DISCOVERY 



belonging to some horizon to \\hich the geologist is able 

 to assign a more or less definite date ; or, when animal 

 remains are associated with the human remains, the 

 paleontologist may be called in to state whether the 

 remains belong to an existing or extinct species, and 

 if the latter, to what date or geological epoch they may 

 be referred, as, for instance, in the case of the mammoth, 

 the cave bear, and the like. Again, the evidence may 

 be purely archteological ; with the human remains may 

 be grave furniture, pottery, or other articles of human 

 manufacture, known from other sources to belong to a 

 certain period, era, or age. Finally, there is the class 

 of evidence afforded by the morphology of the remains, 

 whether used in conjunction with other evidence or, as 

 sometimes happens, as the only available source of 

 information : the anthropologist, by careful examina- 

 tion and measurement, is able to refer them to a known 

 type, or, as in such a case as the present, to suggest a 

 relation to a known type. This relation may be either 

 a relation in time — that is, a stage in evolution — or 

 simply a place in a logical scheme of classification. 



In view of the fact that it has been suggested that 

 the Rhodesian skull may date back to even a hundred 

 thousand years, it is particularly important that the 

 nature of the evidence requisite to the support of such 

 a claim should be clearly understood. It may be said 

 at once that in so far as the information at present 

 availablegoes,of the four classes of evidence enumerated, 

 three furnish no assistance towards deciding the ques- 

 tion of the antiquity of the Rhodesian skull. A 

 similar find in Europe might be assigned to a datable 

 epoch, such as the Pleistocene to which PalEeolithic 

 man in Europe belongs. Our knowledge of recent 

 geology in South Africa does not warrant a correlation 

 with" the Pleistocene in Europe. Further, the existence 

 of the fissure in the cave, to which reference has been 

 made, opens the way to a suggestion that the remains 

 may have been deposited comparativelj' recently in the 

 position in which they were found. This vitiates any 

 argument based upon the " hundreds of tons of bones " 

 removed before the remains were brought to light. 

 Further, these bones themselves are the remains of 

 animals which are ' ' recent ' ' and do not include extinct 

 types of high antiquity. Nor is any archsological 

 evidence forthcoming, the only object said to be associ- 

 ated with the remains being a round stone similar to 

 those used by the present-day natives for crushing grain. 

 In default, at present, of other data, it is necessary, 

 therefore, to fall back upon the evidence furnished by 

 the remains themselves. And here we are at once 

 confronted by the contradictory characteristics upon 

 which stress has already been laid. The gorilla-like 

 face at once suggests a comparison with the oldest 

 remains we know, those of Pithecanthropus erectus, 

 consisting of a skull-cap and thigh bone found in Java 



in 1892, which exhibit, as the name suggests, a combina- 

 tion of affinity with man and ape, but belong to neither. 

 The eyebrow ridges in Rhodesian man are even more 

 prominent than in Pithecanthropus. Of other early 

 remains available for comparison, there are the 

 Heidelberg jaw, to which reference has been made, the 

 Piltdown skull, itself a subject of controversy, and 

 Neanderthal man, a type to which belongs a number 

 of human remains of the Paljeolithic age representing a 

 race or possibly closely allied group of races who lived 

 in Europe in rock shelters and caves during the last 

 great extension southward of the ice sheet, and produced 

 the flint implements known as Mousterian. To this 

 group belong the Neanderthal skull, the Gibraltar skull, 

 and a number of skulls found in France, Belgirmi, 

 Germany, and as far East as Croatia. It is to this last- 

 named group, which was superseded in Europe by the 

 modem type of man, that Rhodesian man presents a 

 close affinity, particularly in the prominent eyebrow 

 ridges and the projection of the lower part of the face, 

 both characteristics, however, being less marked in 

 Neanderthal man. So far as the ape-like character- 

 istics of Rhodesian man are in question, he would 

 appear to stand somewhere between Neanderthal man 

 and the gorilla. On this ground, then, it might be 

 thought justifiable to place Rhodesian man in some 

 epoch precedent to that of Neanderthal man, for whom 

 a date of something like 50,000 years ago is generally 

 accepted. On the other hand, the modem character- 

 istics of the skull appear to preclude the attribution of 

 such a high antiquity. Further, if the remains of the 

 long bones belong to the skull, an assumption also made 

 in the case of the fragment of sacrum, Rhodesian man 

 walked upright in the posture of modem man, while 

 Neanderthal man, on the evidence of his long bones, 

 walked with a crouch. The probability would, there- 

 fore, lie on the side of Dr. Smith Woodward's conclusion 

 that Rhodesian man represents a later development of 

 the Neanderthal type, and that the incongruous com- 

 bination of extremely primitive and modem character- 

 istics is to be explained by Professor Elliot Smith's 

 suggestion that in the course of evolution the last 

 stage was the refinement of the face. 



It would, therefore, appear that, so far as the investi- 

 gation has gone, there is little evidence which would 

 assist in giving a date to these remains, while the well- 

 preserved character and comparative freshness of the 

 bones yet remains to be explained. Our knowledge of 

 the greater part of Africa, from the point of view of the 

 history of human types, is negligible, and there is no 

 reason to suppose that a primitive form of man might 

 not have sur\'ived there into comparatively recent times. 



I am greatly indebted to Dr. A. Smith Woodward for having 

 most kindly supplied a photograph of the skull to illustrate 

 this article. — E. N. F. 



