Chapter III (2)

At the same time that the skeleton of Le Moustier was being disinterred, the Abbés A. and J. Bouyssonie, and L. Bardon(43) were exploring the Mousterian culture of the grotto near La Chapelle-aux-Saints, a few miles to the eastward of Le Moustier, and came upon a skeleton which has proved to be by far the finest of all the Neanderthaloid fossils, including a remarkably well-preserved skull, almost the entire back-bone, twenty ribs, bones of the arm and of the greater part of the leg, and a number of the bones of the hands and feet. This was also a ceremonial burial of an individual between fifty and fifty-five years of age, most carefully laid out in an east-and-west direction in a small, natural depression. With it were found typical Mousterian flints, also a number of shells and remains chiefly of the woolly rhinoceros, the horse, the reindeer, and the bison. The finding of a mature skull with the bones of the face in position, and in a relatively perfect state of preservation without distortion of the entire cranium, afforded for the first time the opportunity of finally determining not only all the skeletal characters and proportions of Neanderthal man but also the actual size and proportions of the brain. This superb specimen was sent to the Paris Museum, and Boule's preliminary descriptions(44) and finally his almost faultless monograph(45) aroused world-wide interest in the Neanderthal race.

A year later a third Neanderthal skeleton was discovered in the cave of La Ferrassie not far from Le Bugue, Dordogne, by Peyrony. The bones were badly shattered, and the proofs of ceremonial burial were not perfectly clear, but at a glance the skeleton was clearly recognized from the characters of the skull, and particularly from those of the forehead, as belonging to the Neanderthal race.

In the succeeding year, 1910, in the cavern of La Quina, Department of Charente, to the north of the Vézère region(46) were found the foot bones of a man precisely resembling the La Chapelle type, and again in 1911 several parts of the skeleton of another entirely typical member of the Neanderthal race were discovered in the earliest Mousterian strata. The skull bones were somewhat separated at the sutures. This was certainly not a case of ceremonial burial. Like the Gibraltar skull, this is supposed to be that of a female.

Of especial geographic interest is the discovery by Nicolle and Sinel(47) of thirteen human teeth in a Mousterian cavern on St. Brelade's Bay, on the Island of Jersey,(48) which furnishes proof of the extension of the Neanderthal race to the Channel Islands, when these were, in all probability, still a part of the mainland. The teeth were associated with bones of the woolly rhinoceros, of the reindeer, and of two varieties of the horse, as well as with evidences of Mousterian hearths and flint implements. The distinctive features of the Neanderthal grinding-teeth are the stout size, deep implantation, and expanded form of the roots, which, with the heavy jaw, point to the toughness of the food and to the muscular strength exerted in mastication. The roots, instead of tapering to a point below, as in modern man, form a broad, stout column, supporting the crown, adapted to a sweeping motion of the jaw. This special feature alone would exclude the Neanderthals from the ancestry of the higher races.

Thus, through a long series of discoveries, beginning in 1848 and rapidly multiplying during the last few years, we have found the materials for a complete knowledge of the skeletal structure of the men, women, and children of the Neanderthal race; we know the relative brain development as well as the stature of the sexes; we have determined that this race, and this only, extended over all western Europe during late Acheulean and the entire period of Mousterian times, and we have also learned that it was a race imbued with reverence for the dead and therefore probably animated by the belief in some form of future existence.

CHARACTERS OF THE NEANDERTHAL RACE

The skulls and skeletons(49) of Neanderthal, Spy, Krapina, Le Moustier, La Chapelle, La Ferrassie, and Gibraltar have so many distinctive features in common that it is beyond question that they must be classed in a closely related group. The distinctive features of this group are:

First, features found also in the different existing races of man, but never in the anthropoid apes, and therefore human; second, features, all of which have never been found combined in any race of recent man, the group, therefore, represents a distinct species of man; third, features outside of the limits of variation in the recent races of man, and intermediate between them and the variation limits of the anthropoid apes.

Before looking at Neanderthal man as a whole, we may turn our attention especially to a number of these peculiar features of the race. All the earliest observers were impressed by the heavy, overhanging brows and retreating forehead. In recent man there is often a decided prominence above the eyes, from the glabella or median point above the nose outward toward each side, but generally the outer third of the margin of these prominences turns upward beneath the outer line of the eyebrows. In the Neanderthals, on the contrary, these prominences beneath the eyebrows surround the whole upper edge of the eye socket, extending outward around the external borders of the forehead, so that they may be called '_tori supraorbitales_'; the extent of this prominent ridge above and to the sides forms a veritable roof over the eye sockets, which appear like two deep, lateral caverns. Such lateral prominences do occur, though rarely, in recent man; they are observed, for example, in certain Australians.

The front view of the Neanderthal face, as seen in the female Gibraltar skull, in which these eyebrow ridges are by no means so prominent as in the male skulls, is no less remarkable for the great height of the face as compared with the flatness of the forehead. Placing the skull side by side with that of the Australian,(50) we observe at once the enormous difference in the proportions of the face and the cranium in these two types, although the Australian represents one of the lowest existing races of _Homo sapiens_; we observe in the Gibraltar skull the very wide space between the eyes and the very large size of the narial opening, which indicate a broad, flattened nose; there is a correspondingly long space between the bottom of the narial opening and the line for the insertion of the incisor teeth, indicating a very long upper lip.

