I 



NA TURE 



[July 29, 1909 



those of anthropoids, and the pithecoid characteristics 

 met with in human dentition are actually primitive 

 features. A glance at the lower jaw of a young 

 gorilla or of a South American howler shows a re- 

 marhable resemblance of the mandible to that of 

 Homo hcidrlbergensis. Dr. W. Wright has given an 

 account and illustrations of this jaw in Nature of 

 June 3, p. 398. _ , ., , 



In determining the exact position of Homo Jietdel- 

 bcrgcrisis in the human pedigree', it must always be 

 borne in mind that a huge dil'ference in time exists 

 between H. hcidelbergcnsis and the members of the 

 Neanderthal race. Fossil remains of Neanderthal 

 man belong to the Middle Diluvium, coinciding in 

 general with the Mousterian culture period ; whereas 

 tiie remains (of Elepluis antiquus, Rhinoceros ctrusciis, 

 J'"alc., and Eqiius sienonis, Cocchi) were found undis- 

 turbed in the same stratification with H. hcidelberg- 

 cnsis, which points to earliest Diluvium or to the 

 transition period from Diluvium to late Tertiary age 

 (Pliocene). The long periods intervening between 

 Neanderthal man and H. hcidelbergcnsis are shown 

 by Penck's climatic curve of the Glacial periods (Ice 

 a^es), mainlv coinciding with the Quaternary age, 

 with warmer inter-Glacial periods between and the 

 Pala?olithic culture periods introduced into his diagram. 

 The culture epoch, called Mousterian by the French 

 prehistorians, corresponds, according to Penck, to- 

 gether with the subsequent divisions of PalEeolithic 

 culture (Solutrean, and perhaps partly Magdalenian), 

 to (he Ice-age divisions, comprising the inter-Glacial 

 epoch, which falls between the Riss- and Wiirmeiszeit. 

 On the other hand, Penck makes the oldest divisions 

 of Palceolithicum correspond : Acheulean and the pre- 

 ceding Chellean, to the warm intervening epoch of 

 specially long duration between the Mindel- and 

 Kisseiszeit. Obviously, the late Palaeolithic age (of 

 successive Mousterian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian 

 cultures) lies very much nearer to the present than 

 that earlier division of the Palseolithic age (of Acheu- 

 lean and Chellean cultures). 



The supposition that a very long interval elapsed 

 between Middle Diluvium (with Neanderthal man in 

 Europe) and that earliest Diluvium (of H. Hcidelberg- 

 cnsis) receives indirect confirmation from recent ex- 

 cavations by R. R. Schmidt (Tubingen). He devotes 

 himself chiefly to later divisions of the Palaeolithic age, 

 and, working back from the Neolithic age, shows the 

 relatively long duration of the culture-sections which 

 he calls late, high, and early Magdalenian ; later and 

 earlier Solutrean ; late, high, and early Aurignacian ; 

 and late Mousterian. However, the slow and gradual 

 earliest cultural progress of the human race leads one 

 to attribute to those oldest divisions of the Palaeolithic 

 age, commonly called Chellean or .-Acheulean, a still 

 longer duration than to all those later divisions. 



Thus an enormously long period must have elapsed 

 between Neanderthal man (generally coinciding with 

 Le Moustier culture) and H. hcidelbergcnsis (of earliest 

 Diluvium, or Pliocene-Diluvium transition). No 

 fundamental objection stands against the view of 

 Rutot, Klaatsch, Verworn, and others that the first 

 beginnings of human cultural development reach far 

 back beyond Diluvium into the middle division of the 

 Tertiary period (Oligocene, according to Rutot), and 

 that the much debated eolith is to be regarded as the 

 primitive implement of man at the lowest cultural 

 stage. It is obvious that an extremely long period of 

 slow development must have preceded the production 

 of the " hand-wedge," the characteristic implement of 

 the Chellean age. 



Neanderthal man, then, is of slight antiquity as 

 compared with H. hcidelbergensis. Klaatsch has for 

 years upheld the theory that to discover the roots of 

 KO. 2074, VOL. 81] 



the human race we must go verj' far back, perhaps 

 even to the roots of the mammalian genealogical tree, 

 and additional probability is lent to this idea by the 

 Heidelberg find. The teeth of the Heidelberg jaw 

 undoubtedly prove that no anthropoid stage preceded 

 that to which the Heidelberg mandible belongs, so 

 that to explain the similarity of human and anthropoid 

 forms we must go back to the remote ancestor from 

 which there branched off on the one side the genus 

 Homo and on the other the genera of anthropoids and 

 perhaps of other ape-species. The fact that the origin 

 and development of anthropoids reaches bacl^ to the 

 Middle Tertiary age (Miocene) pievents the assump- 

 tion that the Heidelberg mandible is itself the stage 

 of development at which the anthropoids branched off 

 from the genus Homo ; this is also rendered improb- 

 able by the discovery of eoliths in Middle Tertiarv beds. 

 There is nothing to preclude the supposition tliat the 

 Heidelberg fossil, as regards formation, stood fairly 

 near the point of separation. The line of descent 

 Pithecanthropus-Neanderthal man-recent man has to 

 a certain extent been shaken by the recent researches, 

 which attribute less antiquity to Pithecanthropus than 

 was hitherto supposed to be the case. 



At the conclusion of the paper is a brief discussion 

 of the genealogical tree of the phylogeny of man and 

 the anthropoids, recently published bv Prof. G. 

 Bonarelli, of Perugia, .'\ccording to this table Pithec- 

 anthropus erectns, Homo hcidelbergcnsis, and Nean- 

 derthal man may be regarded either as successive 

 stages in the direct line of descent of Hominidse or as 

 offshoots from those stages. A. C. Haddon. 



THE ORIGIN OF THE PLANETARY SYSTEM. 

 T^R. SEE contends that the planets and satellites 

 -L^ of the solar system were captured and their 

 orbits made remarkably circular by a resisting 

 medium. In his view, therefore, Laplace's nebular 

 hypothesis is altogether wrong, whereas the current 

 view is that it is in the main right, though in need 

 of considerable modification and extension. 



Dr. See's paper contains a single table, the object 

 of which is to show that, when the sun and planets 

 are expanded to fill the orbits of the bodies revolving 

 about them, their rotations must have been so slow- 

 that it is inconceivable that they could have flung off 

 planets or satellites. As an extract from the tables 

 we may quote that, assuming the law of internal 

 distribution remains unchanged, the principle of con- 

 servation of angular momentum implies that the sun, 

 when it filled the orbit of the earth, rotated in 3192 

 vears instead of in 25-3 days, as at present. It is no 

 doubt inconceivable that the matter which now forms 

 the earth was being carried round as an integral part 

 of a nebulous sun at one instant, and shortly after- 

 wards revolving as a planet with 3000 times its 

 former velocity ; but Dr. See's figures involve the 

 assumption that the law of internal distribution 

 remains unchanged. He probably regards 3000 as a 

 sufficient factor of safety. 



A precisely similar point is made with regard to 

 thirtv-three other bodies in the solar system. Dr. 

 See then continues that, as detachment has been dis- 

 proved, capture is the only other alternative. This is 

 not a proof. There are more things in heaven and 

 earth than Dr. See has dreamed of in his philosophy. 

 Capture is a possibility, but Dr. See has done nothing 

 to raise his theory beyond a mere conjecture, even 

 though he points out, in addition, that a resisting 

 medium would diminish the mean distance and the 



1 " On the Cause of the RemarVahle Circularity of the Orbits of the 

 Planets and Satellites and on the Origin of the Planetary System." By 

 T. J. J. See. 



