Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
"In making the preceding statement, it must be clearly understood that I
neither desire to affirm that the Engis and Neanderthal skulls belong to
the Australian race, nor to assert even that the ancient skulls belong
to one and the same race, so far as race is measured by language, colour
of skin, or character of hair. Against the conclusion that they are of
the same race as the Australians various minor anatomical differences
of the ancient skulls, such as the great development of the frontal
sinuses, might be urged; while against the supposition of either
the identity, or the diversity, of race of the two arises the known
independence of the variation of cranium on the one hand, and of hair,
colour, and language on the other.
"But the amount of variation of the Borreby skulls, and the fact that
the skulls of one of the purest and most homogeneous of existing races
of men can be proved to differ from one another in the same characters,
though perhaps not quite to the same extent, as the Engis and
Neanderthal skulls, seem to me to prohibit any cautious reasoner from
affirming the latter to have been necessarily of distinct races.
[Illustration: Figure 6. Outlines of Skulls]
(FIGURE 6. OUTLINES OF THE SKULL FROM THE NEANDERTHAL,
OF AN AUSTRALIAN SKULL FROM PORT ADELAIDE, AND OF THE
SKULL FROM THE CAVE OF ENGIS, DRAWN TO THE SAME ABSOLUTE
LENGTH, IN ORDER THE BETTER TO CONTRAST THEIR PROPORTIONS.
a. The glabella.
b. The occipital protuberance, or the point on the exterior
of each skull which corresponds roughly with the attachment
of the tentorium, or with the inferior boundary of the
posterior cerebral lobes.
e. The position of the auditory foramen of the Engis skull.)
"The marked resemblances between the ancient skulls and their modern
Australian analogues, however, have a profound interest, when it is
recollected that the stone axe is as much the weapon and the implement
of the modern as of the ancient savage; that the former turns the bones
of the kangaroo and of the emu to the same account as the latter did the
bones of the deer and the urus; that the Australian heaps up the shells
of devoured shellfish in mounds which represent the "refuse-heaps" or
"Kjokkenmodding," of Denmark; and, finally, that, on the other side of
Torres Straits, a race akin to the Australians are among the few people
who now build their houses on pile-works, like those of the ancient
Swiss lakes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account