Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
Eminent anatomists have shown that in the average proportions of some of
the bones the Negro differs from the European, and that in most of
these characters, he makes a slightly nearer approach to the anthropoid
quadrumana;* but Professor Schaaffhausen has pointed out that in these
proportions the Neanderthal skeleton does not differ from the ordinary
standard, so that the skeleton by no means indicates a transition
between Homo and Pithecus. (* "The inferior races of mankind exhibit
proportions which are in many respects intermediate between the higher,
or European, orders, and the monkeys. In the Negro, for instance, the
stature is less than in the European. The cranium, as is well known,
bears a small proportion to the face. Of the extremities the upper are
proportionately longer, and there is, in both upper and lower, a less
marked preponderance of the proximal over the distal segments. For
instance, in the Negro, the thigh and arm are rather shorter than in
the European; the leg is actually of equal length in both races, and is
therefore, relatively, a little longer in the Negro; the fore-arm in the
latter is actually, as well as relatively, a little longer; the foot
is an eighth, and the hand a twelfth longer than in the European. It is
well known that the foot is less well formed in the Negro than in the
European. The arch of the instep, the perfect conformation of which is
essential to steadiness and ease of gait, is less elevated in the former
than in the latter. The foot is thereby rendered flatter as well as
longer, more nearly resembling the monkey's, between which and the
European there is a marked difference in this particular."--From "A
Treatise on the Human Skeleton" by Dr. Humphry, Lecturer on Surgery and
Anatomy in the Cambridge University Medical School, page 91.)
There is doubtless, as shown in the diagram Figure 4, a nearer
resemblance in the outline of the Neanderthal skull to that of a
chimpanzee than had ever been observed before in any human cranium; and
Professor Huxley's description of the occipital region shows that the
resemblance is not confined to the mere excessive prominence of the
superciliary ridges.
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