The jaw is less powerful than that of the Heidelberg man. The Heidelberg jaw we have seen to be distinguished by its general strength and clumsiness and its lack of chin, or rather a chin without the slightest indication of a prominence; on the inside of this very thick, rounded chin plate, the characteristic chin spine (_spina mentalis_) is lacking; instead, a double groove is present as the point of attachment for the muscles which connect the chin and tongue with the hyoid bone; the ascending process for the attachment of the muscles of the jaw is seen to be unusually broad, 60 mm., in contrast to about 37 mm. in the recent jaw; finally, the condyle for attachment with the skull is particularly large.(51)

Like the Heidelberg jaw, that of the Neanderthals is distinguished by great thickness and massiveness. In general the contours are similar; in a few instances the chin process is suggested by a slight prominence, but in general the chin is strongly receding, and it agrees with that of Heidelberg in lacking the _spina mentalis_. In other characteristics there are decided differences in the Heidelberg and Neanderthal jaws. The form of the latter is now known from the specimens of Krapina, of Spy, of La Naulette, of Ochos, and of Šipka, and from the perfect examples of Le Moustier and La Chapelle. The Šipka specimen proves that even in a child ten years of age the jaw was remarkable for thickness and strength. Boule(52) entirely agrees with Gorjanovič-Kramberger(53) that the chin in the Neanderthal jaw was only in process of formation, and throughout life attained no more than an infantile form, that the Neanderthals may be ranked, however, as _Homines mentales_, whereas the Heidelbergs, in which the chin is entirely lacking, may be regarded as _Homines amentales_.

The proportions of the teeth in the Neanderthals are equally distinctive, especially in the size of the true grinders and cutting teeth. As in the Heidelberg jaw, they form a closely set row, from which the canine does not project as in the Piltdown dentition; in fact, the contour of the jaw and the proportions of the teeth are distinctly human when compared with the orang-like jaw of the Piltdown man. The grinding surface of the teeth has many layers of enamel, and the cusps are well developed. Unlike those of recent man, the incisors display folds of enamel on the inner or lingual surfaces, a condition rarely observed in the modern cutting teeth. In the teeth of the Heidelberg jaw, the pulp cavities are exceptionally large, whereas in the teeth of the Krapina race there is the unique feature that the molars have no normal roots, the roots having been more or less absorbed, a very rare occurrence in recent man. The dentition of La Chapelle is also distinctly human, but extraordinarily massive, corresponding with the general massiveness of the skull and masticating apparatus; in detail it is not that of civilized races, but an exaggerated form of the type called _macrodont_.(54) The elongation of the crown is also similar to what is termed hypsodont.

The grinding-teeth do not all show this massive size and columnar form, for about fifty per cent of the Krapina teeth have distinct roots and are more like normal modern grinders. In the Neanderthaloids of Spy the teeth are small and the roots are of moderate size.(55)

This study of the forehead and of the eyebrow ridges, of the great depth of the face, and of the peculiarly high, square form of the eye sockets prepares us for a profile view of the skull of La Chapelle in contrast with that of the most highly developed and intellectual European type, namely, the profile of the distinguished American palæontologist, the late Professor Edward D. Cope, who bequeathed his skull and skeleton for purposes of scientific study and comparison. In La Chapelle we at once notice the platycephaly, or flattening of the skullcap, the retreating forehead, the great prominence of the eyebrow ridges resembling that of the anthropoid apes, the lengthening of the face as compared with the flattening of the cranium, the great prominence or prognathism of the face as a whole, and the special prominence of the rows of cutting teeth as compared with the vertical or indrawn line, and the recession of the tooth row in the Cope profile. This comparison also brings out the striking contrast between the high chin prominence of _Homo sapiens_ and the deeply receding chin of the Neanderthals. The contrast is hardly less remarkable in the superior view of the skull in which the Neanderthal type is seen to be extremely _dolichocephalic_, the back of the skull being relatively broad and the front narrowing in the region of the forebrain until it suddenly expands in the prominent supraorbital processes.

As shown in the diagram on page 8, Fig. 1, the greatest length of the Neanderthal skull is found on the horizontal line directly through the brain chamber, known as the _glabella-inion line_, a line drawn from a prominence between the eyebrow ridges to a point at the back of the skull known as the external occipital protuberance, or inion. This is also the longest line in the skulls of Spy and of La Chapelle, as well as of the anthropoid apes,(56) but in the north Australian skull, Fig. 1, owing to the greater expansion of the upper part of the brain, the greatest length of the skull is at a point considerably above the _glabella-inion_ line. The median section of the skull of the chimpanzee, of the Neanderthal, and of the north Australian displays in a very striking manner the generalization made by Schwalbe, in 1901, that the Neanderthal skull is truly an intermediate or half-way form between that of the anthropoid apes and that of _Homo sapiens_. We observe in this illuminating section the growth of the dome of the skull, that is, the great brain-bearing cavity above the _glabella-inion_ line _g-i_, by noting the contrast in the length of the vertical line of the _cranial height_, as compared with the space below the _glabella-inion_ line indicated by the letters. This very important vertical line terminates below at the opening, where the spinal cord enters the base of the brain (see Fig. 1).

