FOSSIL MAN
7. The “Missing Link.”—8. Family tree of the Primates.—9.
Geological and glacial time.—10. Place of man’s origin and
development.—11. Pithecanthropus.—12. Heidelberg man.—13. The
Piltdown form.—14. Neandertal man.—15. Rhodesian man.—16. The
Cro-Magnon race.—17. The Brünn race.—18. The Grimaldi race:
Neolithic races.—19. The metric expression of human evolution.
7. THE “MISSING LINK”
No modern zoölogist has the least doubt as to the general fact of organic
evolution. Consequently anthropologists take as their starting point the
belief in the derivation of man from some other animal form. There is
also no question as to where in a general way man’s ancestry is to be
sought. He is a mammal closely allied to the other mammals, and therefore
has sprung from some mammalian type. His origin can be specified even
more accurately. The mammals fall into a number of fairly distinct
groups, such as the Carnivores or flesh-eating animals, the Ungulates
or hoofed animals, the Rodents or gnawing animals, the Cetaceans or
whales, and several others. The highest of these mammalian groups, as
usually reckoned, is the Primate or “first” order of the animal kingdom.
This Primate group includes the various monkeys and apes and man. The
ancestors of the human race are therefore to be sought somewhere in the
order of Primates, past or present.
The popular but inaccurate expression of this scientific conviction is
that “man is descended from the monkeys,” but that a link has been lost
in the chain of descent: the famous “missing link.” In a loose way this
statement reflects modern scientific opinion; but it certainly is partly
erroneous. Probably not a single authority maintains to-day that man is
descended from any species of monkey now living. What students during
the past sixty years have more and more come to be convinced of, was
already foreshadowed by Darwin: namely that man and the apes are both
descended from a common ancestor. This common ancestor may be described
as a primitive Primate, who differed in a good many details both from the
monkeys and from man, and who has probably long since become extinct.
[Illustration: FIG. 1. Erroneous (left) and more valid (right)
representation of the descent of man.]
The situation may be clarified by two diagrams (Fig. 1). The first
diagram represents the inaccurate view which puts the monkey at the
bottom of the line of descent, man at the top, and the missing link in
the middle of the straight line. The illogicality of believing that our
origin occurred in this manner is apparent as soon as one reflects that
according to this scheme the monkey at the beginning and man at the end
of the line still survive, whereas the “missing link,” which is supposed
to have connected them, has become extinct.
Clearly the relation must be different. Whatever the missing link may
have been, the mere fact that he is not now alive on earth means that we
must construct our diagram so that it will indicate his past existence
as compared with the survival of man and the apes. This means that the
missing link must be put lower in the figure than man and the apes,
and our illustration therefore takes on the form shown in the right
half of figure 1, which may be described as Y-shaped. The stem of the
Y denotes the pre-ancestral forms leading back into other mammalian
groups and through them—if carried far enough down—to the amphibians and
invertebrates. The missing link comes at the fork of the Y. He represents
the last point at which man and the monkeys were still one, and beyond
which they separated and became different. It is just because the missing
link represented the last common form that he was the link between man
and the monkeys. From him onwards, the monkeys followed their own course,
as indicated by the left-hand branch of the Y, and man went his separate
way along the right-hand branch.
8. FAMILY TREE OF THE PRIMATES
While this second diagram illustrates the most essential elements in
modern belief as to man’s origin, it does not of course pretend to give
the details. To make the diagram at all precise, the left fork of the Y,
which here stands for the monkeys as a group—in other words, represents
all the living Primates other than man—would have to be denoted by a
number of branching and subdividing lines. Each of the main branches
would represent one of the four or five subdivisions or “families” of the
Primates, such as the Anthropoid or manlike apes, and the Cebidæ or South
American monkeys. The finer branches would stand for the several genera
and species in each of these families. For instance, the Anthropoid line
would split into four, standing respectively for the Gibbon, Orang-utan,
Chimpanzee, and Gorilla.
The fork of the Y representing man would not branch and rebranch so
intricately as the fork representing the monkeys. Many zoölogists regard
all the living varieties of man as constituting a single species, while
even those who are inclined to recognize several species limit the number
of these species to three or four. Then too the known extinct varieties
of man are comparatively few. There is some doubt whether these human
fossil types are to be reckoned as direct ancestors of modern man, and
therefore as mere points in the main human line of our diagram; or
whether they are to be considered as having been ancient collateral
relatives who split off from the main line of human development. In the
latter event, their designation in the diagram would have to be by
shorter lines branching out of the human fork of the Y.
