Lectures and Essays

by Thomas Henry Huxley

The extreme length of the skull is 7.7 inches. Its extreme breadth, which corresponds very nearly with the interval between the parietal protuberances, is not more than 5.4 inches. The proportion of the length to the breadth is therefore very nearly as 100 to 70. If a line be drawn from the point at which the brow curves in towards the root of the nose, and which is called the 'glabella' ('a') (Figure 22), to the occipital protuberance ('b'), and the distance to the highest point of the arch of the skull be measured perpendicularly from this line, it will be found to be 4.75 inches. Viewed from above, Figure 23, A, the forehead presents an evenly rounded curve, and passes into the contour of the sides and back of the skull, which describes a tolerably regular elliptical curve.

The front view (Figure 23, B) shows that the roof of the skull was very regularly and elegantly arched in the transverse direction, and that the transverse diameter was a little less below the parietal protuberances, than above them. The forehead cannot be called narrow in relation to the rest of the skull, nor can it be called a retreating forehead; on the contrary, the antero-posterior contour of the skull is well arched, so that the distance along that contour, from the nasal depression to the occipital protuberance, measures about 13.75 inches. The transverse arc of the skull, measured from one auditory foramen to the other, across the middle of the sagittal suture, is about 13 inches. The sagittal suture itself is 5.5 inches long.

The supraciliary prominences or brow-ridges (on each side of 'a', Figure 22) are well, but not excessively, developed, and are separated by a median depression. Their principal elevation is disposed so obliquely that I judge them to be due to large frontal sinuses.

If a line joining the glabella and the occipital protuberance ('a', 'b', Figure 22) be made horizontal, no part of the occipital region projects more than 1/10th of an inch behind the posterior extremity of that line, and the upper edge of the auditory foramen ('c') is almost in contact with a line drawn parallel with this upon the outer surface of the skull.

A transverse line drawn from one auditory foramen to the other traverses, as usual, the forepart of the occipital foramen. The capacity of the interior of this fragmentary skull has not been ascertained.

The history of the Human remains from the cavern in the Neanderthal may best be given in the words of their original describer, Dr Schaaffhausen,* as translated by Mr. Busk. ([Footnote] *ON THE CRANIA OF THE MOST ANCIENT RACES OF MAN. By Professor D. Schaaffhausen, of Bonn. (From Muller's 'Archiv.', 1858, pp. 453.) With Remarks, and original Figures, taken from a Cast of the Neanderthal Cranium. By George Busk, F.R.S., etc. 'Natural History Review'. April, 1861.)

"In the early part of the year 1857, a human skeleton was discovered in a limestone cave in the Neanderthal, near Hochdal, between Dusseldorf and Elberfeld. Of this, however, I was unable to procure more than a plaster cast of the cranium, taken at Elberfeld, from which I drew up an account of its remarkable conformation, which was, in the first instance, read on the 4th of February, 1857, at the meeting of the Lower Rhine Medical and Natural History Society, at Bonn.* ([Footnote] *'Verhandl. d. Naturhist.' Vereins der Preuss. Rheinlande und Westphalens., xiv. Bonn, 1857.)

Subsequently Dr. Fuhlrott, to whom science is indebted for the preservation of these bones, which were not at first regarded as human, and into whose possession they afterwards came, brought the cranium from Elberfeld to Bonn, and entrusted it to me for more accurate anatomical examination. At the General Meeting of the Natural History Society of Prussian Rhineland and Westphalia, at Bonn, on the 2nd of June, 1857,* Dr Fuhlrott himself gave a full account of the locality, and of the circumstances under which the discovery was made. ([Footnote] *'Ib. Correspondenzblatt. No. 2.)

He was of opinion that the bones might be regarded as fossil; and in coming to this conclusion, he laid especial stress upon the existence of dendritic deposits, with which their surface was covered, and which were first noticed upon them by Professor Meyer. To this communication I appended a brief report on the results of my anatomical examination of the bones. The conclusions at which I arrived were:—1st. That the extraordinary form of the skull was due to a natural conformation hitherto not known to exist, even in the most barbarous races. 2nd. That these remarkable human remains belonged to a period antecedent to the time of the Celts and Germans, and were in all probability derived from one of the wild races of North-western Europe, spoken of by Latin writers; and which were encountered as autochthones by the German immigrants. And 3rdly. That it was beyond doubt that these human relics were traceable to a period at which the latest animals of the diluvium still existed; but that no proof of this assumption, nor consequently of their so-termed 'fossil' condition, was afforded by the circumstances under which the bones were discovered.

(FIGURE 23.—The Engis skull viewed from above (A) and in front (B).)