Prehistoric manDuckworth, W. L. H. (Wynfrid Laurence Henry)
History
Prehistoric man
Duckworth, W. L. H. (Wynfrid Laurence Henry)
Prehistoric peoples
Again, it is well to enquire whether any other evidence of degeneration
exists in association with the men of the Neanderthal type. The only
other possible source is that provided by the implements. This is
dangerous ground, but the opinion must be expressed that there is some
reason to believe that Mousterian implements (which rather than any other
mark the presence of the Neanderthal type of skeleton) do present forms
breaking the sequence of implement-evolution. One has but to examine the
material, to become impressed with the inferiority of workmanship
displayed in some Mousterian implements to that of the earlier Acheulean
types. In any case, a line of evidence is indicated here, which is not to
be overlooked in such discussions.
(iii) The Galley Hill skeleton has been described as comparatively
isolated. Yet if it be accepted as a genuine representative of Man in the
age of the gravel-deposits of the high-level terrace, it helps towards an
understanding of the characters of some other examples. Thus a number of
specimens (rejected by many authors as lacking adequate evidence of such
vast antiquity as is here postulated) appear now, in this new light, as
so many sign-posts pointing to a greater antiquity of that higher type of
human skeleton than is usually recognised. Above all (to mention but a
few examples), the cranium of Engis, with those from S. Acheul
(discovered in 1861 by Mr H. Duckworth), and Tilbury, the fragment of a
human skull from gravel at Bury St Edmunds, and a skeleton discovered
near Ipswich beneath the boulder-clay in October 1911, seem to find their
claims enhanced by the admission of those proffered on behalf of the
Galley Hill specimen. And since Huxley wrote his memoir on the skulls
from Engis and the Neanderthal, the significance of the former (Engis),
fortified by the characters of the Galley Hill skeleton, has been greatly
increased. Consequently it is not surprising to find confident appeals to
the characters of a Galley Hill Race or Stock, near associates being the
specimens mentioned in a preceding chapter as Brünn (1891) and the
Aurignac man next to be considered. The relations of these to the
well-known Cro-Magnon type will be mentioned in the next paragraph.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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