[Illustration: FIG. 2. The descent of man, elaborated over Figure 1. For
further ramifications, see Figures 3, 4, 9.]
This subject quickly becomes a technical problem requiring rather
refined evidence to answer. In general, prevailing opinion looks upon
the later fossil ancestors of man as probably direct or true ancestors,
but tends to regard the earlier of these extinct forms as more likely to
have been collateral ones. This verdict applies with particular force
to the earliest of all, the very one which comes nearest to fulfilling
the popular idea of the missing link: the so-called _Pithecanthropus
erectus_. If the Pithecanthropus were truly the missing link, he would
have to be put at the exact crotch of the Y. Since he is recognized,
however, as a form more or less ancestral to man, and somewhat less
ancestral to the apes, he should probably be placed a short distance up
on the human stem of the Y, or close alongside it. On the other hand,
inasmuch as most palæontologists and comparative anatomists believe that
Pithecanthropus was not directly ancestral to us, in the sense that
no living men have Pithecanthropus blood flowing in their veins, he
would therefore be an ancient collateral relative of humanity—a sort of
great-great-granduncle—and would be best represented by a short stub
coming out of the human line a little above its beginning (Fig. 2).
Even this figure is not complete, since it is possible that some of the
fossil types which succeeded Pithecanthropus in point of time, such as
the Heidelberg and Piltdown men, were also collateral rather than direct
ancestors. Some place even the later Neandertal man in the collateral
class. It is only when the last of the fossil types, the Cro-Magnon race,
is reached, that opinion becomes comparatively unanimous that this is a
form directly ancestral to us. For accuracy, therefore, figure 2 might
be revised by the addition of other short lines to represent the several
earlier fossil types: these would successively spring from the main human
line at higher and higher levels.
In order not to complicate unnecessarily the fundamental facts of
the case—especially since many data are still interpreted somewhat
variously—no attempt will be made here to construct such a complete
diagram as authoritative. Instead, there are added reproductions of the
family tree of man and the apes as the lineages have been worked out
independently by two authorities (Figs. 3, 4). It is clear that these two
family trees are in substantial accord as regards their main conclusions,
but that they show some variability in details. This condition reflects
the present state of knowledge. All experts are in accord as to certain
basic principles; but it is impossible to find two authors who agree
exactly in their understanding of the less important data.
9. GEOLOGICAL AND GLACIAL TIME
A remark should be made here as to the age of these ancestral forms.
The record of life on earth, as known from the fossils in stratified
rocks, is divided into four great periods. The earliest, the _Primary_ or
_Palæozoic_, comprises about two-thirds of the total lapse of geologic
time. During the Palæozoic all the principal divisions of invertebrate
animals came into existence, but of the vertebrates only the fishes.
In the _Secondary_ or _Mesozoic_ period, evolution progressed to the
point where reptiles were the highest and dominant type, and the first
feeble bird and mammal forms appeared. The Mesozoic embraces most of the
remaining third or so of the duration of life on the earth, leaving only
something like five million years for the last two periods combined, as
against thirty, fifty, ninety, or four hundred million years that the
Palæozoic and Mesozoic are variously estimated to have lasted.
[Illustration: FIG. 3. The descent of man in detail, according to
Gregory (somewhat simplified). Extinct forms: 1, Parapithecus; 2,
Propliopithecus; 3, Palæosimia; 4, Sivapithecus; 5, Dryopithecus; 6,
Palæopithecus; 7, Pliopithecus; P, Pithecanthropus erectus; H, Homo
Heidelbergensis; N, Homo Neandertalensis.]
[Illustration: FIG. 4. The descent of man in detail, according to
Keith (somewhat simplified). Extinct forms: 2, 5, 6, 7 as in Figure 3;
Pith(ecanthropus), Pilt(down), Neand(ertal). Living forms: Gb, Or, Ch,
Go, the anthropoid apes as in Figure 3.]
