Page:Palæolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in Europe.djvu/255

Rh genus already has when walking on the ground—it would, on account of the close relation existing between form and function of the femur, be hardly imaginable that this bone could be different from that of man in important characters. In the opinion of Manouvrier, Keith, and myself, there might therefore exist a form, the skull of which had still many simian peculiarities, whilst the femur was to be distinguished from the human bone in quite subordinate and mechanically unimportant characters only." (Scientific Transactions, vol. vi., 2nd series, p. 9.)

With regard to the above notice of Pithecanthropus erectus there are only two points on which I now wish to make a few remarks :—

(1) The femur, whether or not it belonged to the individual who owned the skull, proves conclusively that a being existed in Java towards the close of the Pliocene period which had then assumed the erect posture. This deduction is of the greatest importance as a factor in the problem of human evolution, because it shows that at this date the upper limbs had already been relieved of their locomotive functions. The further inference, that the being was at least to some extent a toolmaker, is also legitimate, although none of his handicraft works have been as yet identified. Some day it may be shown that the Java man and "eoliths" belong to the same geological horizon.

(2) The second point is that the Java skull is much less in size than any of those of Palæolithic races hitherto found in Europe, and as the Heidelberg mandible is the largest known, there are no grounds for supposing that the Java man belonged to the same race as the giant of Heidelberg. Hence the two must be provisionally classified as representatives of two distinct races. The difference between the Java skull and those of the Neanderthal-Spy race will be better appreciated by the annexed comparison of the length-breadth measurements of the former with those of one or two of the latter.