By RICHARD OWEN, C.B., F.R.S.
There seems to be a manifest desire in some quarters to anticipate the
looked for and, by some, hoped-for proofs of our descent, or rather
ascent, from the ape.
In the September issue of the _Fortnightly Review_ a writer cites, in
this relation, the "Neanderthal skull, which possesses large bosses on
the forehead, strikingly suggestive of those which give the gorilla its
peculiarly fierce appearance;" and he proceeds: "No other human skull
presents so utterly bestial a type as the Neanderthal fragment. If one
cuts a female gorilla-skull in the same fashion, the resemblance is
truly astonishing, and we may say that the only human feature in the
skull is its size."[1]
[Footnote 1: Grant Allen, "On Primitive Man," p. 314.]
In testing the question as between Linnaeus and Cuvier of the zoological
value of the differences between lowest man and highest ape, a
naturalist would not limit his comparison of a portion of the human
skull with the corresponding one of a female ape, but would extend it to
the young or immature gorilla, and also to the adult male; he would then
find the generic and specific characters summed up, so far, at least, as
a portion or "fragment" of the skull might show them. What is posed as
the "Neanderthal skull" is the roof of the brain-case, or "calvarium" of
the anatomist, including the pent-house overhanging the eye-holes or
"orbits." There is no other part of the fragment which can be supposed
to be meant by the "large bosses" of the above quotation. And, on this
assumption, I have to state that the super-orbital ridge in the
calvarium in question is but little more prominent than in certain human
skulls of both higher and lower races, and of both the existing and
cave-dwelling periods. It is a variable cranial character, by no means
indicative of race, but rather of sex.
Limiting the comparison to that on which the writer quoted bases his
conclusions--apparently the superficial extent of the roof plate--its
greater extent as compared with that of a gorilla equaling, probably, in
weight the entire frame of the individual from the Neanderthal cave, is
strongly significant of the superiority of size of brain in the
cave-dweller. The inner surface moreover indicates the more complex
character of the soft organ on which it was moulded; the precious "gray
substance" being multiplied by certain convolutions which are absent in
the apes. But there is another surface which the unbiased zoologist
finds it requisite to compare. In the human "calvarium" in question, the
mid-line traced backward from the super-orbital ridge runs along a
smooth track. In the gorilla a ridge is raised from along the major part
of that tract to increase the surface giving attachment to the biting
muscles. Such ridge in this position varies only in height in the female
and the male adult ape, as the specimens in the British Museum
demonstrate. In the Neanderthal individual, as in the rest of mankind,
the corresponding muscles do not extend their origins to the upper
surface of the cranium, but stop short at the sides forming the inner
wall or boundary of what are called the "temples," defined by Johnson as
the "upper part of the sides of the head," whence our "biting muscles"
are called "temporal," as the side-bones of the skull to which they are
attached are also the "temporal bones." In the superficial comparison to
which Mr. Grant Allen has restricted himself in bearing testimony on a
question which perhaps affects our fellow-creatures, in the right sense
of the term, more warmly than any other in human and comparative
anatomy, the obvious difference just pointed out ought not to have been
passed over. It was the more incumbent on one pronouncing on the
paramount problem, because the "sagittal ridge in the gorilla," as in
the orang, relates to and signifies the dental character which
differentiates all _Quadrumana_ from all _Bimana_ that have ever come
under the ken of the biologist. And this ridge much more "strikingly
suggests" the fierceness of the powerful brute-ape than the part
referred to as "large bosses." Frontal prominences, more truly so
termed, are even better developed in peaceful, timid, graminivorous
quadrupeds than in the skulls of man or of ape. But before noticing the
evidence which the teeth bear on the physical relations of man to brute,
I would premise that the comparison must not be limited to a part or
"fragment" of the bony frame, but to its totality, as relating to the
modes and faculties of locomotion.
Beginning with the skull--and, indeed, for present aim, limiting myself
thereto--I have found that a vertical longitudinal section brings to
light in greatest number and of truest value the differential characters
between lowest _Homo_ and highest _Simia_. Those truly and indifferently
interested in the question may not think it unworthy their time--if it
has not already been so bestowed--to give attention to the detailed
discussions and illustrations of the characters in question in the
second and third volumes of the "Transactions of the Zoological
Society."[2] The concluding memoir, relating more especially to points
of approximation in cranial and denial structure of the highest
_Quadrumane_ to the lowest _Bimane_, has been separately published.
[Footnote 2: "Oseteological Contributions to the Natural History
of the Orangs (_Pithecus_) and Chimpanzees (_Troglodites niger_
and _Trog. gorilla_)."]
