WHOLE VOL. SKELETAL REMAINS OF EARLY MAN — HRDLICKA I5I 



in the collecting and secured chiefly only the larger bones ; and to this circum- 

 stance it may be attributed that fragments merely of the probably perfect skele- 

 ton came into my possession. 



Fiihlrott held that the Neanderthal bones might be regarded as 

 " fossil," by which he ])ossibly meant not merely mineralized, but 

 also as belonging to a form of humanity no more existing. A little 

 later Prof. Schaaffhausen arrived at the following conclusions : ' 



First, the extraordinary form of the skull was due to a natural conforma- 

 tion, hitherto not known to exist even in the most barbarous races. Second, 

 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 northwestern Europe, spoken of by Latin writers, and which 

 were encountered as autochthones by the German immigrants. And third, it 

 was beyond doubt that these human relics were traceable to a period at which 

 the latest animals of the Diluvium still existed; though no proof of this as- 

 sumption, nor consequently of their so-termed fossil condition, was afforded by 

 the circumstances under which the bones were discovered. 



In i860 the Neanderthal gorge was visited, in company with Fuhl- 

 rott, by Lyell, the English geologist and paleontologist, who made a 

 sketch of the locality (fig. 14.) and we are given the following infor- 

 mation : ^ Since the discovery of the bones — 



the ledge of rock, /, on which the cave opened, and which was originally 20 feet 

 wide, had been almost entirely quarried away, and, at the rate at which the work 

 of dilapidation was proceeding, its complete destruction seemed near at hand. 



In the limestone are many fissures, one of which, still partially filled with 

 mud and stones, is represented in the section at a r as continuous from the 

 cave to the upper surface of the country 



There was no crust of stalagmite overlying the mud in which the human 

 skeleton was found, and no bones of other animals in the mud with the skele- 

 ton; but just before our visit in i860 the tusk of a bear had been met with in 

 some mud in a lateral embranchment of the cave, in a situation precisely simi- 

 lar to h, figure 3, and on a level corresponding with that of the human skeleton. 

 This tusk, shown us by the proprietor of the cave, was 2^ inches long and quite 

 perfect ; but whether it was referable to a recent or extinct species of bear, I 

 could not determine. 



Following the early notices concerning the Neanderthal cranium, 

 and before other specimens of similar nature, such as the Spy, Gi- 

 braltar, and others became known, an extensive controversy arose as 

 to the real significance of the find. Virchow,' and after him others, 



* Loc. cit. 



^ Lyell, Sir Charles, The geological evidences of the antiquity of man, 4th ed., 

 p. 80 et seq., London, 1873. 



' \^irchow, R., Untersuchung dcs Neanderthal-Schiidels. Zcit. f. F.thnol., \'ol. 4. 

 Verhandl. Berl. Ges. f. Anthr., etc., pp. 157-165, 1872. 



