A Short History of the WorldWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
History
A Short History of the World
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
World history
It is not until we come to sands that are almost a quarter of a million
years old that we find any other particle of a sub- human being. But
there are plenty of implements, and they are steadily improving in
quality as we read on through the record. They are no longer clumsy
Eoliths; they are now shapely instruments made with considerable skill.
_And they are much bigger than the similar implements afterwards made
by true man._ Then, in a sandpit at Heidelberg, appears a single
quasi-human jaw-bone, a clumsy jaw-bone, absolutely chinless, far
heavier than a true human jaw-bone and narrower, so that it is
improbable the creature’s tongue could have moved about for articulate
speech. On the strength of this jaw-bone, scientific men suppose this
creature to have been a heavy, almost human monster, possibly with huge
limbs and hands, possibly with a thick felt of hair, and they call it
the Heidelberg Man.
A THEORETICAL RESTORATION OF THE PITHECANTHROPUS ERECTUS BY PROF. RUTOT
A THEORETICAL RESTORATION OF THE PITHECANTHROPUS ERECTUS BY PROF. RUTOT
This jaw-bone is, I think, one of the most tormenting objects in the
world to our human curiosity. To see it is like looking through a
defective glass into the past and catching just one blurred and
tantalizing glimpse of this Thing, shambling through the bleak
wilderness, clambering to avoid the sabre- toothed tiger, watching the
woolly rhinoceros in the woods. Then before we can scrutinize the
monster, he vanishes. Yet the soil is littered abundantly with the
indestructible implements he chipped out for his uses.
THE HEIDELBERG MAN
THE HEIDELBERG MAN
The Heidelberg Man, as modelled under the supervision of Prof. Rutot
Still more fascinatingly enigmatical are the remains of a creature
found at Piltdown in Sussex in a deposit that may indicate an age
between a hundred and a hundred and fifty thousand years ago, though
some authorities would put these particular remains back in time to
before the Heidelberg jaw- bone. Here there are the remains of a thick
sub-human skull much larger than any existing ape’s, and a
chimpanzee-like jaw-bone which may or may not belong to it, and, in
addition, a bat-shaped piece of elephant bone evidently carefully
manufactured, through which a hole had apparently been bored. There is
also the thigh-bone of a deer with cuts upon it like a tally. That is
all.
THE PILTDOWN SKULL, AS RECONSTRUCTED FROM ORIGINAL FRAGMENT
THE PILTDOWN SKULL, AS RECONSTRUCTED FROM ORIGINAL FRAGMENT
_Nat. Hist. Mus._
What sort of beast was this creature which sat and bored holes in
bones?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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