On Some Fossil Remains of Man Part 2

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 28.--Oblong and prognathous skull of a Negro; side and front views. One-third of the natural size.]

The same truth is exemplified by the study of the modifications which the skull undergoes in ascending from the lower animals up to man.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 29.--Longitudinal and vertical sections of the skulls of a Beaver ('Castor Canadensis'), a Lemur ('L. Catia'), and a Baboon ('Cynocephalus Papio'), 'a b', the basicranial axis; 'b c', the occipital plane; 'i T', the tentorial plane; 'a d', the olfactory plane; 'f e', the basifacial axis; 'c b a', occipital angle; 'T i a', tentorial angle; 'd a b', olfactory angle; 'e f b', cranio-facial angle; 'g h', extreme length of the cavity which lodges the cerebral hemispheres or 'cerebral length.' The length of the basicranial axis as to this length, or, in other words, the proportional length of the line 'g h' to that of 'a b' taken as 100, in the three skulls, is as follows:--Beaver 70 to 100; Lemur 119 to 100; Baboon 144 to 100. In an adult male Gorilla the cerebral length is as 170 to the basicranial axis taken as 100, in the Negro (Fig. 30) as 236 to 100. In the Constantinople skull (Fig. 30) as 266 to 100. The cranial difference between the highest Ape's skull and the lowest Man's is therefore very strikingly brought out by these measurements. In the diagram of the Baboon's skull the dotted lines 'd1 d2', etc., give the angles of the Lemur's and Beaver's skull, as laid down upon the basicranial axis of the Baboon. The line 'a b' has the same length in each diagram.]

In such a mammal as a Beaver (Fig. 29), a line ('a b'.) drawn through the bones, termed basioccipital, basisphenoid, and presphenoid, is very long in proportion to the extreme length of the cavity which contains the cerebral hemispheres ('g h'.). The plane of the occipital foramen ('b c'.) forms a slightly acute angle with this 'basicranial axis,'

while the plane of the tentorium ('i T'.) is inclined at rather more than 90 degrees to the 'basicranial axis'; and so is the plane of the perforated plate ('a d'.), by which the filaments of the olfactory nerve leave the skull. Again, a line drawn through the axis of the face, between the bones called ethmoid and vomer--the "basifacial axis" ('f e'.) forms an exceedingly obtuse angle, where, when produced, it cuts the 'basicranial axis.'

If the angle made by the line 'b c'. with 'a b'., be called the 'occipital angle,' and the angle made by the line 'a d'. with 'a b'. be termed the 'olfactory angle,' and that made by 'i T'. with 'a b'. the 'tentorial angle,' then all these, in the mammal in question, are nearly right angles, varying between 80 degrees and 110 degrees. the angle 'e f b'., or that made by the cranial with the facial axis, and which may be termed the 'cranio-facial angle,' is extremely obtuse, amounting, in the case of the Beaver, to at least 150 degrees.

But if a series of sections of mammalian skulls, intermediate between a Rodent and a Man (Fig. 29), be examined, it will be found that in the higher crania the basicranial axis becomes shorter relatively to the cerebral length; that the 'olfactory angle' and 'occipital angle' become more obtuse; and that the 'cranio-facial angle' becomes more acute by the bending down, as it were, of the facial axis upon the cranial axis.

At the same time, the roof of the cranium becomes more and more arched, to allow of the increasing height of the cerebral hemispheres, which is eminently characteristic of man, as well as of that backward extension, beyond the cerebellum, which reaches its maximum in the South America Monkeys. So that, at last, in the human skull (Fig. 30), the cerebral length is between twice and thrice as great as the length of the basicranial axis; the olfactory plane is 20 degrees or 30 degrees on the 'under' side of that axis; the occipital angle, instead of being less than 90 degrees, is as much as 150 degrees or 160 degrees; the cranio-facial angle may be 90 degrees or less, and the vertical height of the skull may have a large proportion to its length.

It will be obvious, from an inspection of the diagrams, that the basicranial axis is, in the ascending series of Mammalia, a relatively fixed line, on which the bones of the sides and roof of the cranial cavity, and of the face, may be said to revolve downwards and forwards or backwards, according to their position. The arc described by any one bone or plane, however, is not by any means always in proportion to the arc described by another.

Now comes the important question, can we discern, between the lowest and the highest forms of the human cranium anything answering, in however slight a degree, to this revolution of the side and roof bones of the skull upon the basicranial axis observed upon so great a scale in the mammalian series? Numerous observations lead me to believe that we must answer this question in the affirmative.