These last five million years or so of the earth’s history are divided
unequally between the _Tertiary_ or Age of Mammals, and the _Quaternary_
or Age of Man. About four million years are usually assigned to the
Tertiary with its subdivisions, the Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, and
Pliocene. The Quaternary was formerly reckoned by geologists to have
lasted only about a hundred thousand years. Later this estimate was
raised to four or five hundred thousand, and at present the prevailing
opinion tends to put it at about a million years. There are to be
recognized, then, a four million year Age of Mammals before man, or even
any definitely pre-human form, had appeared; and a final period of about
a million years during which man gradually assumed his present bodily
and mental type. In this Quaternary period fall all the forms which are
treated in the following pages.
The Quaternary is usually subdivided into two periods, the Pleistocene
and the Recent. The Recent is very short, perhaps not more than ten
thousand years. It represents, geologically speaking, the mere instant
which has elapsed since the final disappearance of the great glaciers.
It is but little longer than historic time; and throughout the Recent
there are encountered only modern forms of man. Back of it, the much
longer Pleistocene is often described as the Ice Age or Glacial Epoch;
and both in Europe and North America careful research has succeeded
in demonstrating four successive periods of increase of the ice. In
Europe these are generally known as the Günz, Mindel, Riss, and Würm
glaciations. The probable American equivalents are the Nebraskan,
Kansan, Illinoian, and Wisconsin periods of ice spread. Between each
of these four came a warmer period when the ice melted and its sheets
receded. These are the “interglacial periods” and are designated as the
first, second, and third. These glacial and interglacial periods are of
importance because they offer a natural chronology or time scale for
the Pleistocene, and usually provide the best means of dating the fossil
human types that have been or may hereafter be discovered (Fig. 5).
10. PLACE OF MAN’S ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT
Before we proceed to the fossil finds themselves, we must note that
the greater part of the surface of the earth has been very imperfectly
explored. Africa, Asia, and Australia may quite conceivably contain
untold scientific treasures which have not yet been excavated. One cannot
assert that they are lying in the soil or rocks of these continents; but
one also cannot affirm that they are not there. North and South America
have been somewhat more carefully examined, at least in certain of their
areas, but with such regularly negative results that the prevailing
opinion now is that these two continents—possibly through being shut off
by oceans or ice masses from the eastern hemisphere—were not inhabited
by man during the Pleistocene. The origin of the human species cannot
then be sought in the western hemisphere. This substantially leaves
Europe as the one continent in which excavations have been carried on
with prospects of success; and it is in the more thoroughly explored
western half of Europe that all but two of the unquestioned discoveries
of ancient man have been made. One of these exceptional finds is from
Africa. The other happens to be the one that dates earliest of all—the
same Pithecanthropus already mentioned as being the closest known
approach to the “missing link.” Pithecanthropus was found in Java.
Now it might conceivably prove true that man originated in Europe and
that this is the reason that the discoveries of his most ancient remains
have to date been so largely confined to that continent. On the other
hand, it does seem much more reasonable to believe that this smallest of
the continents, with its temperate or cold climate, and its poverty of
ancient and modern species of monkeys, is likely not to have been the
true home, or at any rate not the only home, of the human family. The
safest statement of the case would be that it is not known in what part
of the earth man originated; that next to nothing is known of the history
of his development on most of the continents; and that that portion of
his history which chiefly is known is the fragment which happened to take
place in Europe.
[Illustration: FIG. 5. Antiquity of man. This diagram is drawn to scale,
proportionate to the number of years estimated to have elapsed, as far
down as 100,000. Beyond, the scale is one-half, to bring the diagram
within the limits of the page.]
11. PITHECANTHROPUS
_Pithecanthropus erectus_, the “erect ape-man,” was determined from the
top part of a skull, a thigh bone, and two molar teeth found in 1891
under fifty feet of strata by Dubois, a Dutch surgeon, near Trinil, in
the East Indian island of Java. The skull and the thigh lay some distance
apart but at the same level and probably are from the same individual.
The period of the stratum is generally considered early Pleistocene,
possibly approximately contemporary with the first or Günz glaciation of
Europe—nearly a million years ago, by the time scale here followed. Java
was then a part of the mainland of Asia.