In many characteristics the Neanderthal skull is shown to be nearer to that of the anthropoid apes than to that of _Homo sapiens_. This conclusion arrived at by Schwalbe, in 1901,(57) has been more than confirmed by Boule's masterly study(58) of the very complete skull of La Chapelle. After his detailed review, he concludes: As to the unity of the Neanderthal head form, these features are not peculiar to the skull of La Chapelle; in every case they are also found in the skulls of Neanderthal, Gibraltar, Spy, Krapina, La Ferrassie, which witness to the homogeneity of that human fossil type called Neanderthal. These features show a structural affinity between the fossil men of the Mousterian period and the anthropoid apes. It must be noted that many of these features may be found also in recent human skulls of the inferior races, but that they are very rare, very scattered, very isolated, and occur only as aberrations. It is the accumulation of all these features in every skull of a whole series which constitutes an assemblage entirely new and of great importance. In the skull, as in other parts of the anatomy of the Neanderthals, we should not expect to find every character intermediate between the anthropoids and recent man. The long Neanderthal face is somewhat similar to that of the Eskimo and is in contrast with the very short face of the existing Australians and Tasmanians. The depression at the root of the nose, just below the glabella, is very marked in all Neanderthals; there is less of the nose bridge than in any recent races, except those of the male Australians, yet the nose is not flattened but somewhat arched or aquiline. This feature is not characteristic of all the anthropoid apes, and in this respect the Neanderthals, Australians, and Tasmanians are more different from the anthropoid apes than are some of the white races; thus the Neanderthal nose, far from resembling that of the anthropoids, differs from it more than does that of some recent human types.(59) Many anatomists, following Huxley, have described the Australian and Tasmanian skulls as more or less Neanderthaloid, and some authors have gone so far as to regard these races as surviving Neanderthals. It is true that some of the skulls in these existing races are extraordinarily platycephalic and show a retreating forehead, that others show supraorbital ridges almost as prominent as in the Neanderthals, that sometimes the prominence of the occipital inion is very marked, that certain jaws show a very retreating chin. Thus one or another of these Neanderthal features has been observed in these lower existing races, but all of these characteristics have never been combined in one race as constant features, and invariably associated, as in all the skulls of the Neanderthals known to us.

In brief, the Australian type of head has nothing in common with that of the Neanderthals except in a small number of characteristics in the region of the forehead and of the nose. The distinguishing traits of the Neanderthal head and face are platycephaly, a retreating forehead, flattening of the occiput or lower portion of the skull, prominence of the supraorbital ridges, chin retreating or lacking, projection of the entire face owing to the peculiar form of the upper jaw, and the relatively small size of the frontal lobes of the brain. In fact, concludes Boule: "All these modern so-called 'Neanderthaloids' are nothing but varieties of individuals of _Homo sapiens_, remarkable for the accidental exaggeration of certain anatomical traits which are normally developed in all specimens of _Homo neanderthalensis_. The simplest explanation of these accidents in most cases is atavism or reversion. We cannot assert that there has never been an infusion of Neanderthaloid blood in the groups belonging to species _Homo sapiens_, but what seems to be quite certain is that any such infusion can have been only accidental, for there is no recent type which can be considered even as a modified direct descendant of the Neanderthals."

This opinion is confirmed by the latest and most exhaustive researches of Berry and Robertson,(60) who conclude that neither Australians nor Tasmanians have any direct relationship with _Homo neanderthalensis_; the superficial points of cranial resemblance are explicable solely on the grounds of the remoteness of the ancestry. The Australians and Tasmanians are descendants not of the Neanderthal stock but of a late Pliocene or early Pleistocene stock, which, following Sergi, may be called _Homo sapiens tasmanianus_, of which the Tasmanian aboriginal, now extinct, was the almost unchanged offspring. In respect to 'low' characters, as shown in the diagram, Fig. 117, the Spy-Neanderthal skulls stand quite close to the Tasmanians and Australians, and the Gibraltar skull stands midway between this type and _Pithecanthropus_ with respect to twelve different characters of comparison.

It is interesting to note[AH] that the Tasmanians were found in a stage of flint industry very similar to that practised by the Neanderthals in Mousterian times; their flints were made from artificially produced flakes, including a few examples(61) that exhibited a neatness of edge trimming and resultant regularity of outline, whereas the greater part were characterized by an unskilful trimming and irregular outline; the low status of the Tasmanian implements can most correctly be described by the word Pre-Aurignacian, that is, of Mousterian or of an earlier stage, but not by any means 'Eolithic.'

The brain of Neanderthal man was known to be of large size even when estimated from the original skullcap of the Neanderthal type. Darwin was compelled to admit that the famous skull of Neanderthal was well developed and capacious, and Broca offered an ingenious explanation of the otherwise inexplicable fact that the mean capacity of the skull of the ancient cave-dweller is greater than that of many modern Frenchmen, namely, that the average capacity of the skull in civilized nations must be lowered by the preservation of a considerable number of individuals, weak in mind and body, who would have been promptly eliminated in the savage state, whereas among savages the average includes only the more capable individuals who have been able to survive under extremely hard conditions of life. The skulls of La Chapelle and of Spy afforded an opportunity of determining this very interesting problem, and the results entirely confirm the earlier estimates of Schaaffhausen and of Broca as to the great cubic capacity of the Neanderthal brain. The estimates in descending order are as follows:

Skull of Spy II (Fraipont) ? 1723 c.cm.
" La Chapelle (Boule, Verneau, and Rivet) 1626 "
" Spy I (Fraipont) ? 1562 "
" Neanderthal 1408 "
" La Quina, female (Boule approximation) 1367 "
" Gibraltar, female (Boule estimate) 1296 "

The size of the brain in the existing races of _Homo sapiens_ varies from 950 c.cm. to 2020 c.cm.(63) Thus in respect to the volume of cerebral matter the brain of the Neanderthal man is surely human, but in form the brain lacks the proportions characteristic of the superior organization of the brain in recent man. In another important respect it is human: in the larger size of the left hemisphere, indicating the development of the use of the right hand. In its general form the brain is more like that of the anthropoid apes in the relatively smaller size of the frontal portion, in the simplicity and length of the convolutions, and in the position and direction of the great fissures at the side known as the 'fissures of Sylvius' and of 'Rolando.' As studied by Boule and Anthony(64) there are many primitive characteristics in the brain of the Neanderthals. The front of the forebrain, the so-called prefrontal area, which is the seat of the higher faculties, is not fully developed but has a protuberance as in the brain of the anthropoids. The left frontal lobe in particular, which is associated with the power of speech, is not much developed in the lower part, so that a limited development of the faculty of speech is inferred. The lateral fissure of Sylvius is relatively wide and open, and this and other features suggest the brain of the anthropoid. The brain of the skull of La Quina, which is believed to be that of a female, also shows many primitive features.(65) The absolute cubic capacity of the brain is less significant of intelligence than the relative development of those portions of the brain which are concerned in the higher processes of the mind.

