(6) The Man of La Naulette: In 1866, André Dupont found in the cavern of La Naulette, valley of the Lesse, Belgium, a fossil lower jaw, or rather, the fragment of a lower jaw, associated with remains of the mammoth and rhinoceros. The fragment was sufficient to show the dentition, and to indicate the absence of a chin. “Its kinship with the man of Neanderthal,” remarks Professor MacCurdy very naïvely, “whose lower jaw could not be found, was evident. It tended to legitimatize the latter, which hitherto had failed of general recognition.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1909, p. 572.)
(7) The Men of Spy: In June of 1886 two nearly complete skeletons, probably of a woman and a man, were discovered by Messrs. Marcel de Puydt and Maximin Lohest in a terrace fronting a cave at Spy in the Province of Namur, Belgium, 47½ feet above the shallow bed of the stream Orneau. The bones were found at a depth of 13 feet below the surface of the terrace. The remains were associated with bones of the rhinoceros (Rhinoceros tichorhinus), the mammoth (Elephas primigenius), and the great bear (Ursus spelaeus). There were also stone implements indicating Mousterian industry, and the position of one of the skeletons shows that the bodies were buried by friends. The present valley of the Orneau was almost completely formed at the time of the burial. The exact age of the bones cannot be determined nor can these cave deposits be correlated with the river drift and the loess. The cultural evidences are said to be Mousterian, and Mousterian culture is assigned by Obermaier to the Fourth, or last, Glacial period.
Prof. Julien Fraipont of the University of Liége announced the discovery of these palæolithic skeletons Aug. 16, 1886. Skeleton No. 1 has weaker bones and is thought to be that of a woman; No. 2 shows signs of strong musculature and is evidently that of a man. Of No. 1 we have the cranial vault, two portions of the upper jaw (with five molars and four other teeth), a nearly complete mandible with all the teeth, a left clavicle, a right humerus, the shaft of the left humerus, a left radius, the heads of two ulnæ, a nearly complete right femur, a complete left tibia, and the right os calcis. Of No. 2 we have the vault of the skull, two portions of the maxilla with teeth, loose teeth belonging to lower jaw, fragments of the scapulæ, the left clavicle, imperfect humeri, the shaft of the right radius, a left femur, the left os calcis, and the left astragalus. The separation of the bones, however, is not yet satisfactory. The jaw of No. 1 is well-preserved, except in the region of the coronoids and condyles, which makes any position we may give it more or less arbitrary. The skull of this specimen is almost the replica of the Neanderthal skull, except that the forehead is lower and more sloping. But No. 1 has a trace of chin prominence and in this it resembles modern skulls. No. 2 has a higher forehead and the cranial vault is higher and more spacious.
In both skeletons the radius and femur show a peculiar curvature, and in both, too, the arms and legs must have been very short. Hence the men of Spy are described as having been only partially erect, and as having had bowed thighs and bent knees. The source of this modification, however, is not a surviving pithecoid atavism, but a non-inheritable adaptation acquired through the habitual attitude or posture maintained in stalking game—“Now we know,” says Dwight, “that this feature, which is certainly an ape-like one, implies simply that the race was one of those with the habit of ‘squatting,’ which implies that the body hangs from the knees, not touching the ground for hours together. As a matter of course we look for this in savage tribes.” (“Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist,” p. 168.) The same may be said of the receding chin, which, as we have seen, is also an acquired adaptation. The same, finally, is true of the prominent brow ridges, which are not pithecoid, but are, as Klaatsch has pointed out, related to the size of the eye sockets, and consequently the result of an adaptation of early palæolithic man to the life of a hunter, a natural sequel of the very marked development of his sense of sight. Similar brow ridges, though not quite so prominent, occur among modern Australian blacks.
Nor are the remains as typically Neanderthaloid as Keith and others (who wish to see in palæolithic men a distinct human species) could desire. No. 1, as we have seen, though almost a replica of the Neanderthal skull-cap, has a trace of chin prominence in the mandible. No. 2, though the chin is recessive, has a higher forehead and higher and more spacious cranial vault than the Neanderthal Man. “On the whole,” says Hrdlička, “it may be said that No. 2, while in some respects still very primitive, represents morphologically a decided step from the Neanderthaloid to the present-day type of the human cranium.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1913, p. 525.)
(8) The Men of Krapina: In the cave, or rather rock shelter, of Krapina, in northern Croatia, beside the small stream Kaprinica which now flows 82 feet below the cave, K. Gorjanovič-Kramberger, Professor of geology and palæontology at the University of Zagreb, found, in the year 1899, ten or twelve skulls in fragments, a large number of teeth, and many other defective parts of skeletons. All told, they represent at least fourteen different individuals. The bones are in a bad state of preservation, and show traces of burning, some of them being calcined. The bones were associated with objects of Mousterian industry, and bones of extinct animals such as Rhinoceros merckii, Ursus spelaeus, Bos primigenius, etc. The aforesaid Rhinoceros is an older type than the Rhinoceros tichorhinus associated with the men of Spy, and implies a hot climate, wherein the Rhinoceros merckii managed to persist for a longer time than in the north. Hence the remains are thought to belong to the last Interglacial period.
