October 31, 1912] 



NATURE 



71 



thai man. The skull fragment known as the Bury 

 •St. Edmunds was found in strata containing Acheu- 

 lean flints and remains of the mammoth ; the 90-ft. 

 terrace of the Thames, in which the Galley Hill man 

 was found, contains flints of the Chellean type. The 

 Acheulean and Chellean flint civilisations are attri- 

 buted by Prof. Boule — a most trustworthy authority — 

 to the long temperate interval which lies between the 

 two last of the glacial cycles of the Pleistocene, or, if 

 we accept the evidence of Prof. Penck, between the 

 second and third cycles. If Mr. Reid Moir and I are 

 ritrht in regarding the human remains lately found at 

 Ipswich as resting under a bed of undisturbed chalky 

 Boulder Clay — it is right to say that our inferences 

 -are contested — then we have carried the history of 

 modern man a step still further back in the Pleistocene 

 period, for the chalky Boulder Clay is the product of 

 the great cold cycle which preceded the Chellean 

 industry. So far as the evidence in England goes it 

 indicates the existence of a modern type of man at 

 least as far back as the middle of the Pleistocene 

 period. 



All we know of man in Eurone near the beginning 

 of the Pleistocene is the famous lower jaw found near 

 Heidelberg in 1907. A complete lower jaw with its 

 full complement of teeth can tell with certainty a great 

 deal about the individual to which it belonged. There 

 is not a shadow of doubt that the Heidelberg man 

 belonged to the Neanderthal type ; perhaps he may 

 best be described as pre-Neandertheloid, for in 

 strength and massiveness of jaw he foresliadows the 

 Neanderthal men whose remains are found in Europe 

 towards the end of the Pleistocene. Of the Neander- 

 thal race in the middle phases of the Pleistocene we 

 "have, so far, discovered no trace. Although in many 

 features Neanderthal man shows resemblances to the 

 anthropoids, in others he is highly specialised. The 

 teeth of an Australian native make a nearer approach 

 to the anthropoid condition than those of Neanderthal 

 man. 



We have knowledge of another fossil man belong- 

 ing to the beginning of the Pleistocene. In 1891 Dr. 

 Eugene Dubois discovered in Java the fossil remains 

 of a man who, in stature, posture, and gait, must 

 have been very similar to us, but so unlike us in head 

 form that his discoverer named this new form of man 

 Pithecanthropus. The size of his brain (855 cubic 

 centimetres) was little more than half the size of the 

 "brain of a well-developed modern man. The Nean- 

 derthal man described by Prof. Boule had a cranial 

 capacity of 1600 or 1625 cubic centimetres. It is usual 

 to accept the fossil man of Java as representative of 

 "his time and race, but if we do we have to suppose 

 that, in the early nart of the Pleistocene, within a 

 i-omparativclv short space of time, the human brain 

 developed at an astounding and almost incredible rate. 

 I leave the matter there, simplv asking mv audience 

 to keip in mind that there did exist in the Far East at 

 the bf-rnnning of the Pleistocene, or perhaps close of 

 thr- Pliocene, a very low form of primitive man. 



Thus we have a knowledge — a verv imperfect know- 

 ledge — of only two human individuals near the begin- 

 nintr of the Pleistocene period. The one was brutal in 

 ■.aspect, the other certainly low In intellect. It is hard, 

 then, to believe that in strata belonging to the period 

 -preceding the Pleistocene there could be found fossil 

 remains of a man of quite a high and modern tvpe. 

 Yet the details relating to the discovery of human 

 remains by Prof. Ragazzoni In early Pliocene strata 

 ■of North Italy are so cireumstantial and supported 

 that one cannot place them lightlv aside. In i860 

 Prof. Raerazzoni was searching in undisturbed Plio- 

 cene strata for fossil shells; he discovered remains of 

 :a human skull. His discovery was received with 

 "derision. Between i860 and t88o he found in the 



NO. 2244, VOL. go] 



same strata remains of three further individuals. The 

 only living anthropologist authority, so far as I can 

 learn, who accepts Ragazzoni 's discovery as authentic 

 is the celebrated Italian anthropologist — Prof. Sergi, 

 of Rome. If the remains found in these strata had 

 been of a primitive type their authenticity would never 

 have been called in question, but as they represented 

 individuals as highly evolved as we are the easiest 

 solution of the problem was to suppose that by some 

 means these remains had been interpolated in ancient 

 strata at a later date. 



Is it, then, possible that a human being, shaped and 

 endowed as we are, may have existed so early as the 

 Pliocene period? If we accept as authentic all the 

 evidence brought forward by those who have traced 

 man backwards by means of flints which have the 

 appearance of man's work on them, then we must 

 admit that Pliocene man is possible, for stones ap- 

 parently artificially fashioned have been found in 

 strata as old as the Eocene. If, on the other hand, 

 we examine the evidence relating to that group of 

 animals to which man belongs — the higher primates — 

 the facts, so far as we know them, render the exist- 

 ence of man in the Eocene and Oligocene periods 

 impossible, improbable in the Miocene period, but 

 quite possible in the Pliocene. If, finally, we take 

 into consideration all the evidence relating to fossil 

 forms of man we must confess that the antiquity of 

 the modern form of man is still an open problem. 

 I, for one, am convinced that we have followed him 

 almost unchanged to at least the middle of the Pleis- 

 tocene, when we find him accompanied by another 

 form of man almost as distinct from him as the 

 gorilla is from the chimpanzee. Still further back, at 

 the beginning of the Pleistocene, we find at least two 

 forms of men — the pre-Neanderthal of Heidelberg and 

 the small-brained man of Java — but the representatives 

 of modern man at this early period we do not know. 

 It does seem to me, taking all the scraps of evidence 

 at our disposal, the slow rate of human evolution and 

 the great blanks in the geological record into account, 

 that a man as high as the .Xustraloid of to-day was 

 then in existence, but I cannot bring myself to believe 

 that human individuals so highly evolved as those 

 discovered bv Prof. Ragazzoni were in existence at 

 an earlv part of the Pliocene period. 



The problem of man's antiquity is not yet solved. 

 The picture I wish to leave in your minds is that in 

 the distant past there was not one kind, but a number 

 of very different kinds, of men in existence, all of 

 which have become extinct except that branch which 

 has given origin to modern man. On the imperfect 

 knowledge at present at our disposal it seems highly 

 probable that man as we know him now took on 

 his human characters near the beginning of the Plio- 

 cene period. How long ago that is must be measured, 

 as Prof. Boyd Dawklns insists, by the changes which 

 the earth and living things have undergone, and yet 

 it is only human to try to find a means of measuring 

 that neriod in a term of vears, and the estimates 

 at hand give an antiquity of at least a million and a 

 half of years. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 

 Cambridge. — A university lectureship in physiology is 

 now vacant by the lesignation of Dr. Anderson. The 

 General Board of Studies will shortlv proceed to ap- 

 point a lecturer to hold office from January i,_ 1913, 

 until September 30, 1917. The annual stipend is_ 50?. 

 Candidates are requested to send their applications, 

 with such testimonials as they mav think fit, to the 

 vice-chancellor on or before November 12. 



