NEANDERTHAL MAN IN EUROPE 129 
of extinct animals were discovered. No implements 
were seen or found, for at that time (1857) the various 
cultural phases of the Palaeolithic period had not been 
recocrnised. Professor Schaaffhausen had no doubt as 
to the antiquity or humanity of the cave-bones from 
Neanderthal. In 1858,^ he published an excellent 
description* of them, in which the following passage 
occurs : " Whether the cavern in which they were found, 
unaccompanied with any trace of human art, was the 
place of their interment, or whether, like the bones of 
extinct animals elsewhere, they had been washed into it, 
they may still be regarded as the most ancient memorial 
of the early inhabitants of Europe." 
Now that we are fairly certain as to Neanderthal man's 
place in time and his relationship to other human races, 
it is interesting to survey the original and classical dis- 
covery as it appeared to a contemporary spectator — keenly 
interested in the problem of man's antiquity — Sir Charles 
Lyell.^ "I visited the spot in i860," he writes, "in 
company with Dr Fuhlrott, who had the kindness to 
come expressly from Elberfeld to be my guide, and who 
brought with him the original fossil skull, and a cast of 
the same, which he presented to me.^ From a printed 
letter of Dr Fuhlrott we learn that, on removing the loam, 
which was 5 feet thick, from the cave, the human skull 
was first noticed near the entrance, and further on the 
other bones lying in the same horizontal plane. It is 
supposed that the skeleton was complete, but the work- 
men, ignorant of its value, scattered and lost most of 
the bones, preserving only the larger ones. ... On the 
whole, I think it probable that this fossil skull may be of 
about the same age as that found by Dr Schmerling in 
the Liege cavern ; but, as no other animal remains were 
found with it, there is no proof that it may not be 
newer. Its position lends no countenance whatever to the 
1 See translation of paper by Geo. Busk, Natural History Review, 
1861, vol. i. p. 283. The original is in Milller^s ArcJiives, 1858, p. 453. 
- Antiquity of Man, i^b-i,, "P- 7(3- 
■' Now in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, England. 
9 