In general, the bones show the same racial characteristics as those of Neanderthal and Spy, though they are said to be of a perceptibly more modern type than the latter. They were men of short stature and strong muscular development. “The crania,” says Hrdlička, “were of good size externally, but the brain cavities were probably below the present average. The vault of the skull was of good length and at the same time fairly broad, so that the cephalic index, at least in some of the individuals, was more elevated than usual in the crania of early man.” (Loc. cit., pp. 530, 531.) The reader must take Hrdlička’s use of the word “usual” with “the grain of salt” necessitated in view of the scanty number of specimens whence such inductive generalizations are derived. The pronounced and complete supraorbital arcs characteristic of the Neanderthaloid type occur in this group also, though in a less marked manner. The stone implements are evidence of the intelligence of these men.
(9) The Le Moustier Man: This specimen, Homo mousteriensis Hauseri, was found by Prof. O. Hauser in the “lower Moustier Cave” at Le Moustier in the valley of the Vézère, Department of Dordogne in France, during the March of 1908. It consists of the complete skull and other skeletal parts of a youth of about 15 years. At this age, the sex cannot be determined from the bones alone. Obermaier assigns these bones to the Fourth Glacial period. Prof. George Grant MacCurdy’s anthropological evaluation is the following: “The race characters ... are not so distinct (i.e. at the age of 15 years) as they would be at full maturity; but they point unmistakably to the type of Neanderthal, Spy, and Krapina—the so-called Homo primigenius which now also becomes Homo mousteriensis. It was a rather stocky type, robust and of a low stature. The arms and legs were relatively short, especially the forearm and from the knee down, as is the case among the Eskimo. Ape-like characters are noticeable in the curvature of the radius and of the femur, the latter being also rounder in section than is the case with Homo sapiens. In the retreating forehead, prominent brow ridges, and prognathism (i.e. projection of the jaws) it is approached to some extent by the modern Australian. The industry associated with this skeleton is that typical of the Mousterian epoch.” (Loc. cit., p. 573.) As we have already seen, the so-called ape-like features are simply acquired adaptations to the hunter’s life, and, if inheritable characters, they do not exceed the limits of a varietal mutation. That the Mousterian men were endowed with the same intelligence as ourselves, appears from the evidences of solemn burial which surround the remains of this youth of 15 years, and prove, as Klaatsch points out, that these men of the Glacial period were persuaded of their own immortality. The head reclined on a pillow of earth, which still retains the impression of the youth’s cheek, the body having been laid on its side. Around the corpse are the best examples of the stone implements of the period, the parents having buried their choicest possession with the corpse of their son.
(10) The La Chapelle Man: On August 3, 1908, the Abbés J. and A. Bouyssonie and L. Bardon, assisted by Paul Bouyssonie (a younger brother of the first two), discovered palæolithic human remains, which are also assigned to the Neanderthal group. The locality of the discovery was the village of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, 22 kilometers south of the town of Brive, in the department of Corrèze, in southern France. In the side of a moderate elevation, 200 yards south of the aforesaid village, and beyond the left bank of a small stream, the Sourdoire, there is a cave now known as the Cave of La Chapelle-aux-Saints. It was here, on the above-mentioned date, that the priests discovered the bones of a human skeleton surrounded by unmistakable evidences of solemn burial. “The body lay on its back, with the head to the westward, the latter being surrounded by stones.... About the body were many flakes of quartz and flint, some fragments of ochre, broken animal bones, etc.” (Hrdlička.) Another token of burial is the rectangular pit, in which the remains were found. It is sunk to a depth of 30 to 40 centimeters in the floor of the cavern.
“They (the remains) were covered,” says Prof. G. G. MacCurdy, “by a deposit intact 30 to 40 centimeters thick, consisting of a magma of bone, of stone implements, and of clay. The stone implements belong to a pure Mousterian industry. While some pieces suggest a vague survival of Acheulian implements (i.e. from the cool latter half of the Third Interglacial period), others presage the coming of the Aurignacian (close of last Glacial period). Directly over the human skull were the foot bones, still in connection, of a bison—proof that the piece had been placed there with the flesh still on, and proof, too, that the deposit had not been disturbed. Two hearths were noted also, and the fact that there were no implements of bone, the industry differing in this respect from that of La Quina and Petit-Puymoyen (Charente), as well as at Wildkirchli, Switzerland.