The diagrams in Figure 30 are reduced from very carefully made diagrams of sections of four skulls, two round and orthognathous, two long and prognathous, taken longitudinally and vertically, through the middle.

The sectional diagrams have then been superimposed, in such a manner, that the basal axes of the skulls coincide by their anterior ends, and in their direction. The deviations of the rest of the contours (which represent the interior of the skulls only) show the differences of the skulls from one another, when these axes are regarded as relatively fixed lines.

The dark contours are those of an Australian and of a Negro skull: the light contours are those of a Tartar skull, in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons; and of a well developed round skull from a cemetery in Constantinople, of uncertain race, in my own possession.

It appears, at once, from these views, that the prognathous skulls, so far as their jaws are concerned, do really differ from the orthognathous in much the same way as, though to a far less degree than, the skulls of the lower mammals differ from those of Man. Furthermore, the plane of the occipital foramen ('b c') forms a somewhat smaller angle with the axis in these particular prognathous skulls than in the orthognathous; and the like may be slightly true of the perforated plate of the ethmoid--though this point is not so clear. But it is singular to remark that, in another respect, the prognathous skulls are less ape-like than the orthognathous, the cerebral cavity projecting decidedly more beyond the anterior end of the axis in the prognathous, than in the orthognathous, skulls.

It will be observed that these diagrams reveal an immense range of variation in the capacity and relative proportion to the cranial axis, of the different regions of the cavity which contains the brain, in the different skulls. Nor is the difference in the extent to which the cerebral overlaps the cerebellar cavity less singular. A round skull (Fig. 30, 'Const'.) may have a greater posterior cerebral projection than a long one (Fig. 30, 'Negro').

Until human crania have been largely worked out in a manner similar to that here suggested--until it shall be an opprobrium to an ethnological collection to possess a single skull which is not bisected longitudinally--until the angles and measurements here mentioned, together with a number of others of which I cannot speak in this place, are determined, and tabulated with reference to the basicranial axis as unity, for large numbers of skulls of the different races of Mankind, I do not think we shall have any very safe basis for that ethnological craniology which aspires to give the anatomical characters of the crania of the different Races of Mankind.

At present, I believe that the general outlines of what may be safely said upon that subject may be summed up in a very few words. Draw a line on a globe from the Gold Coast in Western Africa to the steppes of Tartary. At the southern and western end of that line there live the most dolichocephalic, prognathous, curly-haired, dark-skinned of men--the true Negroes. At the northern and eastern end of the same line there live the most brachycephalic, orthognathous, straight-haired, yellow-skinned of men--the Tartars and Calmucks. The two ends of this imaginary line are indeed, so to speak, ethnological antipodes. A line drawn at right angles, or nearly so, to this polar line through Europe and Southern Asia to Hindostan, would give us a sort of equator, around which round-headed, oval-headed, and oblong-headed, prognathous and orthognathous, fair and dark races--but none possessing the excessively marked characters of Calmuck or Negro--group themselves.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 30.--Sections of orthognathous (light contour) and prognathous (dark contour) skulls, one-third of the natural size. 'a b', Basicranial axis; 'b c, b1 c1', plane of the occipital foramen; 'd d1', hinder end of the palatine bone; 'e e1', front end of the upper jaw; 'T T1', insertion of the tentorium.]

It is worthy of notice that the regions of the antipodal races are antipodal in climate, the greatest contrast the world affords, perhaps, being that between the damp, hot, steaming, alluvial coast plains of the West Coast of Africa and the arid, elevated steppes and plateaux of Central Asia, bitterly cold in winter, and as far from the sea as any part of the world can be.

From Central Asia eastward to the Pacific Islands and subcontinents on the one hand, and to America on the other, brachycephaly and orthognathism gradually diminish, and are replaced by dolichocephaly and prognathism, less, however, on the American Continent (throughout the whole length of which a rounded type of skull prevails largely, but not exclusively) [13] than in the Pacific region, where, at length, on the Australian Continent and in the adjacent islands, the oblong skull, the projecting jaws, and the dark skin reappear; with so much departure, in other respects, from the Negro type, that ethnologists a.s.sign to these people the special t.i.tle of 'Negritoes.'