The stature of the various examples of the Neanderthal race is estimated somewhat differently by Boule and by Manouvrier, and also varies with the sex:

Neanderthal (Boule) 1.55 m. 5 ft. 1 in.
" (Manouvrier) 1.632 m. 5 ft. 4-1/5 in.
La Chapelle (Boule) 1.57 m. 5 ft. 1-4/5 in.
" (Manouvrier) 1.611 m. 5 ft. 3-2/5 in.
Spy (Manouvrier) 1.633 m. 5 ft. 4-3/10 in.
La Ferrassie I (Manouvrier) 1.657 m. 5 ft. 5-1/5 in.
Average of Neanderthals supposed male 1.633 m. 5 ft. 4-3/10 in.
La Ferrassie II (female) 1.482 m. 4 ft. 10-3/10 in.

The Neanderthal head is very large in proportion to the short, thick-set body, which we observe rarely exceeds 5 feet 5 inches in height in the male, and 4 feet 10 inches in the female. The proportions of the body and limbs of the Neanderthals throw a surprising light on their ancestral history as well as upon their defects as a race dependent upon the chase. In proportion to the length of the thigh, the lower leg is much shorter than in any existing human race. The tibia or shin-bone is only 76.6 per cent of the length of the femur or thigh-bone, whereas in the existing races with the shortest shin-bone, such as the Eskimos and the majority of the yellow races, it is never less than 80 per cent of the length of the thigh-bone. In this respect the Neanderthal man is not like the anthropoid apes but has a relatively _shorter_ shin-bone, because the gorillas have an index of 80.6 per cent, the chimpanzees of 82 per cent, the orangs and gibbons of above 83 per cent; thus all the anthropoid apes and the lower races of man have a relatively longer leg from the knee down than has the Neanderthal race.

The shortness of the shin-bone as compared with the length of the thigh-bone is proof that the Neanderthals were very clumsy and slow of foot, because this proportion is characteristic of all slow-moving animals, whereas a long shin-bone and a short thigh-bone indicate that a race is naturally fleet of foot.

Similarly the Neanderthal man has a very short forearm, only 73.8 per cent of the upper arm; it approaches the proportions seen in the Eskimos, Lapps, and Bushmen.(66) Here, again, the Neanderthal man differs from the anthropoid apes, among which the shortest forearm is that of the gorilla, having a ratio of 80 per cent.

There are other features which would tend to show that the ancestors of the Neanderthaloids had been ground dwellers rather than tree dwellers back into a very remote period of geologic time; the arms are much shorter than the legs, whereas in tree dwellers they are much longer. Thus, we have observed in the anthropoid apes that the arm is very long in proportion to the leg; in the chimpanzee, which has relatively the shortest arms among the anthropoid apes, the index is 104 per cent, that is, the arms are slightly longer than the legs. On the contrary, in the Neanderthals the arm length is only 68 per cent of the leg length; thus it is very far removed from the anthropoid-ape type and comes nearest to the Australian and African negro types.

Thus, to sum up the bodily proportions of the Neanderthals:

Arm short in proportion to leg, average index 68 per cent.

Forearm short in proportion to upper arm, average index 73.8 per cent.

Shin-bone short in proportion to thigh-bone, average index 76.6 per
cent.

Stature extremely short in proportion to size of head.

The structure of the shoulder and of the chest is full of interest. All the ribs are remarkably robust and of large volume, and, whereas in existing races they exhibit a flattened section, in the Neanderthals the section is distinctly triangular in form. This implies a very muscular and robust torso in correlation with the gigantic head and stout limbs. The collar-bones are correspondingly long, presenting a ratio to the humerus exceeding 54 per cent, which is much higher than that among the average existing races; this indicates a very broad shoulder. The shoulder-blade is also very different in type from that of the higher races of men, and even from that of the higher Primates; it is extremely short and broad.

While, as noted above, the arm of the Neanderthals is relatively short and thus non-anthropoid, it presents a mingling of human and ape characters. The upper arm, or humerus, is truly of the human type, the torsion angle upon its axis being 148°, whereas in the anthropoid apes the angle of torsion never passes 141°. Among the bones of the lower arm the most significant is the radius, with which the turning movement of the hand is correlated; the structure of the head of the radius has more resemblance to that of the anthropoid apes than to that of existing species of man. The structure of the other bone of the forearm, the ulna, is also very primitive, exhibiting certain monkey characteristics.

The structure of the hand is a matter of the highest interest in connection with the implement-making powers of the Neanderthals. The hand is remarkably large and robust, comparable in size with that of men of very large stature in existing races. With respect to the opposition power of the thumb against the fingers by means of the opponens muscle, a distinctively human characteristic, the stage of Neanderthal development is decidedly lower than that of existing races, because the joint of the metacarpal bone which supports the thumb is of a peculiar form, convex, and presenting a veritable convex condyle, whereas in the existing human races the articular surface of the upper part of the thumb joint is saddle-shaped, that is, concave from within backward, and convex from without inward. Thus the highly perfected motions of the thumb in _Homo sapiens_ were not attained in _Homo neanderthalensis_. Two phalanges which are preserved in the Chapelle-aux-Saints skeleton show that the fingers were relatively short and robust.

