Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/45

Rh authenticated record of the occurrence of human remains in the higher river-drift that has yet been brought forward in England.' (J. Allen Brown). From the anatomical characters Prof. Sollas thinks it highly probable that the remains were in a natural position and of the same age as the gravels, and not merely interred in them at a later (Neolithic) period, as suggested by Sir J. Evans and Prof. Boyd Dawkins (E.T. Newton, Meeting Geolog. Soc. May 22, 1895)."

It is certainly to be regretted that these remains were not submitted to the scientific examination of Mr. Newton until about seven years after they had been discovered. The very completeness of the skeleton has tended to throw doubts upon it; for it has been urged that, as we do not possess so complete a skeleton of the much stronger and tougher bones of the extinct animals, it is not likely that we should find one in the case of their human contemporaries. The answer to that can only be given by the circumstances of the discovery, and that answer appears to be sufficient, though not so complete as it would have been if the discovery had been made known earlier.

Small fragments of human bone have been found in other circumstances, which may possibly prove to be remains of palæolithic Man, and may tend in time to accumulate a sufficient body of evidence to afford the materials for forming a clear idea of what he was like. One such fragment was found in 1882 at Bury St. Edmunds, by Mr. Henry Prigg; and an ingenious projection of the fragment recently made by Mr. Worthington Smith shows that it coincides in its contour with the Neanderthal and Spy skulls already mentioned. A frontal bone found at Strata Florida, in Wales, in 1888, has also been investigated by Mr. W. Smith, and presents some resemblance to those types, though he is not inclined to claim any great antiquity for it.

The same excellent writer, in his work entitled 'Man, the Primeval Savage,' has essayed to draw a picture of his subject, from which I can only borrow a few touches:—"Man's voice at that time was probably not an articulate voice, but a jabber, a shout, a roar.... The human creatures differ in aspect from the generality of men, women, and children of the present day; they are somewhat shorter in stature, bigger in belly, broader in the back, and less upright.... They are much more hairy than