ral features of resemblance between the Australian, Neanderthal, and ancient Danish crania but it appears to me, judging from the figures (31 and 32) in the deeply philosopliical work, 'Man's Place in Nature,' that a closer resemblance is assumed than really exists. No one would have any hesitation in admitting that the Borreby skull, represented under one of the figures cited, is strictly human,—nay, from what I have seen myself, I have no hesitation in saying that precisely the same cranial conformation is often repeated in the present day; but it has yet to be shown that any skulls hitherto found are more than approximately similar to the one under consideration.
The proposition at present contended for is apparently invalidated by the fact that, among certain species of animals—notably those under domestication—skulls very dissimilar from each other may be found. It is, therefore, to be apprehended that,'however clearly the Neanderthal fossil may be shown to be inadmissible into the human species, an attempt will be made to set aside the consequent conclusion by an appeal to the fact alluded to. But this I contend is not a case in point, as will be evident after a moment's reflection on the various breeds of the Dog—the best known of our domesticated species. These breeds, so remarkably differentiated by cranial peculiarities, are artificial, whereas the varieties of mankind are natural. The dissimilar skulls met with in the former are merely striking illustrations of organic or structural modifiability, produced by what Darwin calls Natural Selection, but nothing more.
Again, some weight seems to be due to the consideration that the human species (in which I include all the existing races of man) is characterized by a great variety of skulls. We have abundant examples affording characters which closely link together the most dissimilar forms, so that it is impossible to draw a line of demarcation between the extremes of dolichocephaly and brachycephaly,[1] or between the lofty forehead of Indo-Europeans and the depressed one of the Australian. Nay, the most degraded race we are acquainted with—the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands—may be strictly regarded as closely affined by cranial conformation to the highest intellectual races. It might, therefore, be urged that the Neanderthal skull is simply an aberrant form, but which is, nevertheless, inseparably linked on to the Indo-European type. If sufficient has not yet been adduced to dispel this idea, the following additional evidences, referring to the particular parts of the bones composing the fossil cranium, will, it is thought, be deemed fully adequate for the purpose.
Commencing with the Frontal.—Fuhlrott and Huxley have satisfactorily shown that this bone is furnished with large frontal sinuses; and apjiarently they regard these as the cause of the excessive prominency of the superciliary ridges. It may be reasonably doubted, however, that this is the case. Frontal sinuses, it is well known, do not always coexist with prominent brow-ridges, as, for example, in the Australian and the Chimpanzee: on the other hand, the former may exist without being associated with any more than an ordinary de
- ↑ Professor Retzins distinguished long skulls, and short or round skulls, respectively by the names dolichocephalic and brachycephalic.