In the structure of the hip-girdle our fossil man is altogether human; nevertheless, some of its characters are very primitive and distinctive.

Similarly, the thigh-bone shows several primitive characters which are only rarely seen in existing races, such as the third trochanter and the strong, general forward curvature.

The structure of the knee-joint in relation to the shin-bone is very peculiar, because it shows that the shin was always retroverted or bent backward. Two other features of the shin-bone are its extreme abbreviation as compared with the femur, and the absence of flattening, or platycnemism. Where the shin-bone joins the ankle-bone (astragalus) are shown two facets, such as are preserved only in those races of existing men which have retained the habit of squatting or the folded position of the limbs; these facets are not found in races which have the habit of sitting. They indicate that the resting position of the Neanderthals while engaged in industrial work was squatting, as shown in our restoration of one of the Neanderthals at Le Moustier.

Associated with these powerful and peculiarly shaped limbs is the particularly short and thick-set vertebral column, each bone of which is remarkable for its abbreviation. The neck especially is entirely different in construction from that of existing races of men. It would appear that the concave curvature of the back in the Neanderthals was carried directly upward and continued into the concave curvature of the neck, as among the anthropoid apes, and especially in the chimpanzee. The vertebræ of the neck, especially the fifth, sixth, and seventh, and the first dorsal, resemble those of the chimpanzee far more closely than those of the modern European; the spinous processes are directed backward instead of downward. This caused the habitual stooping of Neanderthal man at the neck and shoulders and prevented him from ever holding his head entirely erect. Whereas in the back-bone of existing races the erect position is maintained by four graceful curvatures, two toward the front, and two toward the back, in the Neanderthals, as in the newly-born members of the higher races, we observe only three curvatures, two concave toward the front, namely, the back and neck curvature, just described, and a sacral or pelvic curvature; there is also a convex lumbar curvature in the lower part of the Neanderthal back-bone, which, however, is less pronounced than in existing species of man.

Summing up the characters of the back-bone in the Neanderthals, certain of them are very primitive, such as the structure of the vertebræ of the neck and the robust development of the spinous processes, the absence of marked curvature in the lower part of the back-bone and the very gentle curvature of the bones of the sacrum.

The total aspect of Neanderthal man may be characterized in the following manner:(67) An enormous head placed upon a short and thick trunk, with limbs very short and thick-set, and very robust; the shoulders broad and stooping, with the head and neck habitually bent forward into the same curvature as the back; the arms relatively short as compared with the legs; the lower leg, as compared with the upper leg, shorter than in any of the existing races of men; the knee habitually bent forward without the power of straightening the joint or of standing fully erect; the hands extremely large and without the delicate play between the thumb and fingers characteristic of modern races; the resort to a squatting position while occupied in flint-making and other industries. Thus the ordinary attitudes characteristic of _Homo neanderthalensis_ would be quite different from our own and most ungainly. The heavy head, the enormous development of the face, and the backward position of the foramen magnum, through which the spinal cord connects with the brain, would tend to throw the upper part of the body forward, and this tendency, with the lesser curvature of the neck, the heavy shoulders, and the flattened form of the head, would give this portion of the body a more or less anthropoid aspect.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION OF MOUSTERIAN STATIONS

The Neanderthal race of Mousterian times established stations all over western Europe, of which upward of fifty have already been discovered, as compared with the fifty-seven or more Acheulean stations known. At some points the old open camps of the Acheulean flint workers were still visited, as along the Thames, the Somme, and the Marne. Thus Abbeville, St. Acheul, Montières, and Chelles, in northern France, show a succession of Mousterian industry following the Acheulean, the Chellean, and, at St. Acheul, even the Pre-Chellean. These may well have been summer stations, visited at favorable seasons of the year because of their abundant supply of flint. About 125 miles to the east of St. Acheul, in Belgium, on a small tributary of the Meuse, is the grotto of Spy, which, together with Mousterian implements, has yielded two human fossil skeletons of the Neanderthal race.

In southern Devonshire is the famous cavern of Kent's Hole, near Torquay, discovered as long ago as 1825 by MacEnery and described in 1840 by Godwin-Austen.(68) It is interesting to note that teeth of the sabre-tooth tiger (_Machærodus latidens_) have been found in this cavern, leading Boyd Dawkins to believe that this animal survived to late geologic times: it will be recalled as a contemporary of the early Chellean flint workers at Abbeville. The animal life of Kent's Hole, as originally described by Godwin-Austen, included remains of "elephant, rhinoceros, ox, deer, horse, bear, hyæna, and a feline animal of large size"--fauna now known to belong to the period of the fourth glaciation.[AI]

To the south are three stations, one of which, La Cotte de St. Brelade, on the present isle of Jersey, then part of the mainland, has yielded Mousterian flakes and thirteen human teeth of Neanderthal type.

Still farther to the south, in the Dordogne region, is found the type station described on a previous page, of Le Moustier, the centre of a group of eight sites crowded along the north and south shores of the Vézère, which have become famous for the knowledge they yield of the successive stages in the development of the Mousterian implements, beginning with the primitive culture station of La Micoque, and including La Ferrassie, Le Moustier, La Rochette, Pataud, La Mouthe, Laussel, and finally the Abri Audit, which marks the closing stage in the development of the Mousterian industry and, in the opinion of many archæologists, its transition to the Aurignacian. At several of these places important discoveries have been made, both of human fossils and of noteworthy transitions in the progress of invention. Circling round this Vézère group are the stations of Petit-Puymoyen, La Quina, where implements of the closing stage of Mousterian industry have been found as well as a human fossil of the Neanderthal type, and La Chapelle-aux-Saints, which has yielded the only complete skeleton of a Neanderthal man so far discovered.

