Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
"That this amount of resemblance in habit and in the conditions
of existence is accompanied by as close a resemblance in cranial
configuration, illustrates on a great scale that what Cuvier
demonstrated of the animals of the Nile valley is no less true of men;
circumstances remaining similar, the savage varies little more, it would
seem, than the ibis or the crocodile, especially if we take into account
the enormous extent of the time over which our knowledge of man
now extends, as compared with that measured by the duration of the
sepulchres of Egypt.
"Finally, the comparatively large cranial capacity of the Neanderthal
skull, overlaid though it may be by pithecoid bony walls, and the
completely human proportions of the accompanying limb-bones, together
with the very fair development of the Engis skull, clearly indicate that
the first traces of the primordial stock whence Man has proceeded need
no longer be sought, by those who entertain any form of the doctrine of
progressive development, in the newest Tertiaries; but that they may
be looked for in an epoch more distant from the age of the Elephas
primigenius than that is from us."
The two skulls which form the subject of the preceding comments and
illustrations have given rise to nearly an equal amount of surprise for
opposite reasons; that of Engis because being so unequivocally ancient,
it approached so near to the highest or Caucasian type; that of the
Neanderthal, because, having no such decided claims to antiquity,
it departs so widely from the normal standard of humanity. Professor
Huxley's observation regarding the wide range of variation, both as
to shape and capacity, in the skulls of so pure a race as the native
Australian, removes to no small extent this supposed anomaly, assuming
what though not proved is very probable, that both varieties co-existed
in the Pleistocene period in Western Europe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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