is remarkably short (4 1/2 inches), and the squamosal suture is
very straight.
[Illustration: Figure 3. Cast of Human Skull]
(FIGURE 3. SIDE VIEW OF THE CAST OF A PART OF A HUMAN SKULL
FROM A CAVE IN THE NEANDERTHAL, NEAR DUSSELDORF.
a. Superciliary ridge and glabella.
b. The coronal suture.
c. The apex of the lamboidal suture.
d. The occipital protuberance.)
"In human skulls, the superior curved ridge of the occipital bone and
the occipital protuberance correspond, approximatively, with the level
of the tentorium and with the lateral sinuses, and consequently with the
inferior limit of the posterior lobes of the brain. At first, I found
some difficulty in believing that a human brain could have its posterior
lobes so flattened and diminished as must have been the case in the
Neanderthal man, supposing the ordinary relation to obtain between the
superior occipital ridges and the tentorium; but on my application,
through Sir Charles Lyell, Dr. Fuhlrott, the possessor of the skull, was
good enough not only to ascertain the existence of the lateral sinuses
in their ordinary position, but to send convincing proofs of the fact,
in excellent photographic views of the interior of the skull, exhibiting
clear indications of these sinuses.
"There can be no doubt that, as Professor Schaaffhausen and Mr. Busk
have stated, this skull is the most brutal of all known human skulls,
resembling those of the apes not only in the prodigious development of
the superciliary prominences and the forward extension of the orbits,
but still more in the depressed form of the brain-case, in the
straightness of the squamosal suture, and in the complete retreat of the
occiput forwards and upward, from the superior occipital ridges.
[Illustration: Figure 4. Skull of Chimpanzee]
(FIGURE 4. OUTLINE OF THE SKULL OF AN ADULT CHIMPANZEE, OF THAT
FROM THE NEANDERTHAL, AND OF THAT OF A EUROPEAN, DRAWN TO THE SAME
ABSOLUTE SIZE, IN ORDER BETTER TO EXHIBIT THEIR RELATIVE
DIFFERENCES.
The superciliary region of the Neanderthal skull
appears less prominent than in Figure 3, as the contours are all
taken along the middle line where the superciliary projection of
the Neanderthal skull is least marked. a. The glabella. b. The
occipital protuberance, or the point on the exterior of each skull
which corresponds roughly with the attachment of the tentorium, or
with the inferior boundary of the posterior cerebral lobes.)
"But the cranium, in its present condition, is stated by Professor
Schaaffhausen to contain 1033.24 cubic centimetres of water, or, in
other words, about 63 English cubic inches. As the entire skull could
hardly have held less than 12 cubic inches more, its minimum capacity
may be estimated at 75 cubic inches. The most capacious healthy European
skull yet measured had a capacity of 114 cubic inches, the smallest (as
estimated by weight of brain) about 55 cubic inches, while, according to
Professor Schaaffhausen, some Hindoo skulls have as small a capacity as
about 46 cubic inches (27 ounces of water). The largest cranium of
any Gorilla yet measured contained 34.5 cubic inches. The Neanderthal
cranium stands, therefore, in capacity, very nearly on a level with
the mean of the two human extremes, and very far above the pithecoid
maximum.
[Illustration: Figure 5. Skull]
(FIGURE 5. SKULL ASSOCIATED WITH GROUND FLINT IMPLEMENTS,
FROM A TUMULUS AT BORREBY IN DENMARK, AFTER A CAMERA LUCIDA
DRAWING BY MR. G. BUSK, F.R.S.
The thick dark line indicates so much of the skull as
corresponds with the fragment from the Neanderthal.
a. Superciliary ridge.
b. Coronal suture.
c. The apex of the lamboidal suture.
d. The occipital protuberance.
e. The auditory foramen.)
"Hence, even in the absence of the bones of the arm and thigh, which,
according to Professor Schaaffhausen, had the precise proportions found
in Man, although they were stouter than ordinary human bones, there
could be no reason for ascribing this cranium to anything but a man;
while the strength and development of the muscular ridges of the
limb-bones are characters in perfect accordance with those exhibited,
in a minor degree, by the bones of such hardy savages, exposed to a
rigorous climate, as the Patagonians.