In Spain is the station of San Isidro, near the headwaters of the Tagus, and the beautifully situated grottos of Castillo and Hornos de la Peña, on the northern slopes of the Cantabrian Mountains.

As contrasted with the very numerous Acheulean sites of Italy, it is surprising to note that only two Mousterian grottos have thus far been discovered in this region: the Grotte delle Fate in the mountains of Liguria, and the very important group of caves on the Riviera, near Mentone, known as the Grottes de Grimaldi, close to the seashore and at the very point where the Italian Alps abut upon the sea. Crossing to the north, we note the superb Swiss grotto of Wildkirchli, on the headwaters of the Rhine, 5,000 feet above sea-level.

In all Germany there are only about seven stations of unquestioned Mousterian age. Of these six are grottos, and the seventh, Mommenheim, is a fluvial redeposit of loess along a small stream, where only _one_ implement has been found.(69) It is interesting to observe that in Germany these Mousterian sites occupy the great wedge of territory between the Scandinavian ice-fields on the north, and the Alpine on the south, and that Wildkirchli was actually within the area of glaciation; while the caves of Räuberhöhle and Šipka were not far from the glaciers which clothed the Carpathian Mountains, and Baumannshöhle was not so very remote from the great Scandinavian ice-field. In the region of the headwaters of the Rhine and Danube the industry of the Neanderthal race has thus far been traced only at the stations of Irpfelhöhle, Räuberhöhle, and Sirgenstein. The latter cavern is of especial importance because it comprises the entire Palæolithic history of this region, presenting a series of successive culture layers from Mousterian times up to the arrival of the Neolithic race. Further to the east are the Gudenushöhle, near Krems, in Lower Austria, and Ochos and Šipka, in Moravia, while over the Russian border are Wierschovie and Miskolcz. Well to the northwest of Wildkirchli are the stations of Mommenheim and Kartstein, and to the north that of Baumannshöhle.

WORKMANSHIP OF THE NEANDERTHALS

The dense communal life of Mousterian times may have favored a social evolution, the development of the imagination and of tribal lore, and the beginnings of the religious belief and ceremonial of which apparent indications are found to be wide-spread among the entirely different races of Upper Palæolithic times. The life is not, however, marked by industrial progress or invention.

The successive stages of the Mousterian industry have not as yet been so clearly defined as those of the Acheulean (Schmidt(70)). In the open Mousterian stations and caverns of Belgium and England Schmidt has observed the stages of early, middle, and late Mousterian. Breuil and Obermaier consider La Micoque as belonging to the close of the Acheulean but as marking the transition into the Mousterian. Breuil considers the industry of the Combe-Capelle station as representing the oldest true Mousterian culture. The researches which have been carried thus far would appear to justify the following subdivisions of the Mousterian culture in southwestern France:

6. Abri Audit culture, marking the transition from late Mousterian to
early Aurignacian industry.

5. Late true Mousterian industry. La Quina type of implements with
scrapers and bone anvils.

4. Middle Mousterian industry, with a predominance of handsome, large
Mousterian points carefully 'retouched' on the edge and sometimes on
one side, a 'retouch' at times approaching the superior Solutrean
technique.

3. Primitive early Mousterian industry, with a limited inventory of
implements.

2. Combe-Capelle stage, with heart-shaped coups de poing and typical
Mousterian 'points.' (Arrival of reindeer.)

1. La Micoque culture, transitional from Acheulean to Mousterian
times. (No reindeer.)

The flint industry, although very different in its outward appearance, is recognizable as a direct evolution from the Acheulean, with the suppression or decline of certain implements and the improvements of others. It is the product of the same kind of mind at work with the same materials, but under different climatic conditions and with new demands, especially for clothing as protection against the severe weather. We also cannot avoid the feeling that the abandonment of the free, open life of Chellean and early Acheulean times and the crowding of the Neanderthal tribesmen beneath the shelters and in the grottos had a dwarfing effect both upon the physique and upon the industry itself. The Mousterian implements, as compared with the Acheulean, impress one as the work of a less muscular and vigorous race.

In addition to the many fine transitions that one observes(71) between the Acheulean and Mousterian industries at St. Acheul, strong evidence is also furnished in favor of a close connection between these cultures by the discoveries at Laussel, on the Vézère, near Les Eyzies. There, broad and deep before this shelter of Laussel, lies the Mousterian layer, and directly beneath it is a true Acheulean layer close to the waters of the valley of the Beune. This proves that in Acheulean times this valley was deepened to the same degree as to-day, and a close union of the Acheulean to the Mousterian is here again evident. In the valley of the Somme near St. Acheul Commont has also observed proofs of a similar close connection between these cultures. With such records in northern and southern France, the Neanderthal race, which is known toward the end of Acheulean times and especially covers the entire period of Mousterian time, comes much nearer to us. If we assign the Mousterian industry to the last glacial period, we give it a duration of some 30,000 years, and this is about the reckoning which thoughtful anatomists have already assigned for the Neanderthal man.

SPECIAL MOUSTERIAN IMPLEMENTS

Two instruments are especially typical of the Mousterian industry from beginning to end; these are the 'pointe' and the 'racloir.' The former, pointed and spear-shaped, is from 1 to 4 inches in length; the latter is a broad scraper, from 1 to 2 inches in width; and both have the distinctive peculiarity of being composed of a large flake of flint struck off from a larger bulb or nodule and of being retouched only on one side, leaving on the opposite side the smooth conchoidal surface of the flake.(72) This point and scraper are highly characteristic not only of the early stages but of the Mousterian industry throughout its entire course, including even the late La Quina types, and their manner of making is obviously a modified usage of the late Acheulean discovery of the flakes of Levallois.

