Human Origins

by S. Laing

This type is also interesting because, although the oldest, it shows occasional signs of survival through the later palæolithic and neolithic ages down to recent times. The skulls of St. Manserg, a mediæval bishop of Toul, and of Lykke, a scientific Dane of the last century, closely resemble the Neanderthal skull in type, and can scarcely be accounted for except as instances of that atavism, or reversion to old ancestral forms, which occasionally crops up both in the human and in animal species. It is thought by many that these earliest palæolithic men may be the ancestors of the tall, fair, long-headed race of Northern Europe; and Professor Virchow states that in the Frisian islands off the North German coast, where the original Teutonic type has been least affected by intermixture, the Frisian skull unmistakably approaches the Neanderthal and Spy type. But if this be so, the type must have persisted for an immense time, for, as Huxley observes, "the difference is abysmal between these rude and brutal savages, and the comely, fair, tall, and long-headed races of historical times and of civilized nations." At the present day the closest resemblance to the Neanderthal type is afforded by the skulls of certain tribes of native Australians.

Next in antiquity to the Canstadt type, though still in the early age when the mammoth and cave-bear were abundant, and the implements and weapons still very rude, a totally different type appears, that of Cro-Magnon. The name is taken from the skeleton of an old man, which was found entire in the rock shelter of Cro-Magnon in the valley of the Vezere, near the station of Moustier, which gave the type of some of the oldest and rudest stone implements of the age of the mammoth. The skeleton was found in the inner extremity of the shelter, buried under a mass of débris and fallen blocks of limestone, and associated with bones of the mammoth and implements of the Moustier type, so that there can be no doubt, of its extreme antiquity.

The skull, like that of the Canstadt type, is dolichocephalic, but in all other respects totally different. The brow-ridges and generally bestial characters have disappeared; the brain is of fair or even large capacity; the stature tall; the forehead fairly high and well-rounded; the face large; the nose straight, the jaws prognathous, and the chin prominent.

This type is found in a number of localities, especially in the south-west of France, Belgium, and Italy, and it continued through the quaternary into the neolithic period, being found in the caves of the reindeer age, and in the dolmens. It is thought by some ethnologists to present analogies to the Berber type of North Africa, and to that of the extinct Guanches of the Canary Islands.

Coexistent with or a little later than this type is one of a totally different character both from it and from that of Canstadt, viz. that of a brachycephalic race of very short stature, closely resembling the modern Lapps. This has been subdivided into the several races of Furfooz, Grenelle, and Truchere, according to the degree of brachycephaly and other features; but practically we may look on these as the results of local variations or intercrossings, and consider all the short, brachycephalic races as forming a third type sharply opposed to those of Canstadt and Cro-Magnon.

We have thus distinct evidence that the Quaternary fauna in Europe comprised at least three distinct races of palæolithic men, and there is a good deal of evidence for the existence of a fourth distinct race in America with features differing from any of the European races, and resembling those of the native American men in recent times. But this affords absolutely no clue as to the existence of other palæolithic types in Asia, Africa, India, Australia, and other countries, forming quite three-fourths of the inhabited world, in which totally different races now exist and have existed since the commencement of history, who cannot possibly have been derived from any of the European types within the lapse of time comprised within the Quaternary period.

The Negro race is the most striking instance of this, for it differs essentially from any other in many particulars, which are all in the direction of an approximation towards the pithecoid type.

The size of the brain is less, and a larger proportion of it is in the hinder half; the muzzle much more projecting, and the nose flatter; the fore-arm longer; and various other anatomical peculiarities all point in the same direction, though the type remains perfectly human in the main features. It diverges, however, from the known types of Quaternary man in Europe and from the American type, as completely as it does from those of modern man, and it is impossible to suppose that it can be derived from them, or they from it, in the way of direct descent. If there is any truth in evolution, the Negro type must be one of the oldest, as nearest to the animal ancestor, and this ancestor must be placed very far back beyond the Quaternary period, to allow sufficient time for the development of such entirely different and improved races.

This will be the more evident if we consider the case of the pygmy Negritos and Negrillos, who are spread over a wide tropical belt of half the circumference of the earth, from New Guinea to Western Africa. They seem originally to have occupied a large part of this belt, and to have been driven into dense forests, high mountains, and isolated islands, by taller and stronger races, such as the true Negro, the Melanesian, and the Malay, and probably represent therefore a more primitive race. But they had already existed long enough to develop various sub-types among themselves, for although always approaching more to the Negro type than any other, the Asiatic Negrito and the African Negrillo and Bushman differ in the length of skull, colour, hair, prognathism, and other particulars. But they all agree in the one respect which makes it impossible to associate them with any known Quaternary type, either as ancestors or descendants, viz. that of dwarfish stature. As a rule the Bushmen and Negritos do not average above four feet six inches, and the females three inches less; while in some cases they are as low as four feet—i.e. they are quite a foot shorter than the average of the higher races, and nearly a foot and a half below that of the Quaternary Cro-Magnon and Mentone skeletons, and of the modern Swedes and Scotchmen. And they are small and slightly built in proportion, and by no means deformed specimens of humanity. Professor Flower suggests that they may be "the primitive type from which the African Negroes on the one hand, and the Melanesians on the other have sprung." In any case they must certainly have existed as a distinct type in the Quaternary period, and probably much earlier. It is remarkable also that the very oldest human implements known get continually smaller as they get older, until those of the Miocene, from Thenay and Puy Courny, are almost too small for the hands even of Stanley's pygmies. If mere guesses were worth anything, it would be rather a plausible one that the original Adam and Eve were something between a monkey and an Andaman islander.

In concluding this summary of the evidence as to Quaternary man, I must remark on the analogy which it presents to that of the historical period dealt with in the earlier chapters. In each case we have distinct evidence carrying us a long way back; in that of the historical period for 7000 years; in that of the Quaternary for a vastly longer time, which, if the effects of high eccentricity, postulated by Croll's theory, had any influence on the two last glacial periods, cannot be less than 200,000 years, an estimate which is confirmed by the amount of geological work and changes of flora and fauna which have taken place. In each case also the positive evidence takes us back to a state of things which gives the most incontrovertible proof of long previous existence; in the historical case the evidence of a dense population and high civilization already long prevailing when written records began; in the case of palæolithic man, that of his existence in the same state of rude civilization in the most remote regions, and over the greater part of the habitable earth, his almost uniform progression upwards from a lower to a higher civilization, and his existing at the beginning of the Quaternary period already differentiated into races as remote from one another as the typical races of the present day. These facts of themselves afford an irresistible presumption that the origin of the human race must be sought much further back, and it remains to consider what positive evidence has been adduced in support of this presumption.