The skull is low, with narrow receding forehead and heavy ridges of bone
above the eye sockets—“supraorbital ridges.” The capacity is estimated
at 850 or 900 cubic centimeters—half as much again as that of a large
gorilla, but nearly one-half less than the average for modern man. The
skull is dolichocephalic—long for its breadth—like the skulls of all
early fossil men; whereas the anthropoid apes are more broad-headed. The
jaws are believed to have projected almost like a snout; but as they
remain undiscovered, this part of the reconstruction is conjectural. The
thigh bone is remarkably straight, indicating habitual upright posture;
its length suggests that the total body stature was about 5 feet 7
inches, or as much as the height of most Europeans.
Pithecanthropus was a terrestrial and not an arboreal form. He seems to
have been slightly more similar to modern man than to any ape, and is
the most primitive manlike type yet discovered. But he is very different
from both man and the apes, as his name indicates: _Pithecanthropus_ is a
distinct genus, not included in _Homo_, or man.
12. HEIDELBERG MAN
Knowledge of Heidelberg man rests on a single piece of bone—a lower jaw
found in 1907 by Schoetensack at a depth of nearly eighty feet in the
Mauer sands not far from Heidelberg, Germany. Like the Pithecanthropus
remains, the Heidelberg specimen lay in association with fossils of
extinct mammals, a fact which makes possible its dating. It probably
belongs to the second interglacial period, so that its antiquity is only
about half as great as that of Pithecanthropus (Fig. 5).
The jaw is larger and heavier than any modern human jaw. The ramus, or
upright part toward the socket, is enormously broad, as in the anthropoid
apes. The chin is completely lacking; but this area does not recede so
much as in the apes. Heidelberg man’s mouth region must have projected
considerably more than that of modern man, but much less than that of a
gorilla or a chimpanzee. The contour of the jaw as seen from above is
human (oval), not simian (narrow and oblong).
The teeth, although large, are essentially human. They are set close
together, with their tops flush, as in man; the canines lack the
tusk-like character which they retain in the apes.
Since the skull and the limb bones of this form are wholly unknown, it is
somewhat difficult to picture the type as it appeared in life. But the
jaw being as manlike as it is apelike, and the teeth distinctly human,
the Heidelberg type is to be regarded as very much nearer to modern man
than to the ape, or as farther along the line of evolutionary development
than Pithecanthropus; as might be expected from its greater recency. This
relationship is expressed by the name, _Homo Heidelbergensis_, which
recognizes the type as belonging to the genus man.
13. THE PILTDOWN FORM
This form is reconstructed from several fragments of a female brain case,
some small portions of the face, nearly half the lower jaw, and a number
of teeth, found in 1911-13 by Dawson and Woodward in a gravel layer at
Piltdown in Sussex, England. Great importance has been ascribed to this
skull, but too many of its features remain uncertain to render it safe
to build large conclusions upon the discovery. The age cannot be fixed
with positiveness; the deposit is only a few feet below the surface, and
in the open; the associated fossils have been washed or rolled into the
layer; some of them are certainly much older than the skull, belonging
to animals characteristic of the Pliocene, that is, the Tertiary. If
the age of the skull was the third interglacial period, as on the whole
seems most likely, its antiquity might be less than a fourth that of
Pithecanthropus and half that of Heidelberg man.
The skull capacity has been variously estimated at 1,170, nearly 1,300,
and nearly 1,500 c.c.; the pieces do not join, so that no certain proof
can be given for any figure. Except for unusual thickness of the bone,
the skull is not particularly primitive. The jaw and the teeth, on the
other hand, are scarcely distinguishable from those of a chimpanzee.
They are certainly far less human than the Heidelberg jaw and teeth,
which are presumably earlier. This human skull and simian jaw are an
almost incompatible combination. More than one expert has got over the
difficulty by assuming that the skull of a contemporary human being and
the jaw of a chimpanzee happened to be deposited in the same gravel.
In view of these doubts and discrepancies, the claim that the Piltdown
form belongs to a genus _Eoanthropus_ distinct from that of man is to
be viewed with reserve. This interpretation would make the Piltdown
type more primitive than the probably antecedent Heidelberg man. Some
authorities do regard it as both more primitive and earlier.
