[51]. Fraipont et Lohest, Arch. de Biol., vii., 1887, p. 623.
Other Finds.
Since 1886 new discoveries of human remains have been made at short intervals in various parts of Europe, and these range in date from historic to prehistoric times, the oldest skulls having naturally the most interest.
The very careful studies of these remains that have been made by numerous anatomists are of extreme interest to students, and their general conclusions will be found summarised in certain text-books; but the details are of a somewhat technical character. Suffice it to say that even as far back as the palæolithic period, when men used only chipped stone implements, there were several human varieties in Europe; and, though in their anatomical characters they were in some respects more animal-like than existing Europeans, they were scarcely more so than certain non-European races of the present day—such, for example, as the Australian. In all cases the skulls were unmistakably those of true men, but on the whole it may be said that the points in which they differed from more recent Europeans betrayed “lower” characters.
In order that the reader may appreciate what rapid progress is now being made in this direction, we give a brief account of the most recent discoveries of fossil man.
Homo Heidelbergensis.
In October, 1907, a lower jaw was found in a deposit of sand at Mauer, near Heidelberg. The teeth are typically human; but the chinless jaw, with its thick body, very broad and short ascending portion, and other special points, surpasses in its combination of primitive characters all known recent and ancient human jaws, thus it is a generalised type from which they can readily be derived. It has been suggested that, as the jaw is neither distinctly human nor anthropoid, it is a survival from that remote ancestor from which there branched off on the one side the genus Homo, and on the other the genera of anthropoid apes. Dr. O. Schoetensack regards Homo Heidelbergensis as of early Pleistocene or late Pliocene age; but Dr. E. Werth[[52]] relegates it to the middle of the Ice Age.
[52]. Globus, xcvi., 1909, p. 229.
Homo Primigenius.
In March, 1908, Herr Otto Hauser found a skeleton of a young man in the upper valley of the Vézère, Dordogne; the skull had a receding forehead, prominent jaws, and large orbits, surmounted by massive brow-ridges; the limbs were short. It was a distinct burial with associated objects which prove it to be of Mousterian age (p. 75, n. 2).