1893-94.] Dr Muiiro on Rise and Progress of Anthro'pology. 241 
present known, so far as it presents certain pithecoid characters in 
a more exaggerated form than any other ; hut that, inasmuch as a 
complete series of gradations can he found among recent human skulls, 
between it and the best developed forms, there is no ground for sepa- 
rating its possessor specifically, still less generically, from Homo 
sapiens. At present, we have no sufi&cient warranty for declaring 
it to he either the type of a distinct race, or a member of any exist- 
ing one ; nor do the anatomical characters of the skull justify any 
conclusion as to the age to which it belongs .” — {Natural History 
Review, 1864, p. 443.) 
But the difficulty of discovering and correctly interpreting the 
phenomena of fossil Man is a poor apology for the readiness with 
which anthropologists have admitted into their speculations so many 
doubtful data. As a final touch to the disputations of earlier years, 
in regard to the supposed Simian characters of the Neanderthal and 
Canstadt skulls, I may quote the following remarks by Professor 
Virchow, announcing the conclusion to which a congress of anthro- 
pologists, held last year at Ulm, came to in regard to these two 
skulls : — 
“Les ohjets de la paleo-anthropologie sont si rares et pour la 
plupart si douteux que jusq’ici la tentative de la description de la 
race la plus ancienne de Thomme quaternaire d^passe les forces de 
la science. En Europe, nous avons en deux exemples bien decoura- 
geants ; ceux du crane de Canstatt et du crane du Neanderthal, qui 
ont 6te regardes par des savants ^minents comme ayant appartenu 
aux ancetres directs de la race Europeenne primitive. II y a quinze 
jours, au Congres de anthropologues allemands, a Ulm, nous avons 
discute la question soulevee a propos de ces deux pieces, et nous 
avons trouv4 que le crane de Canstatt n’appartient pas a I’^poque 
quaternaire et que le crane de Neanderthal est pour le moins tres 
loin d’avoir une forme ty pique” {Congres International, ^c., a 
Moscow, 1892, vol. ii. p. 224). 
On what grounds the Ulm anthropologists founded their objections 
I do not know, hut it seems to me that it was in defiance of all 
scientific methods and rules of correct reasoning the Canstadt skull 
had ever been adopted as a type of a fossil race. The facts of its 
discovery are as follows ; — In the year 1700 the then Duke of 
Wurtemberg excavated a Roman oppidum, in the neighbourhood 
VOL. XX. 26/5/94. Q 