14. NEANDERTAL MAN
The preceding forms are each known only from partial fragments of the
bones of a single individual. The Neandertal race is substantiated by
some dozens of different finds, including half a dozen nearly complete
skulls, and several skeletons of which the greater portions have been
preserved. These fossils come from Spain, France, Belgium, Germany,
and what was Austro-Hungary, or, roughly, from the whole western
half of Europe. They are all of similar type and from the Mousterian
period of the Palæolithic or Old Stone Age (§ 70-72, Fig. 17); whereas
Pithecanthropus, Heidelberg, and perhaps Piltdown are earlier than the
Stone Age. The Mousterian period may be dated as coincident with the
peak of the last or Würm glaciation, that is, about 50,000 to 25,000
years ago. Its race—the Neandertal type—was clearly though primitively
human; which fact is reflected in the various systematic names that have
been given it: _Homo Neandertalensis_, _Homo Mousteriensis_, or _Homo
primigenius_.
THE MOST IMPORTANT NEANDERTAL DISCOVERIES
1856 Neandertal Near Düsseldorf, Skull cap and parts of
Germany skeleton
1848 Gibraltar Spain Greater part of skull
1887 Spy I Belgium Skull and parts of
skeleton
1887 Spy II Belgium Skull and parts of
skeleton
1889-1905 Krapina Moravia Parts of ten or more
skulls and skeletons
1908 La-Chapelle- Corrèze, France Skeleton including
aux-Saints skull
1908 Le Moustier Dordogne, France Skeleton, including
skull, of youth
1909 La Ferrassie I Dordogne, France Partial skeleton
1910 La Ferrassie II Dordogne, France Skeleton
1911 La Quina Charente, France Skull and parts of
skeleton
1911 Jersey Island in English Teeth
Channel
Neandertal man was short: around 5 feet 3 inches for men, 4 feet 10
inches for women, or about the same as the modern Japanese. A definite
curvature of his thigh bone indicates a knee habitually somewhat bent,
and probably a slightly stooping or slouching attitude. All his bones are
thickset: his musculature must have been powerful. The chest was large,
the neck bull-like, the head hung forward upon it. This head was massive:
its capacity averaged around 1,550 c.c., or equal to that of European
whites and greater than the mean of all living races of mankind (Fig. 6).
The head was rather low and the forehead sloped back. The supraorbital
ridges were heavy: the eyes peered out from under beetling brows. The
jaws were prognathous, though not more than in many Australians and
Negroes; the chin receded but existed.
SOME NEANDERTAL MEASUREMENTS
_Fossil_ _Skull _Stature_
Capacity_
Neandertal 1400 c.c. 5 ft. 4 (or 1) in.
Spy I 1550 c.c. 5 ft. 4 in.
Spy II 1700 c.c.
La Chapelle-aux-Saints 1600 c.c. 5 ft. 3 (or 2) in.
La Ferrassie I 5 ft. 5 in.
Average of male Neandertals 1550 c.c. 5 ft. 4 (or 3) in.
Average of modern European males 1550 c.c. 5 ft. 5 to 8 in.
Average—modern mankind 1450 c.c. 5 ft. 5 in.
Gibraltar 1300 c.c.
La Quina 1350 c.c.
La Ferrassie II 4 ft. 10 in.
Average of modern European females 1400 c.c. 5 ft. 1 to 3 in.
The artifacts found in Mousterian deposits show that Neandertal man
chipped flint tools in several ways, knew fire, and buried his dead. It
may be assumed as almost certain that he spoke some sort of language.
[Illustration: FIG. 6. Skulls of 1, Pithecanthropus; 2, Neandertal
man (Chapelle-aux-Saints); 3, Sixth Dynasty Egyptian; 4, Old Man of
Cro-Magnon. Combined from Keith. The relatively close approximation of
Neandertal man to recent man, and the full frontal development of the
Cro-Magnon race, are evident.]
15. RHODESIAN MAN
Quite recent is the discovery of an African fossil man. This occurred in
1921 at Broken Hill Bone Cave in northern Rhodesia. A nearly complete
skull was found, though without lower jaw; a small piece of the upper
jaw of a second individual; and several other bones, including a tibia.
The remains were ninety feet deep in a cave, associated with vast
quantities of mineralized animal bones. Their age however is unknown.
The associated fauna is one of living species only; but this does not
imply the same recency as in Europe, since the animal life of Africa has
altered relatively little since well back in the Pleistocene.