The Australian skull is remarkable for its narrowness and for the thickness of its walls, especially in the region of the supraciliary ridge, which is frequently, though not by any means invariably, solid throughout, the frontal sinuses remaining undeveloped. The nasal depression, again, is extremely sudden, so that the brows overhang and give the countenance a particularly lowering, threatening expression.

The occipital region of the skull, also, not unfrequently becomes less prominent; so that it not only fails to project beyond a line drawn perpendicular to the hinder extremity of the glabello-occipital line, but even, in some cases, begins to shelve away from it, forwards, almost immediately. In consequence of this circ.u.mstance, the parts of the occipital bone which lie above and below the tuberosity make a much more acute angle with one another than is usual, whereby the hinder part of the base of the skull appears obliquely truncated. Many Australian skulls have a considerable height, quite equal to that of the average of any other race, but there are others in which the cranial roof becomes remarkably depressed, the skull, at the same time, elongating so much that, probably, its capacity is not diminished. The majority of skulls possessing these characters, which I have seen, are from the neighbourhood of Port Adelaide in South Australia, and have been used by the natives as water vessels; to which end the face has been knocked away, and a string pa.s.sed through the vacuity and the occipital foramen, so that the skull was suspended by the greater part of its basis.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 31.--An Australian skull from Western Port, in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, with the contour of the Neanderthal skull. Both reduced to one-third the natural size.]

Figure 32 represents the contour of a skull of this kind from Western Port, with the jaw attached, and of the Neanderthal skull, both reduced to one-third of the size of nature. A small additional amount of flattening and lengthening, with a corresponding increase of the supraciliary ridge, would convert the Australian brain case into a form identical with that of the aberrant fossil.

And now, to return to the fossil skulls, and to the rank which they occupy among, or beyond, these existing varieties of cranial conformation. In the first place, I must remark, that, as Professor Schmerling well observed ('supra', p. 300) in commenting upon the Engis skull, the formation of a safe judgment upon the question is greatly hindered by the absence of the jaws from both the crania, so that there is no means of deciding with certainty, whether they were more or less prognathous than the lower existing races of mankind. And yet, as we have seen, it is more in this respect than any other, that human skulls vary, towards and from, the brutal type--the brain case of an average dolichocephalic European differing far less from that of a Negro, for example, than his jaws do. In the absence of the jaws, then, any judgment on the relations of the fossil skulls to recent Races must be accepted with a certain reservation.

But taking the evidence as it stands, and turning first to the Engis skull, I confess I can find no character in the remains of that cranium which, if it were a recent skull, would give any trustworthy clue as to the Race to which it might appertain. Its contours and measurements agree very well with those of some Australian skulls which I have examined--and especially has it a tendency towards that occipital flattening, to the great extent of which, in some Australian skulls, I have alluded. But all Australian skulls do not present this flattening, and the supraciliary ridge of the Engis skull is quite unlike that of the typical Australians.

On the other hand, its measurements agree equally well with those of some European skulls. And a.s.suredly, 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.

The case of the Neanderthal skull is very different. Under whatever aspect we view this cranium, whether we regard its vertical depression, the enormous thickness of its supraciliary ridges, its sloped occiput, or its long and straight squamosal suture, we meet with ape-like characters, stamping it as the most pithecoid of human crania yet discovered. But Professor Schaaffhausen states ('supra', p. 308), that the cranium, in its present condition, holds 1033.24 cubic centimetres of water, or about 63 cubic inches, and as the entire skull could hardly have held less than an additional 12 cubic inches, its capacity may be estimated at about 75 cubic inches, which is the average capacity given by Morton for Polynesian and Hottentot skulls.

So large a ma.s.s of brain as this, would alone suggest that the pithecoid tendencies, indicated by this skull, did not extend deep into the organization; and this conclusion is borne out by the dimensions of the other bones of the skeleton given by Professor Schaaffhausen, which show that the absolute height and relative proportions of the limbs were quite those of an European of middle stature. The bones are indeed stouter, but this and the great development of the muscular ridges noted by Dr. Schaaffhausen, are characters to be expected in savages. The Patagonians, exposed without shelter or protection to a climate possibly not very dissimilar from that of Europe at the time during which the Neanderthal man lived, are remarkable for the stoutness of their limb bones.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 32.--Ancient Danish skull from a tumulus at Borreby: one-third of the natural size. From a camera lucida drawing by Mr.

Busk.]

