October 27, 1923] 



NA TURE 



62 



Boskop Remains from the South-east African Coast. 



By Prof. Raymond A. Dart^ University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. 



'' p'HE controversy raging over the Piltdown remains, 

 -L and the coming of the War shortly afterwards, 

 were the two events which conspired to distract the 

 attention of the scientific world from the significant 

 discovery which was made in South Africa in 1913, 



Fig. I. — K\tern:il vii;w of the riyht parit-to-occipital fragment o( Homo 

 capensis, shuwiiig the lambjoidal and sagittal sutures. 



when a farmer unearthed some fragments of a human 

 skull at Boskop near Potchefstroom in the Transvaal. 

 Last year, the discovery of a more primitive human race 

 in Homo rhodesiensis has served to redirect attention 

 to the part which Africa still has to play in elucidating 

 the wider questions of human origins and human 

 migrations. 



Since the time the bet between the two farmers as 

 to the " humanity " of the Boskop remains was settled, 

 Mr. FitzSimons, Director of the Port Elizabeth Museum, 

 has been assiduously excavating the rock shelters in 

 that neighbourhood. In June last he forwarded to 

 the Department of Anatomy in the University of 

 the WitAvatersrand a consignment of skeletal material 

 which contained the remains of several members of the 

 ichthyophagous Strandlooper race which preceded the 

 Hottentots along the coastal areas. 



The Strandloopers, now extinct as a race, were the 

 builders of gigantic kitchen-middens in South Africa. 

 In the particular rock-shelter at Tzitzikama explored 

 by Mr. FitzSimons, this material, in wliich the Strand- 

 loopers had been interred, was removed layer by layer 

 to a depth of fifteen feet, At this level he came upon 

 bones of an entirely different calibre and appearance. 

 Recognising this fact and appreciating the possibilities 

 of the discovery, he forwarded these specimens separ- 

 ately. Altogether, I have received remains of some 

 five individuals from this site, and though mixed 

 together and fragmentary they afford definite evidence 

 that they belong to the same race as was found in the 

 Transvaal in 1913. 



Figs. I and 2, which illustrate the outside and inside 

 views of part of the right parietal and occipital bones, 



NO. 2817. VOL. 1 12] 



demonstrate the thickness and texture of the cranial 

 bones in this race. Fortunately, the fragment crosses 

 the line of the sagittal suture (Fig. i), hence the 

 cranial form is accurately known. It reveals the same 

 type of breadth, flattening, and central depression in 

 norma occipitalis that was pointed out for Boskop man 

 by S. H. Haughton.^ 



Fig. 3 shows the inner aspect of three other pieces 

 which were found to articulate exactly along the line 

 of fracture. The state of preservation and general 

 appearance of the bones justifies the assumption that 

 they form part of the left half of the cranium repre- 

 sented by our right parieto-occipital fragment. Fig. 4 

 is an external view of the same three bony pieces on 

 a rough reconstruction of the endocranial cavity which 

 errs, as I have since determined, on the side of generosity 

 in volume. 



So far as the evidence goes, the skull appears to be 

 that of a woman ; for other specimens (which I believe 

 to be male) show a more marked glabella, more robust 

 eyebrow ridges, and a greater development of the 

 frontal lobes of the brain. The smallness of the mastoid 

 process, the thickened and tuberculated inferior margin 

 of the tympanic plate, and the very vertical forehead 

 also corroborate its feminine character. 



When the fragments have been oriented, the follow- 

 ing provisional measurements are obtained : maximal 

 length 210 mm., and maximal breadth 150 mm., as 



Flc. 2. Internal view of the right parielo-occipilal fragment oi l{om« 

 capeHsis, showing the thickness and texture of the cranial bone<i. 



compared with the length of 205 mm. and breadth of 

 154 mm. secured for the Boskop calvaria. If this 

 length be correctly determined, we are in the presence 

 of the longest-headed human skull yet discovered. It 

 was undoubtedly dolichocephalic. 



The first estimations of its endocranial content 

 seemed to show, on account of the extraordinary 

 length, a figure even higher than that secured by 



■ " Preliminary note on the ancient human skull remains from the Trans- 

 vaal." Trans. o( the Koy. Soc. of S.A. Vol. vi. Pt. I. 1917. 