Measurements of Rhodesian man have not yet been published. The available
descriptions point to a small brain case with low vault in the frontal
region; more extremely developed eyebrow ridges than in any living or
fossil race of man, including Pithecanthropus; a large gorilla-like face,
with marked prognathism and a long stretch between nose and teeth—the
area covered by the upper lip; a flaring but probably fairly prominent
nose; an enormous palate and dental arch—too large to accommodate even
the massive Heidelberg jaw; large teeth, but without the projecting
canines of the apes and of the lower jaw attributed to Piltdown man; and
a forward position of the foramen magnum—the aperture by which the spinal
cord enters the brain—which suggests a fully upright position. The same
inference is derivable from the long, straight shin-bone.
On the whole, this seems to be a form most closely allied to Neandertal
man, though differing from him in numerous respects, and especially in
the more primitive type of face. It is well to remember, however, that of
none of the forms anterior to Neandertal man—Pithecanthropus, Heidelberg,
Piltdown—has the face been recovered. If these were known, the Rhodesian
face might seem less impressively ape-like. It is also important to
observe that relatively primitive and advanced features exist side by
side in Rhodesian man; the face and eyebrow ridges are somewhat off-set
by the prominent nose, erect posture, and long clean limb bones. It is
therefore likely that this form was a collateral relative of Neandertal
man rather than his ancestor or descendant. Its place in the history of
the human species can probably be fixed only after the age of the bones
is determined. Yet it is already clear that the discovery is important in
at least three respects. It reveals the most ape-like face yet found in a
human variety; it extends the record of fossil man to a new continent;
and that continent is the home of the two living apes—the gorilla and
chimpanzee—recognized as most similar to man.
16. THE CRO-MAGNON RACE
The Cro-Magnon race is not only within the human species, but possibly
among the ancestors of modern Europeans. While Neandertal man is
still _Homo Neandertalensis_—the genus of living man, but a different
species—the Cro-Magnon type is _Homo sapiens_—that is, a variety of
ourselves. The age is that of the gradual, fluctuating retreat of
the glaciers—the later Cave period of the Old Stone Age: the Upper
Palæolithic, in technical language, comprising the Aurignacian, the
Solutrean, and the Magdalenian (§ 70). In years, this was the time from
25,000 to 10,000 B.C.
SOME IMPORTANT REMAINS OF CRO-MAGNON TYPE
_Aurignacian_
1868 Cro-Magnon Dordogne, France 5 incomplete skeletons
1872-74 Grimaldi Mentone, N.W. Italy 12 skeletons
1909 Laugerie Haute Dordogne, France Skeleton
1909 Combe-Capelle Périgord, France Skeleton
_Magdalenian_
1872 Laugerie Basse Dordogne, France Skeleton
1888 Chancelade Dordogne, France Skeleton, nearly complete
1914 Obercassel Near Bonn, Germany 2 skeletons
The Cro-Magnon race of Aurignacian times, as represented by the finds
at Cro-Magnon and Grimaldi,[2] was excessively tall and large-brained,
surpassing any living race of man in both respects.
The adult male buried at Cro-Magnon measured 5 feet 11 inches in life;
five men at Grimaldi measured from 5 feet 10½ inches to 6 feet 4½ inches,
averaging 6 feet 1½ inches. The tallest men now on earth, certain Scots
and Negroes, average less than 5 feet 11 inches. A girl at Grimaldi
measured 5 feet 5 inches. This race was not only tall, but clean-limbed,
lithe, and swift.
Their brains were equally large. Those of the five male skulls from
Grimaldi contain from over 1,700 to nearly 1,900 c.c.—an average of 1,800
c.c.; that of the old man of Cro-Magnon, nearly 1,600 c.c.; of a woman
there, 1,550 c.c. If these individuals were not exceptional, the figures
mean that the size and weight of the brain of the early Cro-Magnon people
was some fifteen or twenty per cent greater than that of modern Europeans.
The cephalic index is low—that is, the skull was long and narrow, as in
all the types here considered; but the face was particularly broad. The
forehead rose well domed; the supraorbital development was moderate,
as in recent men; the features must have been attractive even by our
standards.