"The Neanderthal cranium has certainly not undergone compression, and,
in reply to the suggestion that the skull is that of an idiot, it may be
urged that the onus probandi lies with those who adopt the hypothesis.
Idiotcy is compatible with very various forms and capacities of the
cranium, but I know of none which present the least resemblance to the
Neanderthal skull; and, furthermore, I shall proceed to show that
the latter manifests but an extreme degree of a stage of degradation
exhibited, as a natural condition, by the crania of certain races of
mankind.
"Mr. Busk drew my attention, some time ago, to the resemblance between
some of the skulls taken from tumuli of the stone period at Borreby in
Denmark, of which Mr. Busk possesses numerous accurate figures, and the
Neanderthal cranium. One of the Borreby skulls in particular (Figure 5)
has remarkably projecting superciliary ridges, a retreating forehead, a
low flattened vertex, and an occiput which shelves upward and forward.
But the skull is relatively higher and broader, or more brachycephalic,
the sagittal suture longer, and the superciliary ridges less projecting,
than in the Neanderthal skull. Nevertheless, there is, without doubt,
much resemblance in character between the two skulls--a circumstance
which is the more interesting, since the other Borreby skulls have
better foreheads and less prominent superciliary ridges, and exhibit
altogether a higher conformation.
"The Borreby skulls belong to the stone period of Denmark, and the
people to whom they appertained were probably either contemporaneous
with, or later than, the makers of the 'refuse-heaps' of that country.
In other words, they were subsequent to the last great physical changes
of Europe, and were contemporaries of the urus and bison, not of the
Elephas primigenius, Rhinoceros tichorhinus, and Hyaena spelaea.
"Supposing for a moment, what is not proven, that the Neanderthal skull
belonged to a race allied to the Borreby people and was as modern
as they, it would be separated by as great a distance of time as of
anatomical character from the Engis skull, and the possibility of its
belonging to a distinct race from the latter might reasonably appear to
be greatly heightened.
"To prevent the possibility of reasoning in a vicious circle, however,
I thought it would be well to endeavour to ascertain what amount of
cranial variation is to be found in a pure race at the present day; and
as the natives of Southern and Western Australia are probably as pure
and homogeneous in blood, customs, and language, as any race of savages
in existence, I turned to them, the more readily as the Hunterian museum
contains a very fine collection of such skulls.
"I soon found it possible to select from among these crania two
(connected by all sorts of intermediate gradations), the one of which
should very nearly resemble the Engis skull, while the other should
somewhat less closely approximate the Neanderthal cranium in form, size,
and proportions. And at the same time others of these skulls presented
no less remarkable affinities with the low type of Borreby skull.
"That the resemblances to which I allude are by no means of a merely
superficial character, is shown by the accompanying diagram (Figure 6),
which gives the contours of the two ancient and of one of the Australian
skulls, and by the following table of measurements.
TABLE 5/1.
COLUMN 1: TYPE OF SKULL.
COLUMN 2 (A): The horizontal circumference in the plane of a line
joining the glabella with the occipital protuberance.
COLUMN 3 (B): The longitudinal arc from the nasal depression along the
middle line of the skull to the occipital tuberosity.
COLUMN 4 (C): From the level of the glabello-occipital line on each
side, across the middle of the sagittal suture to the same point on the
opposite side.
COLUMN 5 (D): The vertical height from the glabello-occipital line.
COLUMN 6 (E): The extreme longitudinal measurement.
COLUMN 7 (F): The extreme transverse measurement.*
(* I have taken the glabello-occipital line as a base in
these measurements, simply because it enables me to compare
all the skulls, whether fragments or entire, together. The
greatest circumference of the English skull lies in a plane
considerably above that of the glabello-occipital line, and
amounts to 22 inches.)
Engis : 20 1/2: 13 3/4: 12 1/2: 4 3/4: 7 3/4: 5 1/4.
Australian,
Number 1: 20 1/2: 13 : 12 : 4 3/4: 7 1/2: 5 4/10.
Australian,
Number 2: 22 : 12 1/2: 10 3/4: 3 8/10: 7.9: 5 3/4.
Neanderthal: 23 : 12 : 10 : 3 3/4: 8 : 5 3/4.
