448 PITHECANTHROPUS ERECTUS. 



fragments were of exactly the same age, and very probably early Pliocene. 

 Further, these remains, in connection with the anatomical investiga- 

 tion of the skeletal fragments, have firmly convinced me that these 

 fragments are all parts of one and the same skeleton. The total result 

 of the discussion of these fragments that has been carried on by many 

 eminent anatomists in no way contradicts this conclusion; on the con- 

 trary, it raises the presumption that it is highly improbable that they 

 do not belong together. 



A few anatomists hold that the fragments are parts of a human skel- 

 eton; according to otbers there is no doubt but that they belonged to 

 individuals of the same race. Others, again, consider the femur to be 

 quite huraau, while they think that the skullcap and the teeth must 

 have belonged to the most anthropoid of all anthropoid apes. A few 

 anatomists, however, agree with me in the opinion that a femur entirely 

 human in character might nevertheless belong to the same individual 

 as this ape-like skull, because a similar function would entail a similar 

 form. Besides, this femur has certain peculiarities that I have not 

 beeu able to find in a single one of some hundreds of thigh bones, so 

 that it is not human in the usual sense of the word. 



If we adopt the view that the skullcap is that of an ape, and, indeed, 

 as must be acknowledged, that of the most man-like of all, but that 

 the femur is that of a man, then both of these fragments must have 

 been deposited at the same time in what was very probably an early 

 Tertiary bed. We would then have in this case two specially impor- 

 tant, but wholly unknown, closely related forms found together. Now, 

 on the one hand, human bones have never been recognized below the 

 Middle Pleistocene, mnch less as low as the Tertiary, aud, on the other, 

 but few remains of apes have been found, and these are much smaller, 

 more significant, and by no means as human in character as the skull- 

 cap in question. There is therefore little probability that this view is 

 correct. The view that these fragments were derived from different 

 individuals of one and the same race has also very little to support it. 

 Alter explorations which have been extended for five years over hun- 

 dreds of square kilometers of exposed strata more than 350 meters 

 thick and containing everywhere a numerous and homogeneous fauna, 

 I have found, with but one possible exception, nothing which could be 

 referred to this or any similar race. 



According to all paleontological experience, the parts must have 

 belonged to a single skeleton in case their anatomical configura- 

 tion does not contradict such unity of origin. This is, however, not the 

 case. The considerations advanced by many anatomists on this subject 

 lead, when taken together, really to no other conclusion than that the 

 fragments were derived from one individual. The more I myself have 

 studied these fragments the more firmly I have been convinced of this 

 unity of origin ; and at the same time it has become ever clearer to me 

 that they are really parts of a form intermediate betweeu men and apes, 



