The Antiquity of Man

by Sir Charles Lyell

(FIGURE 6. OUTLINES OF THE SKULL FROM THE NEANDERTHAL,
OF AN AUSTRALIAN SKULL FROM PORT ADELAIDE, AND OF THE
SKULL FROM THE CAVE OF ENGIS, DRAWN TO THE SAME ABSOLUTE
LENGTH, IN ORDER THE BETTER TO CONTRAST THEIR PROPORTIONS.
a. The glabella.
b. The occipital protuberance, or the point on the exterior
of each skull which corresponds roughly with the attachment
of the tentorium, or with the inferior boundary of the
posterior cerebral lobes.
e. The position of the auditory foramen of the Engis skull.)

"The marked resemblances between the ancient skulls and their modern Australian analogues, however, have a profound interest, when it is recollected that the stone axe is as much the weapon and the implement of the modern as of the ancient savage; that the former turns the bones of the kangaroo and of the emu to the same account as the latter did the bones of the deer and the urus; that the Australian heaps up the shells of devoured shellfish in mounds which represent the "refuse-heaps" or "Kjokkenmodding," of Denmark; and, finally, that, on the other side of Torres Straits, a race akin to the Australians are among the few people who now build their houses on pile-works, like those of the ancient Swiss lakes.

"That this amount of resemblance in habit and in the conditions of existence is accompanied by as close a resemblance in cranial configuration, illustrates on a great scale that what Cuvier demonstrated of the animals of the Nile valley is no less true of men; circumstances remaining similar, the savage varies little more, it would seem, than the ibis or the crocodile, especially if we take into account the enormous extent of the time over which our knowledge of man now extends, as compared with that measured by the duration of the sepulchres of Egypt.

"Finally, the comparatively large cranial capacity of the Neanderthal skull, overlaid though it may be by pithecoid bony walls, and the completely human proportions of the accompanying limb-bones, together with the very fair development of the Engis skull, clearly indicate that the first traces of the primordial stock whence Man has proceeded need no longer be sought, by those who entertain any form of the doctrine of progressive development, in the newest Tertiaries; but that they may be looked for in an epoch more distant from the age of the Elephas primigenius than that is from us."

The two skulls which form the subject of the preceding comments and illustrations have given rise to nearly an equal amount of surprise for opposite reasons; that of Engis because being so unequivocally ancient, it approached so near to the highest or Caucasian type; that of the Neanderthal, because, having no such decided claims to antiquity, it departs so widely from the normal standard of humanity. Professor Huxley's observation regarding the wide range of variation, both as to shape and capacity, in the skulls of so pure a race as the native Australian, removes to no small extent this supposed anomaly, assuming what though not proved is very probable, that both varieties co-existed in the Pleistocene period in Western Europe.

As to the Engis skull, we must remember that although associated with the elephant, rhinoceros, bear, tiger, and hyaena, all of extinct species, it nevertheless is also accompanied by a bear, stag, wolf, fox, beaver, and many other quadrupeds of species still living. Indeed many eminent palaeontologists, and among them Professor Pictet, think that, numerically considered, the larger portion of the mammalian fauna agrees specifically with that of our own period, so that we are scarcely entitled to feel surprised if we find human races of the Pleistocene epoch undistinguishable from some living ones. It would merely tend to show that Man has been as constant in his osteological characters as many other mammalia now his contemporaries. The expectation of always meeting with a lower type of human skull, the older the formation in which it occurs, is based on the theory of progressive development, and it may prove to be sound; nevertheless we must remember that as yet we have no distinct geological evidence that the appearance of what are called the inferior races of mankind has always preceded in chronological order that of the higher races.

It is now admitted that the differences between the brain of the highest races of Man and that of the lowest,* though less in degree, are of the same order as those which separate the human from the simian brain; and the same rule holds good in regard to the shape of the skull.

(* "Natural History Review" 1861 page 8.)

The average Negro skull differs from that of the European in having a more receding forehead, more prominent superciliary ridges, and more largely developed prominences and furrows for the attachment of muscles; the face also, and its lines, are larger proportionally. The brain is somewhat less voluminous on the average in the lower races of mankind, its convolutions rather less complicated, and those of the two hemispheres more symmetrical, in all which points an approach is made to the simian type. It will also be seen, by reference to the late Dr. Morton's works, and by the foregoing statements of Professor Huxley, that the range of size or capacity between the highest and lowest human brain is greater than that between the highest simian and lowest human brain; but the Neanderthal skull, although in several respects it is more ape-like than any human skull previously discovered, is, in regard to volume, by no means contemptible.