A matter of the greatest interest in the industrial development of western Europe at this time is the fact that this discovery of the _utilization of the flake_, whether in the 'lames de Levallois' or in the Mousterian point and scraper, led to the decline of the coup de poing. The retouched flakes of various shapes were easier to make and to repair and served equally well the purposes of skinning and dismembering game which had been previously served by the ancient coup de poing.(73)

In consequence, the coup de poing, fashioned from the core of the nodule, begins to play a very secondary rôle and occurs but rarely in the Mousterian levels. Even at St. Acheul, the very centre of its former reign, we begin to find decadent forms and poor workmanship, which make it difficult to recognize that these are the successors of the finely retouched Acheulean coups de poing. While the coups de poing at the type station of Le Moustier continue to retain the old Acheulean patterns--the oval, the heart-shaped, the sharp-pointed--they are all of smaller size and rather coarsely retouched. Thus, after thousands of years of development and employment, the coup de poing falls into a period of degeneration and of final disuse. The history of this. implement, which we have traced from its Pre-Chellean prototypes, presents a most interesting analogy with the course of evolution observed in so many animal and plant forms. It passes through many stages of improvement and reaches a climax of perfection and adaptation; it then comes into competition with another form evolving on a fundamentally different and superior plan and disappears in the struggle for existence through the greater usefulness of the replacing type.

SUCCESSIVE STAGES IN THE MOUSTERIAN INDUSTRY

The succession of industrial stages is best shown along the Vézère. The oldest Mousterian industry is that of Combe-Capelle with its heart-shaped, roughly fashioned coups de poing, entirely lacking, however, any evidence of a surface prepared for the grasp of the hand.

In the valley of the Somme Commont(74) has observed the three following stages in the advance of the Mousterian industry:

3. A late Mousterian culture which lies on the upper layers near the
top of the same gravel deposit and which shows entirely new technical
elements. The old coup-de-poing culture is no longer valued, and all
the implements found here are of flakes worked only on one side and
with an extraordinarily fine retouch.

2. A middle Mousterian horizon which lies in the lower layers of a
gravel deposit, belonging to the 'newer loess,' and which contains
only _one_ small coup de poing.

1. An early Mousterian, with quite numerous lance-shaped coups de
poing, lies at the base of the 'newer loess,' showing that the
coup-de-poing tradition still lingers and the coup-de-poing type is
still preserved. With these are associated the new types of implements
and especially the 'hand-points,' which are so typical of the
Mousterian industry.

The more recent levels (2, 3) contain longer flakes, which already
exhibit a tendency toward the blades, or 'lames,' of the Upper
Palæolithic.

In the shelters and caverns of Dordogne the same industrial sequence may be observed, although the chronological succession of the strata is not always clearly defined. At the grotto of Combe-Capelle the heart-shaped coups de poing retain most strongly the old traditions, but even here these are outnumbered by the well-fashioned Mousterian 'points,' chipped only on one side.

The further development of the Mousterian industry may be observed in the type station of Le Moustier, where the lower levels show a primitive Mousterian consisting mostly of very fine, irregularly fashioned flakes, made into small scrapers, triangular points, borers, and disks. The overlying layer includes very carefully worked Mousterian points which are frequently retouched on one side over the entire surface; here the Mousterian technique reaches its highest development, so that Schmidt designates it as 'high Mousterian.'(75) Above this layer, again, is a level of typical late Mousterian forms, quite unlike the small primitive flakes of the lower level and resembling the characteristic forms of La Quina, the dominant type being the finely shaped La Quina racloir. The few diminutive coups de poing which occur in this level at Le Moustier furnish the only distinction between the industry here and that of La Quina, where no coups de poing are found. At Le Moustier also occur the typical bone anvils which were first recognized at La Quina.

The Mousterian industry of the Neanderthals was thus devoted mainly to the development of the smaller forms of implements, for the most part retouched on one side only, and with a constant improvement of technique. Yet the chief types of Mousterian implements remain the same as in Acheulean times, as shown in the accompanying table.

The implement known as the _pointe_, or the 'hand-point,' is a principal and very characteristic Mousterian form further perfected from its Acheulean stage. It is spear-headed in shape and chipped on one side only, and continues into late Mousterian times, being still found in the Mousterian levels of Spy, in Belgium.

The _pointe double_, a double-pointed, spear-shaped form, at times almost attains the elongate shape of the Solutrean _pointe de laurier_, though never its slenderness, symmetry, and perfection of technique.

INDUSTRIAL.
Coup de poing (decadent), hand-stone.
ovoid.
heart-shaped.
sharp-pointed.
Hachette, chopper.
Grattoir, planing tool.
Perçoir, drill, borer.
Couteau, knife.
Racloir, scraper.
knife-edged.
curved-out edge.
saw-edged.
double-edged.
beak-shaped.
many-edged.
Pointe, 'hand-point.'
Percuteur? hammer-stone?

WAR AND CHASE.
Pointe, 'hand-point.'
Pointe double, spear head?
Coup de poing, hand-stone.
Pierre de jet, throwing stone.
Couteau, knife.

