ETHNOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY. 



worked flints found in the cavern of Bize, in 

 France ; the contents of the Belgian caves, in- 

 cluding the Engis skull ; the Neanderthal cave 

 and skull; then, the Post-pliocene alluvium 

 and cave deposits, with flint implements, pro- 

 eding from the earlier discoveries of M. 

 oucher de Perthes, at Abbeville, in the valley 

 of the Somme, and of Dr. Rigollot, near Amiens, 

 and also the exploration of the Brixham cave, 

 down to the latest discoveries, made especially 

 in the former region, up to the time of publica- 

 tion ; works of art elsewhere met with in Post- 

 pliocene alluvium of France and Great Britain ; 

 the marked bones found by M. Lartet in the 

 Aurignac cave ; then, certain supposed fossil 

 en, as that of Denise, of Natchez, &c. ; then, 

 .e relations of the Glacial Period, and of gla- 

 action to the Human Period, and to the 

 te of the earliest traces of man and other 

 imals ; the supposed ages of stone and 

 ronze ; and, finally, certain subjects connect- 

 with Mr. Darwin's theory of the origin of 

 _ ecies by variation and through natural selec- 

 ion, and the possible relation of man to the 

 wer orders of being. A few of the instances 

 f discovery of human remains, &c., just re- 

 rred to, have as occurring at recent dates 

 ceived mention in this CYLOP^DIA, 1861, 

 ider the title ANTIQUITY OF THE HUMAN 

 ; and 1862, in connection with GEOG- 

 PHY, &c. 



Although Sir Charles Lyell expresses his 

 inclusions in respect to the antiquity of the 

 uman race with great caution, yet the terms 

 which he has couched them, not less than 

 e facts on which they are based, appear to 

 >pen the way for a large extension of the 

 pse of time since the advent of man on the . 

 rth, beyond that admitted in the usual or 

 istorical view. Thus, Lyell admits that 

 Man was contemporary in Europe with 

 two species of elephant, Elephas primigenius 

 [mammoth], and E. antiquus, two, also, of 

 rhinoceros, Rhinoceros tichorMnus and R. hem- 

 itcechus, at least one species of hippopotamus, 

 the cave-bear, cave-lion, and cave-hyasna, vari- 

 ous bovine, equine, and cervine animals now 

 extinct, and many smaller carnivora, rodentia, 

 and insectivora. While these were slowly 

 passing away, the musk buffalo, reindeer, and 

 other arctic species, which have survived to 

 our times, were retreating northward, from 

 the .valleys of the Thames and Seine, to their 

 present more arctic haunts." And he adds that 

 "The vast distance of time which separated 

 the origin of the higher and lower level gravels 

 of the valley of the Somme, both of them rich 

 in flint implements of similar shape, * * * 

 leads to the conclusion that the state of the 

 arts in those early times remained stationary for 

 almost indefinite periods ; " and then proceeds 

 to parallel this with the fact that " The rate of 

 progress in the arts and sciences proceeds in a 

 geometrical ratio as knowledge increases,",the 

 earlier advance being by so much the more 

 Blow, " so that the progress of a thousand years 



at a remote period, may correspond to that of 

 a century in modern tunes, and in ages still 

 more remote Man would more and more re- 

 semble the brutes in that attribute which 

 causes one generation exactly to imitate in 

 all its ways the generation which preceded it." 



The author regards Mr. Darwin's theory of 

 the origin of species by natural selection as not 

 inconsistent with the admitted truths of science ; 

 and, in harmony with such view, inclines to the 

 doctrine of the unity of the human race. 



"We now proceed to glean, from the state- 

 ments of discoveries made and the published 

 speculations of, chiefly, the past year, the por- 

 tions which appear to possess the greatest im- 

 portance, and which will serve to show what 

 further light is being thrown upon the ques- 

 tions already presented. 



Instances of Human Remains. A paper was 

 read before the British Association, 1863, 

 Section (E) of Geography and Ethnology, de- 

 scriptive of a human cranium found near Ami- 

 ens, in 1861; but which, while it closely re- 

 sembled the Engis skull, was regarded as pre- 

 senting no decided test in respect to the ques- 

 tion of the antiquity of the race. Mr. G. E. Ro- 

 berts and Prof. Geo. Busk contributed a paper 

 upon the opening of a cist of the Stone Age at 

 Bennet Hill, on the coast of Elgin. This cist was 

 one of three situated near together and also near 

 to three considerable shell-mounds, or refuse- 

 heaps. Of the other two cists, one had been 

 cut away by the course of a railway, and in the 

 second few bones were found. Of the skeleton 

 found in the least disturbed cist, the cranium was 

 measured antero-posteriorly quite short; 

 i. e,, of the conformation termed by Retzius 

 the ~br.achycephalic. The ratio of the antero- 

 posterior to the transverse measurement, was 

 1 : .823. In April, Rev. H. F. Rivers present- 

 ed to the Anthropological Society of London 

 some human remains found at Luton, near 

 Chatham ; Prof. Owen remarking at the time 

 that the bones appeared to have been discover- 

 ed at a depth of six feet within brick earth. 

 May 26th, Professor Busk read a paper in re- 

 lation to these remains, which greatly dimin- 

 ished the interest attaching to them, by declar- 

 ing that on closer inspection it was found that 

 the bones were not regularly overlaid by the 

 deposit of brick earth, b\it were in a soil that 

 appeared as if it had been filled into a pit, and 

 apparently consisted of the rain- wash from a 

 neighboring hill side. There w*ere two skele- 

 tons; the crania much alike, long-headed, or 

 dolichocephalic, orthognathic, but phcenozygovx 

 [the zygomatic arches showing beyond the 

 cranium, as viewed from above]. Thus, their 

 form would not indicate that they belonged to 

 either of the most ancient types of crania 

 found in Great Britain, viz. : the cymbecephalic, 

 supposed by Dr. Wilson to be the most ancient ; 

 or the Irachycephalic, supposed by the authors 

 of the "Crania Britannica" to be the true an- 

 cient British form. The crania both presented 

 injuries such as would intimate that their pos- 



