i-5 



NATURE 



[April 21, 192 1 



Irhe secpnd of the human murals (Fig. 4) is 

 that for which the evidence is most authentic, 

 inasmuch as we have several complete skeletons 

 of Cr6-Magnon man, giving us the entire 

 anatomy; also the lamps, the ornaments, the in- 

 signia of the chieftains, the materials showing the 

 methods of preparing the paints, and, still more 

 remarkable, the actual painting of the procession 

 of the mammoths, which is taken as the central 

 feature of this restoration. It would appear that 

 the highly evolved Cr6-Magnon race entered 

 Europe from the east and drove out the Nean- 

 derthals. There is little evidence of inter- 

 marriage between these two widely distinct races, 

 although two of the skeletons of the burial at 

 La Ferrassie show characters which may be so 

 interpreted. The contrast between the Cr6- 

 Magnon heads and those of the Neanderthals is 

 as wide as it possibly could be. The Cr6-Magnons 

 are people like ourselves in point of evolution, 

 and the characters of the head and cranium reflect 

 their moral and spiritual potentialities, while the 

 body skeleton points to a physically perfect race. 



The concluding mural of the human series repre- 

 sents a group of stag-hunters depicted as men of 

 the northern fair-haired race living along the 

 southern shores of the Baltic in the earliest phase 

 of the Neolithic — the stage known as the Cam- 

 pignian from the remains of huts and rudely fin- 

 ished implements found near Campigny, in 

 France. If of Nordic affinity, this race was 

 courageous, warlike, hardy, and probably of lower 

 intelligence than the Cr6-Magnons. It is still, 

 however, an open question to what primary 

 branch of European stock this race of Campigny 

 belonged. 



In each of the central cases the culture element 

 is associated with the skeleton wherever it has 

 been found to show correlation between the 

 mental development and the industrial or artistic 

 stage. The tests of a museum exhibition series 

 are, first, that it meets the specialist's demand for 

 accuracy ; secondly, that the exhibits are arranged 

 in such a way as to attract and arouse the interest 

 of the people ; and thirdly, that the aroused interest 

 leads to a more careful examination of materials 

 and to at least a dawning comprehension of what 

 they signify. The central cases and the models 

 and murals which seek to interpret them appear 

 to stand all three tests admirably. They arouse 

 the interest of increasing numbers of visitors, ^ 

 and it is noticeable that the Old Stone age and 

 the cave man are finding their way into the current 

 intellectual life of the American people, who, in 

 general, are far behind their European contem- 

 poraries in their general knowledge of the rudi- 

 ments of anthropology and archaeology. This ex- 

 Jiibition series presents the facts of human evolu- 

 .xtfon in a simple and convincing way. 



The collections of original fossils brought to- 

 gether in the Hall of the Age of Man are worthy 

 , of supplementing the human series found in the 



li' *_The annual attendance is now above a million. Sunday attendances 

 r.'dtlrinK January, 1921, averaged 11,500. By its contract with the City of 

 New York the museum now receives 350,000 dollart annually from the 

 Municipality of New York. "' 



NO. 2686, VOL. 107] 



F"' 



.Mkk' 



HI 



g — "-3 

 n 9 ^ 



•ti u^^ 



3 > U 



2- " 



• - o c 



t «I fc* 



X. o< 



O C 4) 



4J C t/l 



c rt rf 

 u c— ' 

 o '^ « 



6 *^ 



« §,&• 



^ E « 



C u ^ 



o. " oc 



2 6^ 



^2 = 

 ' S o 



^u t 



'o.i "^ 

 u > i: 



"= "w 

 ■S •■" o 



- m 3- 



S rt S3 





"3 - 

 '1 |< = 



lilt 



° S c " 



§0-° e 

 ■S. """"^ 



. Sue 



'' «-s 



E ■*« & 





