512 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



great Ice age. When a conflict of opinion of this kind obtains 

 among reasonable and instructed men, it is generally a safe con- 

 clusion that the evidence for neither view is worth much. Cer- 

 tainly that is the result of my own cogitations with regard to 

 both the hiatus doctrine (in its extreme form) and its opposite 

 though I think the latter by much the more likely to turn out 

 right. But I hesitate to adopt it on the evidence which has been 

 obtained up to this time. 



No doubt, human bones and skulls of various types have been 

 discovered in close proximity to palaeolithic implements and to 

 skeletons of Quaternary quadrupeds ; no doubt, if the bones and 

 skulls in question were not human, their contemporaneity would 

 hardly have been questioned. But, since they are human, the de- 

 mand for further evidence really need not be ascribed to mere con- 

 servative prejudice. Because the human biped differs from all 

 other bipeds and quadrupeds, in the tendency to put his dead 

 out of sight in various ways ; commonly by burial. It is a habit 

 worthy of all respect in itself, but generative of subtle traps and 

 grievous pitfalls for the unwary investigator of human paleontol- 

 ogy. For it may easily happen that the bones of him that " died o' 

 Wednesday " may thus come to lie alongside the bones of animals 

 that were extinct thousands of years before that Wednesday ; and 

 yet the interment may have been effected so many thousands of 

 years ago that no outward sign betrays the difference in date. In 

 all investigations of this kind, the most careful and critical study 

 of the circumstances is needful if the results are to be accepted as 

 perfectly trustworthy. 



In the case of the remains found in a cave of the valley of the 

 Neander, near Diisseldorf, half a century ago the characters of 

 which gave rise to a vast amount of discussion at that time and 

 subsequently-the circumstances of the discovery were but vaguely 

 known. The skeleton was met with in a deposit, the loess, which 

 is known to be of Quaternary age; there was no evidence to show 

 how it came there. Consequently, not only was its exact age 

 justly and properly declared to be a matter of doubt ; but those 

 who, on scientific or other grounds, were inclined to minimize its 

 importance could put forth plausible speculations about its nature 

 which do not look so well under the light thrown by a more ad- 

 vanced science of anthropology. It could be and it was suggested 

 that the Neanderthal skeleton was that of a strayed idiot ; that 

 the characters of the skull were the result of early synostosis or of 

 late gout ; and, in fact, any stick was good enough to beat the dog 

 withal. 



As some writings of mine on the subject led to my occupation of 

 a prominent position among the belabored dogs of that day, I have 

 taken a mild interest in watching the gradual rehabilitation of 



