Of the early ancestral forms, that is, those which were rather distinctly man-apes, two will be very briefly referred to. One of these, known as Pithecanthropus erectus, was a remarkable creature whose partial skeleton, consisting of the upper part of a skull, lower jaw, several teeth, and a thigh bone, was found in early Quaternary deposits in Java in 1891. It was certainly a man-ape or possibly ape-man of low order, about 51/2 feet high. The skull has a low crown, very receding forehead, and prominent brow ridges, but the brain capacity is 850 cubic centimeters, as compared to 500 cubic centimeters in ordinary higher apes, and nearly 1,500 cubic centimeters in the average modern man. The very recently extinct very low-type aborigines of Tasmania had a skull capacity of 1,199 cubic centimeters.
In 1907 the lower jaw of an anthropoid or manlike ape set with rather human teeth was found associated with very crude stone implements seventy-five feet below the surface in river-deposited sand in Germany. It is of either early or middle Glacial time and quite certainly represents a lower order creature than the oldest Paleolithic man as described below.
Many bones and implements of Paleolithic man (see [above table]) have been found mainly in river gravels and caves. The relative ages of Paleolithic human bones and implements are best determined by the associated fossil animals. Thus the most ancient truly human fossils are found directly associated with bones of very old types of elephants, rhinoceroses, and hippopotamuses which are definitely known to have lived during middle or early middle Glacial (Quaternary) time corresponding to early Paleolithic time. A very conservative estimate would make the age of such very old human remains at least 150,000 to 250,000 years because the Ice Age was at least 500,000 years long. In a later human stage there are many associations with extinct animals like an older type of mammoth, cave bear, cave hyena, and others of later Glacial time estimated at 50,000 to 150,000 years ago. Last of all was the latest Paleolithic stage corresponding to the close of the Ice Age, the human remains of which are found associated with reindeer and the latest mammoths which roamed in great numbers across Europe. This was probably not more than 30,000 to 50,000 years ago.
Paleolithic man is so called because he fashioned stone weapons and implements. The structure of skull and skeleton shows him to have been a low-type savage, something over five feet high on the average, with a forward stooping carriage. The average Paleolithic brain was not greatly inferior in size to that of modern civilized man, but it was not so highly organized and occupied a thick skull with much lower forehead and heavy brow ridges. The bushmen of Australia and the recently extinct Tasmanians are the nearest modern resemblances. Many fine specimens of Paleolithic man have been found, especially in cave deposits. That he was an expert hunter is proved by the great accumulation of bones of now extinct animals found in and about his haunts or camps, bones representing at least 100,000 horses having been found around a single camp site!
Fig. 68.—Comparison of skulls: a, Paleolithic (Neanderthal) man; b, modern man. (After Woodward, British Museum.)
Only two among the many known Paleolithic man localities will be briefly described. In the Perigord district of southwestern France a number of caves contain human relics ranging in age from early to late Paleolithic. Of special interest among these relics are fishhooks made of bone, and crude sketches of animals such as the mammoth and reindeer now extinct in that region. The Aurignac cave, also in France, was no doubt a family or tribal burial place. Seventeen Paleolithic human skeletons, associated with bones of extinct animals and crude art works, were found in the cave. Near the entrance there were ashes and charcoal mixed with burned and split bones of extinct animals. Certain of the caves occupied by late Paleolithic man have their walls decorated with sketches and even colored pictures. These are, therefore, the oldest known art galleries. An excellent example is the cave at Altamira in northern Spain. “As we glance at the pictures one of the first things to impress us is the excellence of the drawing, the proportions and postures being unusually good.... The next observation may be that, in spite of this perfection of technique, there is no perspective composition—that is, no attempt to combine or group the figures.... It is also clear that the work of many different artists is represented, covering a considerable period of time. The walls show traces of many other paintings that were erased to make way for new work.” (Wissler.)