"The question whether the Engis skull has rather the character of one
of the high races or of one of the lower has been much disputed, but the
following measurements of an English skull, noted in the catalogue of
the Hunterian museum as typically Caucasian (see Figure 4) will serve to
show that both sides may be right, and that cranial measurements alone
afford no safe indication of race.
English : 21 : 13 3/4: 12 1/2: 4 4/10: 7 7/8: 5 1/3.
"In making the preceding statement, it must be clearly understood that I
neither desire to affirm that the Engis and Neanderthal skulls belong to
the Australian race, nor to assert even that the ancient skulls belong
to one and the same race, so far as race is measured by language, colour
of skin, or character of hair. Against the conclusion that they are of
the same race as the Australians various minor anatomical differences
of the ancient skulls, such as the great development of the frontal
sinuses, might be urged; while against the supposition of either
the identity, or the diversity, of race of the two arises the known
independence of the variation of cranium on the one hand, and of hair,
colour, and language on the other.
"But the amount of variation of the Borreby skulls, and the fact that
the skulls of one of the purest and most homogeneous of existing races
of men can be proved to differ from one another in the same characters,
though perhaps not quite to the same extent, as the Engis and
Neanderthal skulls, seem to me to prohibit any cautious reasoner from
affirming the latter to have been necessarily of distinct races.
[Illustration: Figure 6. Outlines of Skulls]
(FIGURE 6. OUTLINES OF THE SKULL FROM THE NEANDERTHAL,
OF AN AUSTRALIAN SKULL FROM PORT ADELAIDE, AND OF THE
SKULL FROM THE CAVE OF ENGIS, DRAWN TO THE SAME ABSOLUTE
LENGTH, IN ORDER THE BETTER TO CONTRAST THEIR PROPORTIONS.
a. The glabella.
b. The occipital protuberance, or the point on the exterior
of each skull which corresponds roughly with the attachment
of the tentorium, or with the inferior boundary of the
posterior cerebral lobes.
e. The position of the auditory foramen of the Engis skull.)
"The marked resemblances between the ancient skulls and their modern
Australian analogues, however, have a profound interest, when it is
recollected that the stone axe is as much the weapon and the implement
of the modern as of the ancient savage; that the former turns the bones
of the kangaroo and of the emu to the same account as the latter did the
bones of the deer and the urus; that the Australian heaps up the shells
of devoured shellfish in mounds which represent the "refuse-heaps" or
"Kjokkenmodding," of Denmark; and, finally, that, on the other side of
Torres Straits, a race akin to the Australians are among the few people
who now build their houses on pile-works, like those of the ancient
Swiss lakes.
"That this amount of resemblance in habit and in the conditions
of existence is accompanied by as close a resemblance in cranial
configuration, illustrates on a great scale that what Cuvier
demonstrated of the animals of the Nile valley is no less true of men;
circumstances remaining similar, the savage varies little more, it would
seem, than the ibis or the crocodile, especially if we take into account
the enormous extent of the time over which our knowledge of man
now extends, as compared with that measured by the duration of the
sepulchres of Egypt.
"Finally, the comparatively large cranial capacity of the Neanderthal
skull, overlaid though it may be by pithecoid bony walls, and the
completely human proportions of the accompanying limb-bones, together
with the very fair development of the Engis skull, clearly indicate that
the first traces of the primordial stock whence Man has proceeded need
no longer be sought, by those who entertain any form of the doctrine of
progressive development, in the newest Tertiaries; but that they may
be looked for in an epoch more distant from the age of the Elephas
primigenius than that is from us."
The two skulls which form the subject of the preceding comments and
illustrations have given rise to nearly an equal amount of surprise for
opposite reasons; that of Engis because being so unequivocally ancient,
it approached so near to the highest or Caucasian type; that of the
Neanderthal, because, having no such decided claims to antiquity,
it departs so widely from the normal standard of humanity. Professor
Huxley's observation regarding the wide range of variation, both as
to shape and capacity, in the skulls of so pure a race as the native
Australian, removes to no small extent this supposed anomaly, assuming
what though not proved is very probable, that both varieties co-existed
in the Pleistocene period in Western Europe.
