November 17, 192 1] 



NATURE 



3l^ 



A New Cave Man from Rhodesia, South Africa. 

 By Dix. Arthur Smith Woodward, F.R.S. 



D 



URIXG recent years the British Museum has 

 received from the Rhodesia Broken Hill 

 Development Co. numerous bones from a cave 

 discovered in their mine in Xorth-west Rhodesia 

 about 150 miles north of the Kafue river. All 

 except the smaller of these bones are merely 

 broken fragments, and they evidently represent 

 the food oi men and fiesh-eating mammals who 

 have at different times occupied the cave. As 

 described by Mr. Franklin White (Proc. Rhodesia 

 Sci. Assoc, vol. 7, p 13, 1908) and Mr. F. P. 

 Mennell (Geological Magazi7ie l5j > vol. 4, p. 443, 

 1907), rude stone and bone implements are 

 abundant among the remains, and there can be 

 no doubt that the cave was a human habitation 

 for a long period. \'ery few of the bones can 

 be exactly named, but, so far as they have been 

 identified by Dr. C. W. Andrews and Mr. E. C. 

 Chubb, they belong to species still living in 

 Rhodesia or to others only slightly different from 

 these. The occupation of the cave, therefore, 

 seems to have been at no distant date — it may 

 not even have been so remote as the Pleistocene 

 period. 



Until lately no remains of the cave man him- 

 self have been noticed at Broken Hill, but at the 

 end of last summer Mr. W. E. Barren was so 

 fortunate as to discover and dig out of the earth 

 in a remote part of the cave a nearly complete 

 human skull, a fragment of the upper jaw of 

 another, a sacrum, a tibia, and the two ends of 

 a femur. These specimens have just been 

 brought to England by Mr. Ross Macartney, the 

 managing director of the company, and they are 

 to be added to the manv generous gifts of the 

 company to the British Museum. 



The skull is in a remarkablv fresh state of 

 preservation, the bone having merely lost its 

 animal matter and not having been in the least 

 mineralised. As shown in the accompanying 

 photograph, it is strangely similar to the skull 

 of the Neanderthal or Mousterian race found in 

 the caves of Belgium, France, and Gibraltar. Its 

 brain-case is typicallv human, with a wall no 

 thicker than that of the average European, and 

 its capacity, though still not determined, is obvi- 

 ously well above the lower human limit. Its large 

 and heavy face is even more simian in appearance 

 than that of Neanderthal man, the great inflated 

 brow-ridges being especially prominent and pro- 

 loneed to a greater extent at the lateral angles. 



The roof of the skull at first sight appears re- 

 markably similar to that of Pithecanthropus from 

 Java, having the same slight median longitudinal 

 ridge along the frontals and rising to its greatest 

 height just about the coronal suture. It is, how- 

 ever, very much larger, and the resemblance mav 

 not imply any close aflRnity. The length of the 

 skull from the middle of the glabella to the inion 

 is about 210 mm., while its maximum width at 

 NO. 2716, VOL. 108] 



the parietal bosses is 145 mm. The skull is there- 

 fore dolichocephalic, with a cephalic index of 69. 

 Its great'est height (measured from the basion to 

 the bregma) is 131 mm. In general shape the 

 brain-case is much more ordinarily human than 

 that of the La Chapelle Neanderthal skull, which 

 differs in the expansion and bun-shaped depression 

 of its hinder region. The mastoid process, though 

 human, is comparatively small. The supramastoid 

 ridge is very prominent and broad. The tympanic 

 meatus is short and broad, as always m man. 

 The foramen magnum occupies its usual forward 

 position, so that the skull would be perfectly 

 poised on an erect trunk. 



The facial bones much resemble those of the 

 La Chapelle skull, the great flat maxillaries, with- 

 out canine fossae, being especially similar. The 

 nasal bones, however, are more gently sloping ; 

 the sharp lateral edge of the narial opening runs 

 down on the face (as in the gorilla), allowing the 



premaxillary surface to pass uninterruptedly into 

 the floor of the narial cavity ; and the infranasal 

 region is unusually deep. The typically human 

 anterior nasal spine is conspicuous. 



The palate is of enormous size, as large as that 

 inferred by Boule from the fragments preserved 

 in the La Chapelle skull. It is, however, in all 

 respects human, being deeply arched and bounded 

 by ihe horse-shoe-shaped row of teeth, which are 

 unusually large, but also entirely human. The 

 teeth are much worn, and those of the front of 

 the jaw met their lower opposing teeth in the 

 primitive wav, edge to edge. The canines are not 

 enlarged. The second molar is square, 13-5 mm. 

 in diameter. The third molar is much reduced, 

 measuring 12-5 mm. in width by 95 mm. in 

 length. The total length of the molar series is 

 about 33 mm. The outside measurement of the 

 dentition across the second molars is 78 mm. 

 The width between the sockets of the third molars 



