A Manual of the Antiquity of Man

by J. P. MacLean

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.

Fig. 10.
Side View of the Human Skull from Feldhofner Cave, in the Neanderthal, near Düsseldorf.

a. The superciliary ridge and glabella.
c. The apex of the lambdoidal suture.
b. The coronal suture.
d. The occipital protuberance.

The cranium is thus described by Professor Huxley. "It has an extreme length of 8 inches, while its breadth is only 5¾ inches, or in other words, its length is to its breadth as 100 is to 72. It is exceedingly depressed, measuring only about 3.4 inches from the glabello-occipital line to the vertex. The longitudinal arc, measured in the same way as in the Engis skull, is 12 inches; the transverse arc cannot be exactly ascertained, in consequence of the absence of the temporal bones, but was probably about the same, and certainly exceeded 10¼ inches. The horizontal circumference is 23 inches. But this great circumference arises largely from the vast development of the superciliary ridges, though the perimeter of the brain case itself is not small. The large superciliary ridges give the forehead a far more retreating appearance than its internal contour would bear out. To an anatomical eye the posterior part of the skull is even more striking than the anterior. The occipital protuberance occupies the extreme posterior end of the skull, when the glabello-occipital line is made horizontal, and so far from any part of the occipital region extending beyond it, this region of the skull slopes obliquely upward and forward, so that the lambdoidal suture is situated well upon the upper surface of the cranium. At the same time, notwithstanding the great length of the skull, the sagittal suture is remarkably short (4½ inches) and the squamosal suture is very straight."[38] ... "The cranium, in its present condition, contains about sixty-three English cubic inches of water. As the entire skull could hardly have held less than twelve cubic inches more, its minimum capacity may be estimated at seventy-five cubic inches.... It has certainly not undergone compression, and, in reply to the suggestion that the skull is that of an idiot, it may be urged that the onus probandi lies with those who adopt the hypothesis. Idiocy is compatible with very various forms and capacities of the cranium, but I know of none which present the least resemblance to the Neanderthal skull."[39]

Professor Huxley describes this skull to be the most ape-like of all the human skulls he has ever seen, and in its examination ape-like characters are met with in all its parts.[40] Buchner says that the face of the Neanderthal man must have presented a frightfully bestial and savage, or ape-like expression (see frontispiece).[41] Professor Schaaffhausen and Mr. Busk have stated that "this skull is the most brutal of all known human skulls, resembling those of the apes not only in the prodigious development of the superciliary prominences and the forward extension of the orbits, but still more in the depressed form of the brain-case, in the straightness of the squamosal suture, and in the complete retreat of the occiput forward and upward, from the superior occipital ridges."[42]

Professor Schaaffhausen and Dr. Buchner regarded this skull as a race-type, and Professor Huxley has said "that it truly forms only the extreme member of a series leading by slow degrees to the highest and best developed forms of human skulls."[43]

That this skull is a race-type is evident from the fact that it is not an isolated case. The fragment of the skull from the loess of the Rhine (Alsace), by its depressed forehead and strongly projecting superciliary arches, greatly resembles the Neanderthal skull. The skull from the calcareous tuff of Constatt, in its low, narrow forehead and strong superciliary arches, resembles the Neanderthal.[44] The cranium found in bone breccia, in Cochrane's Cave (Gibraltar), "resembles, in all essential particulars, including its great thickness, the far-famed Neanderthal skull. Its discovery adds immensely to the scientific value of the Neanderthal specimen, if only as showing that the latter does not represent, as many have hitherto supposed, a mere individual peculiarity, but that it may have been characteristic of a race extending from the Rhine to the Pillars of Hercules."[45] In speaking of the Neanderthal skull, Professor Schaaffhausen says, "It is worthy of notice that a similar, although smaller projection of the superciliary arches has generally been found in the skulls of savage races.... The remarkably small skull from the graves on the island of Moën, examined by Professor Eschricht; the two human skulls, described by Dr. Kutorga, from the government of Minsk (Russia), one of which, especially, shows a great resemblance to the Neanderthal skull; the human skeleton found near Plau, in Mecklenburg, in a very ancient grave, in a squatting position, ... the skull of which indicates a very distant period, when man stood on a very low grade of development;" and other similar discoveries near Mecklenburg, their skulls likewise presenting short, retreating foreheads and projecting eyebrows.[46]

Professor Huxley considers that the Borreby skulls, belonging to the stone age of Denmark, "show a great resemblance to the Neanderthal skull, a resemblance which is manifested in the depression of the cranium, the receding forehead, the contracted occiput and the prominent superciliary ridges."[47]

Human Skull of Arno.—The human skull, found by Professor Cocchi in the valley of the Arno, near Florence, in diluvial clay, together with various bones of extinct species of animals, is considered by Carl Vogt to be of like antiquity with the Engis and Neanderthal skulls.[48]