In no sense, then, can the Neanderthal bones be regarded as the remains of a human being intermediate between Men and Apes. At most, they demonstrate the existence of a man whose skull may be said to revert somewhat towards the pithecoid type--just as a Carrier, or a Pouter, or a Tumbler, may sometimes put on the plumage of its primitive stock, the 'Columba livia'. And indeed, though truly the most pithecoid of known human skulls, the Neanderthal cranium is by no means so isolated as it appears to be at first, but forms, in reality, the extreme term of a series leading gradually from it to the highest and best developed of human crania. On the one hand, it is closely approached by the flattened Australian skulls, of which I have spoken, from which other Australian forms lead us gradually up to skulls having very much the type of the Engis cranium. And, on the other hand, it is even more closely affined to the skulls of certain ancient people who inhabited Denmark during the 'stone period,' and were probably either contemporaneous with, or later than, the makers of the 'refuse heaps,' or 'Kjokkenmoddings' of that country.

The correspondence between the longitudinal contour of the Neanderthal skull and that of some of those skulls from the tumuli at Borreby, very accurate drawings of which have been made by Mr. Busk, is very close.

The occiput is quite as retreating, the supraciliary ridges are nearly as prominent, and the skull is as low. Furthermore, the Borreby skull resembles the Neanderthal form more closely than any of the Australian skulls do, by the much more rapid retrocession of the forehead. On the other hand, the Borreby skulls are all somewhat broader, in proportion to their length, than the Neanderthal skull, while some attain that proportion of breadth to length (80:100) which const.i.tutes brachycephaly.

In conclusion, I may say, that the fossil remains of Man hitherto discovered do not seem to me to take us appreciably nearer to that lower pithecoid form, by the modification of which he has, probably, become what he is. And considering what is now known of the most ancient races of men; seeing that they fashioned flint axes and flint knives and bone-skewers, of much the same pattern as those fabricated by the lowest savages at the present day, and that we have every reason to believe the habits and modes of living of such people to have remained the same from the time of the Mammoth and the tichorhine Rhinoceros till now, I do not know that this result is other than might be expected.

Where, then, must we look for primaeval Man? Was the oldest 'h.o.m.o sapiens' pliocene or miocene, or yet more ancient? In still older strata do the fossilized bones of an Ape more anthropoid, or a Man more pithecoid, than any yet known await the researches of some unborn paleontologist?

Time will show. But, in the meanwhile, if any form of the doctrine of progressive development is correct, we must extend by long epochs the most liberal estimate that has yet been made of the antiquity of Man.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Decas Collectionis suae craniorum diversarum gentium ill.u.s.trata. Gottingae, 1790-1820.]

[Footnote 2: In a subsequent pa.s.sage, Schmerling remarks upon the occurrence of an incisor tooth 'of enormous size' from the caverns of Engihoul. The tooth figured is somewhat long, but its dimensions do not appear to me to be otherwise remarkable.]

[Footnote 3: The figure of this clavicle measures 5 inches from end to end in a straight line--so that the bone is rather a small than a large one.]

[Footnote 4: ON THE CRANIA OF THE MOST ANCIENT RACES OF MAN. By Professor D. Schaaffhausen, of Bonn. (From Muller's 'Archiv'., 1858, pp. 453.) With Remarks, and original Figures, taken from a Cast of the Neanderthal Cranium. By George Busk, F.R.S., etc. 'Natural History Review'. April, 1861.]

[Footnote 5: 'Verhandl. d. Naturhist.' Vereins der preuss. Rheinlande und Westphalens., xiv. Bonn, 1857.]

[Footnote 6: 'Ib. Correspondenzblatt. No. 2.]

[Footnote 7: This, Mr. Busk has pointed out, is probably the notch for the frontal nerve. 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 the 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.]

[Footnote 8: The numbers in brackets are those which I should a.s.sign to the different measures, as taken from the plaster cast.--G. B.]

[Footnote 9: 'Verh. des Naturhist'. Vereins in Bonn, xiv. 1857. I am indebted to H. v. Meyer for the following remarks on this subject:--]

[Footnote 10: Estimating the facial angle in the way suggested, on the cast I should place it at 64 degrees to 67 degrees.--G. B.]

[Footnote 11: See an excellent Essay by Mr. Church on the Myology of the Orang, in the 'Natural History Review', for 1861.]

[Footnote 12: In no normal human skull does the breadth of the brain-case exceed its length.]

[Footnote 13: See Dr. D. Wilson's valuable paper "On the supposed prevalence of one Cranial Type throughout the American aborigines."-- 'Canadian Journal', vol. ii., 1857.]