Page:Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man.djvu/103

Rh which, according to Professor Schaaffhausen, had the precise proportions found in man, although they were much stouter than ordinary human bones, there could be no reason for ascribing this cranium to anything but a man; while the strength and development of the muscular ridges of the limb-bones are characters in perfect accordance with those exhibited, in a minor degree, by the bones of such hardy savages, exposed to a rigorous climate, as the Patagonians.

'The Neanderthal cranium 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. Idiotcy 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; and, furthermore, I shall proceed to show that the latter manifests but an extreme degree of a stage of degradation exhibited, as a natural condition, by the crania of certain races of mankind.

'Mr. Busk drew my attention, some time ago, to the resemblance between some of the skulls taken from tumuli of the stone period at Borreby in Denmark, of which Mr. Busk possesses numerous accurate figures, and the Neanderthal cranium. One of the Borreby skulls in particular (fig. 5, p. 86) has remarkably projecting superciliary ridges, a retreating forehead, a low flattened vertex, and an occiput which shelves upward and forward. But the skull is relatively higher and broader, or more brachycephalic, the sagittal suture longer, and the superciliary ridges less projecting, than in the Neanderthal skull. Nevertheless, there is, without doubt, much resemblance in character between the two skulls,—a circumstance which is the more interesting, since the other Borreby skulls have better foreheads and less prominent superciliary ridges, and exhibit altogether a higher conformation.

'The Borreby skulls belong to the stone period of Denmark, and the people to whom they appertained were probably either contemporaneous with, or later than, the makers of the "refuse-heaps" of that country. In other words, they were subsequent to the last great physical changes of Europe, and were contemporaries of the urus and bison, not of the Elephas primigenius, Rhinoceros tichorhinus, and Hyæna spelæa.

'Supposing for a moment, what is not proven, that the Neanderthal skull belonged to a race allied to the Borreby people and was as modern as they, it would be separated by as great a distance of time as of anatomical character from the Engis skull, and the possibility of its belonging to a distinct race from the latter might reasonably appear to be greatly heightened.