Science from an Easy ChairLankester, E. Ray (Edwin Ray), Sir
History
Science from an Easy Chair
Lankester, E. Ray (Edwin Ray), Sir
Natural history; Science
It has been treated by him with great skill so as to render the bone
firm and hard, whilst detached portions have been fitted into place, so
that it is fairly complete (Fig. 65). The skull was found (together with
many bones of the skeleton of the same individual) by two enthusiastic
local archæologists buried at such depth and in such position in the
cave known as the Chapelle-aux-Saints as to leave no doubt as to its
belonging to one of a race of men contemporary with the mammoth and
hairy rhinoceros—a race which inhabited Europe in the great glacial
period—called by prehistorians “the Moustierian period,” which cannot
be less than a hundred thousand years behind us, and probably is more.
The chief importance of this skull lies in the fact not only that its
position in the cave-deposits, and therefore its relative age, was
carefully ascertained, but that it agrees in its very peculiar form with
the Neanderthal skull (from the Rhineland), the Spy skulls (Belgium),
and the Gibraltar skull. It, in fact, confirms the conclusion that at
this period the caves of Western Europe were inhabited by a race of men
with peculiar skulls, which may be called the Neander race in reference
to the first-discovered skull of the kind. They were altogether
different from the Reindeer Men, or Cromagnards, who came later upon the
scene.
[Illustration: FIG. 79.—Drawing one-third the size of nature, of the
left side of the lower jaw of a modern European. Observe the small size
as compared with the jaw in Figs. 80, 81, and 82, also the prominent
chin: the small breadth of the up-turned ramus, and the deep bay or
notch (not seen in the other lower jaws) separating the coronoid process
from the condyle.]
[Illustration: FIG. 80.—Outline (one-third the size of nature) of the
skull of the Neander Man from the Chapelle-aux-Saints, with all
fractures and defects made good. The bony sockets of the teeth and the
teeth themselves (lost and atrophied by inflammatory disease in the
actual skull) are here given their full size and healthy condition. The
lower jaw is seen to be very similar to that from Heidelberg (Fig. 82).
From a photograph taken by Professor Marcelin Boule from a cast of the
actual skull. The cast was “made good” by modelling upon it the
deficient parts.]
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