SCHAAFFHAUSEN" OX THE CEANIA OF THE ANCIENT HACES OF MAN. 155 



XVII. — On the Ceania of the Most Ancient Races of Man. By- 

 Professor D. Schaaffhausen, of Bonn. (From Midler's Archiv., 1858, 

 pp. 453. With Remarks, and original Figures, taken from a Cast 

 of the Neanderthal Cranium. By George Busk, F. R. S., &c. 



In the early part of the year 1857, a human skeleton was discovered in 

 a limestone cave in the Neanderthal, near Hochdal, between Diisseldorf 

 and Elberfeld. Of this, however, I was unable to procure more than a 

 plaster cast of the cranium taken at Elberfeld, from which I drew 

 up an account of its remarkable conformation, which was, in the first 

 instance, read on the 4th of February, 1857, at the meeting of the 

 Lower Rhine Medical and Natural History Society, at Bonn.* Sub- 

 sequently Dr. Fuhlrott, to whom science is indebted for the preserva- 

 tion of these bones, which were not at first regarded as human, and into 

 whose possession they afterwards came, brought the cranium from El- 

 berfeld to Bonn, and entrusted it to me for more accurate anatomical 

 examination. At the General Meeting of the Natural History Society 

 of Prussian Rhineland and Westphalia, at Bonn, on the 2nd of June, 

 1857,f Dr. Fuhlrott himself gave a full account of the locality, and of 

 the circumstances under which the discovery was made. He was of 

 opinion that the bones might be regarded as fossil; and in coming to this 

 conclusion, he laid especial stress upon the existence of dendritic de- 

 posits with which their surface was covered, and which were first noticed 

 upon them by Professor Mayer. To this communication I appended a 

 brief report on the results of my anatomical examination of the bones. 

 The conclusions at which I arrived were : — 1st. That the extraordinary 

 form of the skull was due to a natural conformation hitherto not known 

 to exist, even in the most barbarous races. 2nd. That these remarkable 

 human remains belonged to a period antecedent to the time of the Celts and 

 Germans, and were in all probability derived from one of the wild races 

 of North-western Europe, spoken of by Latin writers ; and which were 

 encountered as autochthones by the German immigrants. And 3rdly. 

 That it was beyond doubt that these human relics were traceable to a 

 period at which the latest animals of the diluvium still existed ; but that 

 no proof in support of this assumption, nor consequently of their so- 

 termed fossil condition, was afforded by the circumstances under which 

 the bones were discovered. 



As Dr. Fuhlrott has not yet published his description of these cir- 

 cumstances, I borrow the following account of them from one of his 

 letters. " A small cave or grotto, high enough to admit a man, and 



* Verhandl. d Naturhist. Vereir.s der preuss. Rheinlande und Westphalens., xiv, 

 Bonn, 1857. 



f lb. Corre;-pondenzb. No. 2. 