I selected from the large and instructive series of human skulls of
various races in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons that which
was the lowest, and might be called most bestial, in its cranial and
dental characters. It was from an adult of that human family of which
the life-characters are chiefly but truly and suggestively defined in
the narrative of Cook's first voyage in the Endeavor.[3]
[Footnote 3: Hawkesworth's 4th ed., vol. iii., 1770, pp. 86,
137, 229. The skull in question is No 5,394 of the "Catalogue of
the Osteology" in the above Museum, 4to, vol. ii, p. 823, 1853.]
Not to trespass further on the patience of my readers, I may refer to
the "Memoir on the Gorilla," 4to, 1865. Plate xii. gives a view, natural
size, of the vertical and longitudinal section of an Australian skull;
plate xi. gives a similar view of the skull of the gorilla. Reduced
copies of these views may be found at p. 572, figs. 395, 396, vol. ii,
of my "Anatomy of Vertebrates."
As far as my experience has reached, there is no skull displaying the
characters of a quadrumanous species, as that series descends from the
gorilla and chimpanzee to the baboon, which exhibits differences, osteal
or dental, on which specific and generic distinctions are founded, so
great, so marked, as are to be seen, and have been above illustrated, in
the comparison of the highest ape with the lowest man.
The modification of man's upper limbs for the endless variety, nicety,
and perfection of their application, in fulfillment of the behests of
his correspondingly developed brain--actions summed up in the term
"manipulation"--testify as strongly to the same conclusion. The
corresponding degree of modification of the human lower limbs, to which
he owes his upright attitude, relieving the manual instruments from all
share in station and terrestrial locomotion--combine and concur in
raising the group so characterized above and beyond the apes, to, at
least, ordinal distinction. The dental characters of mankind bear like
testimony. The lowest (Melanian), like the highest (Caucasian), variety
of the bimanal order differs from the quadrumanal one in the order of
appearance, and succession to the first set of teeth, of the second or
"permanent" set. The foremost incisor and foremost molar are the
earliest to appear in that scries; the intermediate teeth are acquired
sooner than those behind the foremost molar.[4]
[Footnote 4: "Odontography," 4to, 1840-44, p. 454, plates 117,
118, 119.]
In the gorilla and chimpanzee, the rate or course of progress is
reversed; the second true molar, or the one behind the first, makes its
appearance before the bicuspid molars rise in front of the first; and
the third or last of the molars behind the first comes into place before
the canine tooth has risen. This tooth, indeed, which occupies part of
the interval between the foremost incisor and foremost molar, is the
last of the permanent set of teeth to be fully developed in the
_Quadrumana_; especially in those which, in their order, rank next to
the _Bimana_. To this differential character add the breaks in the
dental series necessitated for the reception of the crowns of the huge
canines when the gorilla or chimpanzee shuts its mouth.
But the superior value of developmental over adult anatomical characters
in such questions as the present is too well known in the actual phase
of biology to need comment.
In the article on "Primeval Man," the author states that the Cave-men
"probably had lower foreheads, with high bosses like the Neanderthal
skull, and big canine teeth like the Naulette jaw."[5]
[Footnote 5: _Fortnightly Review_, September, p. 321.]
The human lower jaw so defined, from a Belgian cave, which I have
carefully examined, gives no evidence of a canine tooth of a size
indicative of one in the upper jaw necessitating such vacancy in the
lower series of teeth which the apes present. There is no such vacancy
nor any evidence of a "big canine tooth" in that cave specimen. And,
with respect to cave specimens in general, the zoological characters of
the race of men they represent must be founded on the rule, not on an
exception, to their cranial features. Those which I obtained from the
cavern at Bruniquel, and which are now exhibited in the Museum of
Natural History, were disinterred under circumstances more
satisfactorily determining their contemporaneity with the extinct
quadrupeds those cave-men killed and devoured than in any other spelaean
retreat which I have explored. They show neither "lower foreheads" nor
"higher bosses" than do the skulls of existing races of mankind.
Present evidence concurs in concluding that the modes of life and grades
of thought of the men who have left evidences of their existence at the
earliest periods hitherto discovered and determined, were such as are
now observable in "savages," or the human races which are commonly so
called.
The industry and pains now devoted to the determination of the physical
characters of such races, to their ways of living, their tools and
weapons, and to the relations of their dermal, osteal, and dental
modifications to those of the mammals which follow next after _Bimana_
in the descensive series of mammalian orders, are exemplary.
The present phase of the quest may be far from the bourn to yield
hereafter trustworthy evidence of the origin of man; but, meanwhile,
exaggerations and misstatements of acquired grounds ought especially to
be avoided.
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