270 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[December 1, 1899. 



accept M. Gaudry'a suggestion, supported by Prof. W. Boyd 

 Dawkins,' that, ('/ artificial, the tlinta of Thenay were the 

 work of some intelligent anthropoidal ape. Dryopithecus, 

 which inhabited France in Miocene times, is regarded as 

 an anthropoid of composite type, and was probably about 

 the size of the chimpanzee.t The fact that the apes of the 

 present day, which are specialised along certain ape like 

 lines, do not chip stones to serve as weapons, in no way 

 militates against the idea that their Miocene ancestors 

 may have done so. The Thenay flints, at any rate, fail to 

 prove the occurrence of Miocene man. 



Certain broken flints, found by Eibeiro in the Upper 

 Miocene of Otta, in the Lisbon district, have also been 

 put forward ; but they appear to be of doubtful character, 

 when compared with the true flakes of human origin that 

 occur, in the same spot, on the surface of the ground. 

 The remarkable teeth from the Miocene of South Ger- 

 many, possessing very human characters, are now referred 

 to Dryopithecus, an animal of which the pahcontologist 

 has still very much to learn. A more complete series of 

 the apes of Miocene times may come to us some day in 

 the light of a revelation, comparable to that given by the 

 Triassic ammonites, or by the mammals of the Puerco 

 stage. 



The soundest argument against the existence of Miocene 

 man is that sustained by Prof. Dawkins, when he indi- 

 cates the small number of mammalian genera that have 

 come through to us unchanged from Miocene times. Is it 

 likely that a being of such special and delicate organisa- 

 tion as man should be traceable back to a period when the 

 horse, the giraffe, and the elephant, to name no others, 

 were represented by far more generalised forms '.' As 

 Gaudry points out, i the Miocene mammals fully justify the 

 view that the higher types of animal life are more suscep- 

 tible to variation than the lower. Thus the fresh-water 

 molluscs of Pikermi, found beneath the mammalian 

 layers, are identical with living forms ; while the marine 

 molluscs of Cabricres, which are somewhat older than the 

 Luberon deposit, include fifteen species known in existing 

 seas. No mammal at Mt. Luberon, however, is specifically 

 the same as any living form ; while many important 

 genera,' such as Deinotherium, Machairodus, and Hip- 

 parion, have already entirely disappeared. The use made 

 of this argument in limiting the probable antiquity of man 

 is perfectly reasonable and scientific ; the true appeal, 

 however, must be made to workers in the field, to observers 

 of the actual crust, as exposed to us in each new section. 



A remarkable record of the occurrence of chipped flints 

 was made by I'r. Noetling,§ of the Indian (ieological 

 Survey, in 1894. Dr. Noetling's paper had a very modest 

 title, but it was generally agreed that his specimens were 

 of artificial origin. Dr. W. T. Blandford showed:| that 

 the beds in which the instruments were said to lie were 

 Lower Pliocene rather than Upper Miocene : but this did 

 not diminish the interest of the discovery — on the other 

 hand, its probability was increased. ^Ir. R. D. Oldham,* 

 however, visited the locality with Dr. Xoetling, and some- 

 what brietiy recorded his opinion that the flakes had fallen 



* " Early Man in Britain" (1880), p. 68. 



+ .Sec, for instiinue, K. Hurtiuaun, " Autliropoid Apes " (1885), 

 p. 286. 



X " Les Ancetree dt dos Auiiuaiix dans les Temps Q-eologiques " 

 (1888), p. 211. 



§ " On the Occiu-rence of Chipped (;-) Flints in the Upper Miocene 

 of Burmah," Records Geol. Sun: of India, Vol. XXVII. (1894), 

 p. 101. 



II Nature, Vol. LI. (1896), p. 608. 



K Natural Science, Vol. VII. (1895), p. 201. 



from the surface of an adjacent plateau, and had become 

 mixed with the layer of detritus on the Lower Pliocene 

 bone-bed. The matter might have rested here, despite 

 Mr. Oldham's admission that " ordinarily, there would be 

 no hesitation in ascribing anything found in this layer of 

 loose material to the underlying rock." Mr. Oldham felt 

 that the case could not be decided by ordinary strati- 

 graphical probability. Dr. Noetling, however, replied two 

 years later*' by asserting that there was no detrital layer 

 to be dealt with ; that chipped flints had been found 

 embedded in the ferruginous conglomerate itself ; and 

 that similar flints occurred on the plateau above, but only 

 along the outcrop of the self-same stratum. This implies 

 that, since the implements were made, the stratum has 

 been disturbed by earth movement. 



To this unexpected vindication there appears to have 

 been no reply ; but, in the meantime. Dr. Dubois pub- 

 lished his discovery of the remains of a man-like animal 

 in -lava, styled by him Pithecanthropus erecttis, associated 

 with extinct Pliocene mammals. This discovery, made 

 in ISill, must rank among the greatest palasontological 

 achievements; and, at any rate, it cleared Dr. Noetling 

 from the charge of having rashly put forward an im- 

 probable proposition. The characters of the famous skulls 

 of the Neanderthal and of Spy, which had already indi- 

 cated the existence of a race of men of low cranial 

 capacity, were here, as it were, carried a stage backward. 

 Dr. Dubois, t however, declines to regard the Javan 

 remains as more than anthropoidal ; and yet they would 

 indicate an anthropoid, allied to the gibbon, of exceptional 

 zoological position, and probably of exceptional faculties. 



If a giant gibbon (Hylobates) were thus endowed with a 

 cranial capacity of 1000 cubic centimetres, i.e., twice that 

 of the existing large anthropoidal apes, it might be some- 

 thing very different in its habits from the long-armed and 

 tree-haunting creature of to-day. Mi^ht not such an 

 animal be capable even of chipping flints, or of antici- 

 pating in other ways the industries of primicval man '? 



The introduction of Pithecanthropus into the palaou- 

 tological series is of the first importance for our present 

 purpose. It probably limits the coming of man to the 

 later Pliocene, or to some subsequent epoch. The argu- 

 ments of Gaudry and Boyd Dawkins receive fresh justific- 

 ation. Human skeletons must now be sought for, since 

 mere stone implements are liable to various interpretations. 

 It seems probable, however, that Mr. W. -i. Lewis Abbott j 

 has brought to light, from the Oromer forest-bed, the work 

 of late Pliocene man, and that thus the expectations of 

 Lyell have been fulfilled. The rudely chipped flints, 

 which this observer has discovered and has so carefully 

 discussed, may have been prepared by man in Britain, 

 before the growing ice-age forced him to move farther 

 southward. If the human skeletons recorded by Ameghino j 

 from the Pampas beds of Argentina, as contemporary with 

 the Glyptodon and the IMastodon, are truly Pliocene, they 

 may represent the type of man that produced the Cromer 

 implements. A little further back, such men and Pithe- 

 canthropus may have met in serious rivalry ; a little 

 further yet, and the pithecanthropoids may have reigned 

 alone, the highest members of creation. 



Have we already advanced since Zittel wrote, in 1895, 



* Natural Science, Vol. X. (1897). p. 233. 



t "On Pithecanthropus erectus," Trans. Roiial Dublin Soc, 

 Vol. VI. (1896), p. 11, &c. 



X '' Worked Flints from the Cromer Porest-Bed," Natural Science, 

 Vol. X. (1897), p. 89. 



§ See Zittcl, " Haudbiich der fala-ontologic," Bd. IV. (1893), 

 p. 718. 



