THE BRAIN OF PREHISTORIC MAN 909 



quished may also be due to the Neanderthal's ape-like specializations. Racial 

 discrimination on the basis of such wide morphological difFerences would tend 

 more toward the extermination of the inferior race than to its subjugation. 



The Brain of Homo Rhodesiensis 



Asia and Europe have both produced evidence of prehistoric man, the 

 latter most abundantly. Until quite recently Africa has been peculiarly 

 silent in this regard. But at length even the Dark Continent has revealed signs 

 which show that man of most primitive type had penetrated a long way 

 into the south during his wanderings over the earth. This important dis- 

 covery was made in Rhodesia and first publicly reported in 1921 by Mr. 

 \\ illiam L. Harris iSwiday Times, Johannesburg, Sept. 25). 



The conditions under which the discovery was made were peculiar and 

 significant. Actual remains of two human skeletons were found at Broken 

 Hill Mine, in northern Rhodesia. These remains differed from similar fossil 

 discoveries in one essential detail. They were not fossilized in the ordinary 

 sense. Connected with the Broken Hill Mine there was originally a natural 

 cave about one hundred and twenty feet long. This was known as the "Bone 

 Cave" because it contained a vast number of animal bones all of which were 

 so thoroughly impregnated with salts of zinc and lead as to make smelting 

 of them worth while. At the bottom of this cave the human remains were 

 found. Like all of the other bones in this enormous osseous deposit, the sur- 

 faces of the human skeletons were incrustcd by zinc and lead so that the 

 action of the earth had failed to mineralize the deeper bony tissue. Paleontol- 

 ogists accept such remains as "fossils," but unfortunately this surface 

 incrustation precludes any estimation of the geological age of the bones. 

 Unfortunate also is the fact that the osseous remains of animals found with 

 the human skeletons were all of species still extant in Africa. The cave seems 

 to have been an ancient feasting place for hyenas which dragged thither 



