128 Notices of Memoirs — Fossil Man in South Africa. 



II. — Fossil Mak in South Afeica. 



1. Preliminary Note on the Ancient Human Skull-eemains 

 FROM THE Transvaal. By S. H. Haugeton. With notes 

 appended on Fragments of Limb-bones, by li. B. Thomson, and 

 Fragments of Stone, by L. Peringuey. Trans. Roy. Soc. 

 S. Africa, vol. vi, pp: 1-14, pis. i-x, 1917. 



2. Fossil Man in South Africa. By Bobkrt Broom. American 



Museum Journal, vol. xvii, pp. 141-2, 1917. 



WELL - FOSSILIZED portions of a human skeleton were 

 discovered in 1913-14 in a cultivated field on the farm of 

 Kolonies Plaats, Boskop, in the Potchefstroom district of the 

 Transvaal. The greater part of a skull-cap, a temporal bone, the 

 horizontal portion of the left mandibular ramus, and some fragments 

 of limb-bones were recovered ; but it is uncertain whether the 

 remains represent a burial, and there are no associated fossils or 

 implements to indicate their age. A preliminary description of these 

 interesting specimens is now published and helps to dispel some 

 of the sensational illusions which were derived from newspaper 

 reports at the time of the discovery. 



The skull is rdther thick, its thickness at the parietal boss being 

 13 to 14 mm. Its brain-capacity is also remarkably large, probably 

 not less than 1830 c.c. The cephalic index i« about 75, so that the 

 specimen is almost dolichocephalic. The forehead is steep, without 

 prominent brow-ridges ; but the temporal bone is primitive in the 

 shallowness of the glenoid fossa for the mandibular articulation and 

 the prominence of the supramastoid ridge. The mandible seems to 

 have had a prominent bony chin, and the total length of the molar- 

 series must have been as short as that of the modern European, less 

 than that of the Australian. The second molar, typically modern 

 human, is the only tooth preserved; and the alveoli of the other 

 teeth are too imperfect to determine much of their proportions. On 

 the whole, Mr. Haughton thinks it "possible that the Boskop man 

 was a member of a race which ultimately developed into the 

 Bantu tj'pe ". 



The limb-bones found with the skull are too imperfect for 

 discussion, especially in their present encrusted state, and the three 

 plates of photographs devoted to them are not illuminating. 

 According to Dr. Peringuey, no stone implements have yet been 

 met with at the same spot. 



Dr. Broom expresses the opinion that the Boskop man is 

 intermediate between Eoanthropus and the early African type of 

 man. In fact, he considers there is " no doubt that the canine was 

 about as large as in the jaw which he still believes belongs to the 

 Piltdown skull ". He also thinks the incisors were much larger 

 than in modern man. Mr. Haughton's description and figures, 

 however, lend no support to these views. 



A. S. W. 