Three of the best preserved skeletons of the Magdalenian period are those
of women. Their statures run 4 feet 7 inches, 5 feet 1 inch, 5 feet 1
inch, which would indicate a corresponding normal height for men not far
from that of the average European of to-day. The male from Obercassel
attained a stature of about 5 feet 3 inches, a cranial capacity of 1,500
c.c., and combined a long skull with a wide face. The general type of the
Magdalenian period might be described as a reduced Cro-Magnon one.
The Cro-Magnon peoples used skilfully made harpoons, originated a
remarkable art, and in general attained a development of industries
parallel to their high degree of bodily progress.
17. THE BRÜNN RACE
Several remains have been found in central Europe which have sometimes
been considered as belonging to the Neandertal race and sometimes to
the subsequent Cro-Magnon race, but do not belong clearly with either,
and may perhaps be regarded as distinct from both and possibly bridging
them. The type is generally known as the Brünn race. Its habitat was
Czecho-Slovakia and perhaps adjacent districts; its epoch, postglacial,
in the Solutrean period of the Upper Palæolithic (§ 70). The Brünn race,
so far as present knowledge of it goes, was therefore both preceded and
succeeded by Cro-Magnon man.
1871 Brüx Bohemia Skull cap
1880 Predmost Moravia Parts of 20 skeletons
1891 Brünn Moravia Skeleton, 2 skulls
The Brünn race belongs with modern man: its species is no longer _Homo
Neandertalensis_, but _Homo sapiens_, to which we also belong. The
heavy supraorbital ridges of the earlier type are now divided by a
depression over the nose instead of stretching continuously across the
forehead; the chin is becoming pronounced, the jaws protrude less than
in Neandertal man. The skull is somewhat higher and better vaulted. In
all these respects there is an approach to the Cro-Magnon race. But the
distinctively broad face of the Cro-Magnon people is not in evidence.
A skull of uncertain geologic age, found in 1888 at Galley Hill, near
London, is by some linked with the Brünn race. The same is true of an
unusually well preserved skeleton found in 1909 at Combe-Capelle, in
Périgord, southern France. The period of the Combe-Capelle skeleton is
Upper Palæolithic Aurignacian. This was part of the era of the Cro-Magnon
race in western Europe; and as the Combe-Capelle remains do not differ
much from the Cro-Magnon type, they are best considered as belonging to
it.
18. THE GRIMALDI RACE: NEOLITHIC RACES
The Grimaldi race is to date represented by only two skeletons, those of
a woman and a youth—possibly mother and son—found in 1906 in a grotto at
Grimaldi near Mentone, in Italy, close to the French border. They reposed
in lower layers, above which subsequent Cro-Magnon burials of Aurignacian
date had been made. Their age is therefore early Aurignacian: the
beginning of the Upper Palæolithic or later Cave period of the Old Stone
Age. The statures are 5 feet 2 inches and 5 feet 1 inch—the youth was not
fully grown; the skull capacities 1,375 and nearly 1,600 c.c.
The outstanding feature of both skeletons is that they bear a number of
Negroid characteristics. The forearm and lower leg are long as compared
with the upper arm and thigh; the pelvis high and small; the jaws
prognathous, the nose flat, the eye orbits narrow. All these are Negro
traits. This is important, in view of the fact that all the other ancient
fossils of men are either more primitive than the living races or, like
Cro-Magnon, perhaps ancestral to the Caucasian race.
No fossil remains of any ancestral Mongolian type have yet been
discovered.
The New Stone Age, beginning about 10,000 or 8,000 B.C., brings the
Grenelle and other types of man; but these are so essentially modern that
they need not be considered here. In the Neolithic period, broad heads
are for the first time encountered, as they occur at present in Europe
and other continents, alongside of narrow ones. The virtual fixity of the
human type for these last ten thousand years is by no means incredible.
Egyptian mummies and skeletons prove that the type of that country has
changed little in five thousand years except as the result of invasions
and admixture.
19. THE METRIC EXPRESSION OF HUMAN EVOLUTION
The relations of the several fossil types of man and their gradual
progression are most accurately expressed by certain skull angles and
proportions, or indexes, which have been specially devised for the
purpose. The anthropometric criteria that are of most importance in the
study of living races, more or less fail in regard to prehistoric man.
