ANTHROPOLOGICAL AND RACE=BIOLOGICAL RESEARCHES 



45 



comparative anthropology, is chiefly the work of Anders and Gustaf Retzius and 

 Professor Albert Lindstrom. 



Even the general European palaeoanthropology has been considered with 

 great interest here in Sweden. Among others Gaston Backman, at present pro* 

 fessor in Riga, has by means of diligent authorship helped in spreading and pro* 

 moting this interest among wide circles, and his meritorious, richly illustrated 

 representation of this subject in »Xhe_Pre»history Q^J^jUilijaj^ Stockholm 1911, 

 may be specially mentioned. Another of his works »From the history of somatical 

 anthropology* (Ymer 1910), from which a great deal of the information given 

 here is taken may also be mentioned, G. Backman has also through his tj^pological 

 studies (over the shapes of the cranium etc.) and by several anthropological meas* 

 uring iqtruments (tropometer, goniometer) further advanced anthropology in Sweden. 



Lastly perhaps something may be said on the result of the investigations in 

 the most ancient of the palaeoanthropology which the undev=signed has made 

 during recent years. They have been carried out with the idea of examining into 

 the reliability of the sensational discoveries »Pithecanthropos» and »Eoanthropos» 

 which are supposed to represent »the missing link» and are interpreted as being 

 transition forms between the chimpanzee and man. But if both these interpretations 

 were correct, the anthropogenesis must in these transitions have followed different 

 ways, contrary to each other. For according to »Pithecanthropos» the lower 

 extremities must first have reached the high human stage of evolution with upright 

 walk etc., while the skull is still of pure chimpanzee type, while on the other 

 hand according to »Eoanthropos» the brain and skull must first have reached the 

 human stage and afterwards gradually the other parts of the body. By means of 

 detailed examinations of the parts of the discoveries and extensive studies of the 

 skeletons in a great deal of comparative material, especially teeth, together with a 

 comparison of the results of the Vobz* and Selenka^expeditions to Java and 

 their renewed examinations of the strata where the fossils had been found, it has 

 been shown in my examination that the discoveries in question do not in reality 

 give the support to the above mentioned interpretation one believed. This is all 

 the more clear as both discoveries are plainly composed of typical chimpanzee 

 fossil and similarly typical human fossil, the latter most nearly of Au rign ac* 

 tlSSy that is oLthe human race which seems to have wandered in the deluvial 

 period from the East into Europe. 



By request I add a plate from the »Eoanthropos»*examination, which shows 

 that the teeth [two molar teeth. Mi and M2] in the chimpanzee»jaw, that was found 

 at Piltdown (England), are not »human», but chimpanzee=teeth. 



The upper figure is a photograph of the Piltdown »Eoanthropos» jaw. 



The middle » » » drawing of the same. 



The lower » » » photograph of the lower jaw of a chimpanzee. 



The discoverers asserted that the teeth of the Piltdown^jaw were »distinctly 

 human»; and according to their opinion they should prove that »Eoanthropos» 

 was an intermediate form between chimpanzees and human beings. But in reality 

 thex are in their structure fully in corresppndence with the chimpanzee teeth. 

 Also the whole jaw together with the teeth shows the chimpanzee type. 

 There is then no reason for connecting this jaw with the admittedly human skull 



/^it^ie i;»-»--i^ 



7^' 





