Part 4 (1/2)
”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. 8), to the occipital protuberance (_d_), 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, the forehead presents an evenly rounded curve, and pa.s.ses into the contour of the sides and back of the skull, which describes a tolerably regular elliptical curve.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 7. PROFESSOR T. H. HUXLEY.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 8. SIDE VIEW OF THE HUMAN SKULL FOUND IN THE CAVE OF ENGIS.
_a._ Superciliary ridge and glabella.
_b._ Coronal suture.
_d._ The occipital protuberance.]
”The front view 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 superciliary prominences or brow-ridges (_a_) are well, but not excessively, developed, and are separated by a median depression. Their princ.i.p.al 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_, _d_, Fig. 8) be made horizontal, no part of the occipital region projects more than one-tenth of an inch behind the posterior extremity of that line, and the upper edge of the auditory foramen is almost in contact with a line drawn parallel with this upon the outer surface of the skull.”[27]
Some of the views expressed by Professor Huxley are at variance with those of other eminent scientists. Lubbock reports him as saying, ”There is no mark of degradation about any part of its structure. It is, in fact, a fair average human skull, which might have belonged to a philosopher, or might have contained the thoughtless brains of a savage.”[28] Mr. Busk agrees and partially disagrees with Professor Huxley, for he remarked to Lyell, ”Although the forehead was somewhat narrow, it might nevertheless be matched by the skulls of individuals of European race.”[29]
Dr. Schmerling, Buchner, and Vogt are arrayed against Huxley. The first says, ”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.”[30] ”From the narrowness of the frontal portion it belonged to an individual of small intellectual development.”[31] Buchner says, ”In its length and narrowness, the slight elevation of its forehead, the form of the widely separated orbits and the well developed supra-orbital arches, it resembles, especially when viewed from above, the celebrated Neanderthal skull, but in general is far superior to this in its structure.”[32]
Carl Vogt ”regards it, with reference to the proportion of length to breadth, as one of the most ill-favored, animal-like and simian of skulls.”[33]
The cause of this wide difference of opinion may arise from the failure to observe the fact that the older the formation in which a skull is found, the lower is the type. The ordinary observer, judging by the cast of the skull, would see nothing ape-like about it, and certainly would fail to see any indications of a philosopher.
NEANDERTHAL SKULL.
The Neanderthal skull was taken from a small cave or grotto in-the valley of the Dussel, near Dusseldorf, situated about seventy miles north-east of the region of the Liege caverns. The grotto is in a deep ravine sixty feet above the river, one hundred feet below the surface of the country, and at a distance of about ten feet from the Dussel River.
It is fifteen feet deep from the entrance (_f_), which is seven or eight feet wide. Before the cavern had been injured, it opened upon a narrow plateau lying in front. The floor of the cave was covered four or five feet in thickness with a deposit of mud or loam, and containing some rounded fragments of chert. Two laborers, in removing this deposit, first noticed the skull, placed near the entrance, and further in met with the other bones. As the bones were not regarded as of any importance, at the time of their discovery, only the larger ones have been preserved.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 9. SECTION OF THE NEANDERTHAL CAVE.
_a._ Cavern sixty feet above the Dussel, and one hundred 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.
_c_, _a_. Rent connecting the cave with the upper surface of the country.
_d._ Superficial sandy loam.
_e._ Devonian limestone.
_f._ Terrace, or ledge of rock.]
Some discussion has arisen in respect to the geological time of these bones. There was no stalagmite overlying the mud or loam in which the skeleton was found, and no other bones met with save the tusk of a bear.
There is no certain data given whereby its position may be known.
Professor Huxley declares that the bones ”indicate a very high antiquity.”[34] Buchner is very positive in his statement, and declares that ”the loam-deposit which partly fills the caves of the Neanderthal and the clefts and fissures of its limestone mountains, and in which both the Neanderthal bones and the fossil bones and teeth of animals were imbedded, is exactly the same that, in the caverns of the Neanderthal, covers the whole limestone mountain with a deposit from ten to twelve feet in thickness, and the diluvial origin of which is unmistakable.”[35] Dr. Fuhlrott says, ”The position and general arrangement of the locality in which they were found, place it, in my judgment, beyond doubt that the bones belong to the diluvium, and therefore to primitive times, _i. e._ they come down to us from a period of the past when our native country was still inhabited by various kinds of animals, especially mammoths and cave-bears, which have long since disappeared out of the series of living creatures.”[36]
The diluvial or glacial origin of the Neanderthal skull is still further confirmed by the discoveries made, in the summer of 1865, in the Teufelskammer. This cavern is situated one hundred and thirty paces from the one in which the human bones were found, and on the same side of the river.. In the loam-deposit of this cave were found numerous fossil bones and teeth of the rhinoceros, cave-bear, cave-hyena, and other extinct animals. ”A great part of these bones, especially those of the cave-bears, agree in color, weight, density, and the preservation of their microscopic structure, with the human bones found in the Feldhofner Cave (in which the Neanderthal man was found), and both are covered with the same _dendrites_, or tree-like markings.”[37]
Before entering into a description and discussion of this remarkable skull, an enumeration of the other bones will be given. All the bones are characterized by their unusual thickness, and the great development of all the elevations and depressions for the attachment of muscles. The two thigh bones were in a perfect state, also the right humerus and radius; the upper third of the right ulna; the left ulna complete, though pathologically deformed, the coronoid process being so much enlarged by bony growth that flexure of the elbow beyond a right angle was impossible; the left humerus is much slenderer than the right, and the upper third is wanting. Its anterior fossa for the reception of the coronoid process is filled up with a bony growth, and, at the same time, the olecranon process is curved strongly downwards. The indications are that an injury sustained during life was the cause of this defect. There was an ilium, almost perfect; a fragment of the right scapula; the anterior extremity of a rib of the right side, and two hinder portions and one middle portion of ribs resembling more the ribs of a carnivorous animal than those of man. This abnormal condition has arisen from the powerful development of the thoracic muscles.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 10. SIDE VIEW OF THE HUMAN SKULL FROM FELDHOFNER CAVE, IN THE NEANDERTHAL, NEAR DuSSELDORF.