PREHISTORIC MAN.

Press, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14546, 24 December 1912, Page 7

PREHISTORIC MAN.

THE CHAIN OF MAN'S DESCENT

THE SUSSEX FIM). A Press cable mcssago from London, published on Saturday morning, stated that the Geological Society discussed the skull discovered at PiKdown, Sussex, the general opinion being that the skull was of the period before cavemen, possibly Pliocene, the skull resembling that °f a young chimpanzee, the jaw being heavy, and forehead apelike and steep, with scarcely any brow ridges. The cablegram further stated that this was the tirst evidence of the primitive source whence surviving man had arisen. A '"Press" reporter was set the task of obtaining from some zoologist or palaeontologist somo information with reference to this find, but all appeared to bo out of town. Finally in desperation he turned to a botanist (Dr. L. Cockayne, F.L.S., F.K.S.), for information on a matter with which lie could apparently have no concern.. Dr. Cockayne said he should not speak at all ou the subject were it not that his researches dealt with questions of evolution, and though these were purely botanical, it was necessary to have, a lx>w:ng acquaintance, however slight, with evolutionary topics in general. Of course ho always looked askance at sensational newspaper science, but in this case, the Geological Society of London was apparently sponsor, so the matter became at once of interest. Up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, said Dr. Cockayne, the history of mankind had been conducted on ordinary historical lines, but the finding of human remains in certain caves and gravels along with stono implements and the bones of extinct animals, at once gave the humaa race an antiquity of hundreds of thousands of years. And now, if this Sussex skull, just discovered, was really of Pliocene age, the thousands becamo millions! Tho skull of ancient man most generally kuown had been that designated tho Neandertal. This had'been assigned to the Quarternary • Period, and was distinguished by its strongly developed brow-ridges. Virchow considered these latter the result of disease, but in 188(i Fraipont discovered two skulls in Belgium of an identically similar character, and in 1899 parts of skeletons of at least ten individuals wero found in a cave in Croatia. In all tho above skulls the form of the lower jaw was distinct from that of man of tho present day, and there wero marked differences in tho eye-orbit, etc, so that Dr. Schwalbe, Professor ol Anatomy in tho University of Strassburg, a most distinguished comparative anatomist, considered to belong to a species of man. distinct from Homo Sapiens, to which he had given the name Homo primigenuis. A skull had been found later than any of, those that ho (Dr. Cockayne) had mentioned, in 1908, in Southern France, but it had not yet been fully described, so far as ho knew. Homo primigenuis tvasan important link iv the chain of man's descent, but there was still a. vast. space between that ancient savage and Pithecanthropus erectus, the connecting link with tho raan-liko apes. Tho new skull from' Sussex, an enormously old skull, by-the-bye, differed from that of Homo primigenuis, according to the, cablegram, in its lack of brow-ridges and tho general form of its forehead and jaw, which wero described as "line-like." ■ This skull then would probaibly bo considered as belonging to another species of man, and would receive along Latin name. And certainly it would be considered an another and most important link in man's pedigree. But it must not be forgotten, said Dt. Cockayne, in conclusion, that desp.te these different so-called links, thero was no proof that all belonged to tho same chain. The doctrine of descent had again and again shown how branches diverged from a common stem, and many moro discoveries were required before an unbroken chain connecting man with some ape-liko ancestor could bo established. As for tho apes themselves, there had been many discoveries of recent yeara of fossil monkeys, and a flood of lijjht had been thrown on the relationships of these animals. lint, oven with all our knowledge, which was far greater than in Darwin's day, there ■was little that was really definite, and, for tho most part, wo were, only yet in tho hnzy land of theory-