THE GALILEAN MAN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19615, 20 October 1925, Page 10

THE GALILEAN MAN.

LIYED 30,000 YEARS AGO

GREAT ANTHROPOLOGISTS

LECTURE

(From Oce Own Coebespondeht.S

LONDON, September 3. Sir Arthur Keith dealt with what is known as-the Galilean skull at the conference of the British Association, He declared it to be a discovery which will rank among the most important event* of our pre-history. Mr Turville Petre told of his discovery of portions of the skull in the lower strata of a cave on the western shore of the Lake of Galilee, together with flinty implements of the period. The discovery is due indirectly to the work of the British School of Archaeology in Palestine. Sir Arthur Keith in the course of Hs address on the skull, said:—lt is probably 20,0CX) years before Abraham entered Palestine that the race to which the man whose skull we have discovered inhabited the Galilean country. He was not man’s common ancestor, but was certainly a cousin of man’s ancestor, and his characteristics proclaim him to be ja Neanderthal man. By an examination of the parts of the skull discovered we can find out whiat sort of a man he was. The remains are perfectly preserved, and besides being as hard as porcelain, are perhaps the best specimens we have of the skulls of prehistoric man. NO DOUBT AS TO ANTIQUITY.

There can bo no shadow of doubt as bo his antiquity, as they are in the same fossilised state as the bones of several varieties of deer that the men of that period hunted. The Galilean skull belongs to a type of man who was profoundly different in structure from all living races of mankind. We see that every bone in the body of Neanderthal man had certain peculiarities, often only trivial, but always to be observed. Many of these peculiarities show a resemblance corresponding to those of Anthropoid apes.It is a profound mistake to look upon the Neanderthal man as scarcely deserving the name of humanity. Certainly in his collective characters he was more Simian than any race of mankind now living, but he had his compensatory points, and one was a brain which in point of size, if not in organisation, reached the modem standard at the least. It was this breed of man who occupied Europe and Palestine in remote times, and probably spread deeply into the North of Africa. The interpretation of the skull is maos a far easier task by the knowledge we possess of the skulls of other types of Neanderthal man. That he is a Neanderthal type is disclosed by the fact that he has the typical massive eyebrow ridges across his forehead which project on either side like great bony horns. Again, he possessed the peculiarly moulded Neanderthal cheeks. Amongst ourselves we regard a high or prominent cheekbone in a man or woman as a mark of somewhat barbarous descent, but in reality it can be counted as a mark of ultra modernity, for in all kinds of apes the cheek hones shape into the general contour of the face and paws, having no prominence. In fact the cheek bone in the case of Neanderthal man would suffice to give a reliable diagnosis of race, and this brings home the intensity with which Neanderthal man differed from all races now living. 30,000 YEARS AGO. Sir Arthur Keith placed the age of tho man at probably under 25; ho had lived near Capeiuum 20,000 or 30,000 years before the miracles began to be performed there.

Continuing, he said that from this discovery they saw that in remote times, as to-day, a prominent type of mankind spread abroad from a cradle land carry ing their particular methods of living with them until a large area of the world was covered. The balance of evidence in this ancient cave was in favour of Europe being the cradle laud both of the man and his culture. It was posible, but by no means proved, that Europe, as ir. modem times, led the World in thought and deed. Tire present discovery made certain that the kind of men who lived in Palestine at a very remote period was of the same type and lived in much the same way as they did in Europe. SIGNS OF AN OPERATION. Pointing out a patch on the skull which had healed over, the speaker said: ‘ ‘lt might be thought that the fellow had a knock, but I think it looks as if he had something in the nature of an ulceration, and that there was some superficial scraping of it with a flint—something like the South Sea Islanders in their form of trepanning—but whether he suffered from a- disease or not I don’t know. Wo might,” he concluded, “wait until Doomsday if we postponed our inquiries into the history of man until a complete fossil skull is found. The history of man’s evolution has to be read from fragments, and a study of these fragments converts them into precious historical documents.”