As to the Engis skull, we must remember that although associated with
the elephant, rhinoceros, bear, tiger, and hyaena, all of extinct
species, it nevertheless is also accompanied by a bear, stag, wolf, fox,
beaver, and many other quadrupeds of species still living. Indeed many
eminent palaeontologists, and among them Professor Pictet, think that,
numerically considered, the larger portion of the mammalian fauna
agrees specifically with that of our own period, so that we are scarcely
entitled to feel surprised if we find human races of the Pleistocene
epoch undistinguishable from some living ones. It would merely tend to
show that Man has been as constant in his osteological characters as
many other mammalia now his contemporaries. The expectation of always
meeting with a lower type of human skull, the older the formation in
which it occurs, is based on the theory of progressive development, and
it may prove to be sound; nevertheless we must remember that as yet we
have no distinct geological evidence that the appearance of what
are called the inferior races of mankind has always preceded in
chronological order that of the higher races.
It is now admitted that the differences between the brain of the highest
races of Man and that of the lowest,* though less in degree, are of the
same order as those which separate the human from the simian brain; and
the same rule holds good in regard to the shape of the skull.
(* "Natural History Review" 1861 page 8.)
The average Negro skull differs from that of the European in having a
more receding forehead, more prominent superciliary ridges, and more
largely developed prominences and furrows for the attachment of muscles;
the face also, and its lines, are larger proportionally. The brain is
somewhat less voluminous on the average in the lower races of mankind,
its convolutions rather less complicated, and those of the two
hemispheres more symmetrical, in all which points an approach is made
to the simian type. It will also be seen, by reference to the late Dr.
Morton's works, and by the foregoing statements of Professor Huxley,
that the range of size or capacity between the highest and lowest human
brain is greater than that between the highest simian and lowest human
brain; but the Neanderthal skull, although in several respects it is
more ape-like than any human skull previously discovered, is, in regard
to volume, by no means contemptible.
Eminent anatomists have shown that in the average proportions of some of
the bones the Negro differs from the European, and that in most of
these characters, he makes a slightly nearer approach to the anthropoid
quadrumana;* but Professor Schaaffhausen has pointed out that in these
proportions the Neanderthal skeleton does not differ from the ordinary
standard, so that the skeleton by no means indicates a transition
between Homo and Pithecus. (* "The inferior races of mankind exhibit
proportions which are in many respects intermediate between the higher,
or European, orders, and the monkeys. In the Negro, for instance, the
stature is less than in the European. The cranium, as is well known,
bears a small proportion to the face. Of the extremities the upper are
proportionately longer, and there is, in both upper and lower, a less
marked preponderance of the proximal over the distal segments. For
instance, in the Negro, the thigh and arm are rather shorter than in
the European; the leg is actually of equal length in both races, and is
therefore, relatively, a little longer in the Negro; the fore-arm in the
latter is actually, as well as relatively, a little longer; the foot
is an eighth, and the hand a twelfth longer than in the European. It is
well known that the foot is less well formed in the Negro than in the
European. The arch of the instep, the perfect conformation of which is
essential to steadiness and ease of gait, is less elevated in the former
than in the latter. The foot is thereby rendered flatter as well as
longer, more nearly resembling the monkey's, between which and the
European there is a marked difference in this particular."--From "A
Treatise on the Human Skeleton" by Dr. Humphry, Lecturer on Surgery and
Anatomy in the Cambridge University Medical School, page 91.)
There is doubtless, as shown in the diagram Figure 4, a nearer
resemblance in the outline of the Neanderthal skull to that of a
chimpanzee than had ever been observed before in any human cranium; and
Professor Huxley's description of the occipital region shows that the
resemblance is not confined to the mere excessive prominence of the
superciliary ridges.
The direct bearing of the ape-like character of the Neanderthal skull on
Lamarck's doctrine of progressive development and transmutation, or on
that modification of it which has of late been so ably advocated by
Mr. Darwin, consists in this, that the newly observed deviation from
a normal standard of human structure is not in a casual or random
direction, but just what might have been anticipated if the laws of
variation were such as the transmutationists require. For if we conceive
the cranium to be very ancient, it exemplifies a less advanced stage of
progressive development and improvement. If it be a comparatively modern
race, owing its peculiarities of conformation to degeneracy, it is
an illustration of what botanists call "atavism," or the tendency of
varieties to revert to an ancestral type, which type, in proportion
to its antiquity, would be of lower grade. To this hypothesis, of a
genealogical connection between Man and the lower animals, I shall again
allude in the concluding chapters. [11]