The hair, complexion, and eye-color are not preserved. The head breadth,
as indicated by the cephalic index, is substantially the same from
Pithecanthropus to the last Cro-Magnons. Stature on the other hand varies
from one to another ancient race without evincing much tendency to grow
or to diminish consistently. Often, too, there is only part of a skull
preserved. The following proportions of the top or vault of the skull—the
calvarium—are therefore useful for expressing quantitatively the gradual
physical progress of humanity from its beginning.
Three anatomical points on the surface of the skull are the pivots on
which these special indexes and angles rest. One is the _Glabella_ (G
in figure 7), the slight swelling situated between the eyebrows and
above the root of the nose. The second is the _Inion_ (I), the most
rearward point on the skull. The third is the _Bregma_ (B) or point of
intersection of the sutures which divide the frontal from the parietal
bones. The bregma falls at or very near the highest point of the skull.
If now we see a skull lengthwise, or draw a projection of it, and connect
the glabella and the inion by a line GI, and the glabella and the bregma
by a line GB, an acute angle, BGI, is formed. This is the “bregma angle.”
Obviously a high vaulted skull or one that has the superior point B well
forward will show a greater angle than a low flat skull or one with its
summit lying far back.
[Illustration: FIG. 7. Indices and angles of special significance in the
change from fossil to living man. Calvarial height index, _BX_: _GI_.
Bregma position index, _GX_: _GI_. Bregma angle, _BGI_. Frontal angle,
_FGI_.]
Next, let us drop a vertical from the bregma to the line GI, cutting
it at X. Obviously the proportion which the vertical line BX bears to
the horizontal line GI will be greater or less as the arch or vault of
the brain case is higher or lower. This proportion BX: GI, expressed in
percentages, is the “calvarial height index.”
THE SKULL OF MODERN AND FOSSIL MAN
_Calvarial _Bregma _Bregma _Frontal
Height Angle_ Position Angle_
Index_ Index_
Maximum for modern man 68 66
Average for modern man 59 58 30.5 90
90 Central Europeans 60 61 31
28 Bantu Negroes 59 59 31
7 Greenland Eskimos 56 58 30
43 Australian natives 56 57.5 (33)
8 Tasmanian natives 56 57
Minimum for modern man 47.5 46 37 72
Chancelade 57 60
Combe-Capelle 54.5 58
Aurignac 54.5
Cro-Magnon I 50 54 33
Brünn I 51 52 75
Galley Hill 48 52 82
Brüx 48 51? 75?
Le Moustier 47
Krapina C 46 52 70
Spy II 44 50 35 67
Krapina D 42 50 32 66
Chapelle-aux-Saints 40.5 45.5 36.5 65
Spy I 41 45 35 57.5
Gibraltar 40 50 73?
Neandertal 40 44 38 62
Pithecanthropus 34 38 42 52.5
Maximum for any Anthropoid ape 38 39.5 63
Chimpanzee 32 34 47 56
Gorilla 20 22 42
Orang-utan 27 32 45
SUMMARIZED AVERAGES
Modern races 59 58 31 90
Cro-Magnon race 54 57 33
Brünn race 49 52 77
Neandertal man 42 48 35 66
Pithecanthropus 34 38 42 52
Anthropoid apes 26 30 45
If now we compute the proportion of the GX part of the line GI to the
whole of this line, we have the “bregma position index”; that is, a
numerical indication of how far forward on the skull the highest point B
lies. A sloping or retreating forehead naturally tends to have the bregma
rearward; whereas if the frontal bone is nearly vertical, resulting
in a high, domed expanse of forehead, the bregma tends to be situated
farther forward, the point X shifts in the same direction, the distance
GX becomes shorter in comparison to the whole line GI, and the “bregma
position index” falls numerically.
The “frontal angle,” finally, is determined by drawing a line GF from
the glabella tangent to the most protruding part of the frontal bone and
measuring the angle between this and the horizontal GI. A small frontal
angle obviously means a receding forehead.
All these data can be obtained from the mere upper fragment of a skull;
they relate to that feature which is probably of the greatest importance
in the evolution of man from the lower animals—the development of the
brain case and therefore of the brain, especially of the cerebrum or
fore-brain; and they define this evolution rather convincingly. The
table, which compiles some of the most important findings, shows that
progress has been fairly steadily continuous in the direction of greater
cerebral development.