There are five or six well-defined varieties of the racloir, or scraper, carefully fashioned out of flakes. The principal form is crescentic in shape, with outward-curved edge. Other forms are saw-like with straight edges or knife-edged. Another form with very neatly and symmetrically incurved borders has its edges sharply retouched, as if for the smoothing down of bone or wooden shafts. The borer is also fashioned of an elongate flake and sometimes finished with a very fine point at one of its extremities. It is noteworthy that the grattoir, or planing tool, so well developed in the Upper Palæolithic industries, appears only sporadically in Mousterian times. For example, at La Quina, in the closing stages of the Mousterian industry, out of 220 implements collected at hazard, there were 166 scrapers of six different forms, 45 'hand-points' of five different forms, and 5 double points, as compared with 5 grattoirs, or planing tools. There are very few knife-shaped forms. It would appear that the racloir and the perçoir were the principal implements employed in the preparation of skins for clothing.

In early Mousterian times the coup de poing may still have been used by the Neanderthals in the chase, and the fine, spear-headed 'point' and the rarer 'double point' may have been developed in response to the needs of hunters, who now ventured the chase of the bison, the urus, the wild horse, and the reindeer.

The most striking features of all the implements which may have been used in the chase are: first, the absence of any definite proof of their attachment to a shaft or handle; and second, the absence of any barbed or headed type of point. The use of the barb, as we shall see, appears to be a relatively recent discovery of the later cultures of Upper Palæolithic times.

The transition from the Mousterian to the Aurignacian appears in the Abri Audit, which also lies in the valley of the Vézère. Here we still find irregularly fashioned coups de poing, decadent followers of the heart-shaped types of the earliest Mousterian industry; this is nearly the last phase in the decline of the old coup-de-poing manufacture. While the lance-shaped coup de poing of the late Acheulean never appears in any true Mousterian industry, the shorter, more heart-shaped type of Combe-Capelle traverses the entire Mousterian and, after further stages of degeneration, passes into the Abri Audit culture and even lingers into the early Aurignacian. At this latter station the typical Mousterian 'points' are almost wanting.

The Mousterian, observes Schmidt,(75) which preserves the traditions of the Lower Palæolithic coup-de-poing culture, is one of the most interesting phases in the development of Palæolithic industry, in that its successive stages exhibit the very last phases of the great coup-de-poing industry, of which only the almond and oval scraper types appear, and that very rarely, in the early Aurignacian. On the other hand, in the late Mousterian we observe a trend toward the blade (_lame_) industry of the Upper Palæolithic. Careful study and observation of the subdivisions of Mousterian culture have thus far been limited to central and southern France, and they have not yet been traced in Spain; but in the grottos of Belgium and England the early, middle, and late Mousterian types are known to exist.

Bone anvils, fashioned out of the hard surfaces of the foreleg and foot bones of the bison and horse, were discovered at La Quina in 1906. They show a flattened surface with cross incisions too regular to be accidental and too far from the articulation to be the result of an inexpert attempt to sever the joint.(76) This was not the only use of bone in Mousterian times, however, for primitive pointed implements of bone are occasionally found in Dordogne, mingled with Mousterian flints. A variety of rudely fashioned bone implements also occurs at Wildkirchli, in Switzerland.

DISAPPEARANCE OF THE NEANDERTHAL RACE

We have seen that the Neanderthals dwelt in Europe for a very long time, many thousands of years, during which they doubtless underwent considerable evolution from lower to higher types, and into varieties, under the modifying influences of climate, food, and racial habits. Consequently the known remains of Neanderthals exhibit a decided variation in head form, as well as in dentition: some are more primitive and ape-like; others, such as Spy II, are more like the modern races. The Krapina variety is more broad-headed than the typical Neanderthal variety. The Gibraltar variety is in many respects of low type. The individual known as Spy II is of higher type than the other Neanderthals. The variations in stature so far as known are slight.

For these and other reasons Hrdlička,(77) who has recently made a broad comparative study of the chief Neanderthal remains of Europe, is of the opinion that the Neanderthals partly evolved into the lower races of _Homo sapiens_; being not only in some measure ancestral to such very primitive forms as the Brünn or Předmost race of Upper Palæolithic times, but even contributing to the higher race of the Crô-Magnons. He also holds that traces of Neanderthal blood and physiognomy are not lacking even among modern Europeans.

A contrary view is set forth in the present volume; namely, that the Neanderthals represent a side branch of the human race which became wholly extinct in western Europe. This view the author shares with Boule and with Schwalbe. Certainly the evidence afforded by the known Upper Palæolithic burial sites does not support the theory that the Neanderthals persisted. It is possible, however, that the Upper Palæolithic skeletons discovered at Předmost, and now awaiting description by Maška, may modify this conclusion and demonstrate Hrdlička's theory that the Neanderthals survived and left descendants or men of mixed Neanderthal and _Homo sapiens_ race along the valley of the Danube.

Whatever may have been their fate in other regions, certainly the most sudden racial change which we know of in the whole prehistory of western Europe is the disappearance of the Neanderthal race at the close of the Mousterian culture stage, which was the latest industrial period of Lower Palæolithic times, and their replacement by the Crô-Magnon race. From geologic evidence the date of this replacement is believed to have been between 20,000 and 25,000 years before our era. So far as we know at present, the Neanderthals were entirely eliminated; no trace of the survival of the pure Neanderthal type has been found in any of the Upper Palæolithic burial sites; nor have the alleged instances of the survival of the Neanderthal strain or of people bearing the Neanderthal cranial characters been substantiated. We incline to agree with Boule and Schwalbe that the supposed cases among modern races of the transmission of Neanderthal characters are simply low or reversional types, which, upon close analysis, are never found to present the highly distinctive and peculiar combination of Neanderthal characteristics.

There is some reason to believe that the Neanderthals were degenerating physically and industrially during the very severe conditions of life of the fourth glaciation, but the consequent inferiority and diminution in numbers would not account for their total extinction, and we are inclined to attribute this to the entrance into the whole Neanderthal country of western Europe toward the close of Lower Palæolithic times of a new and highly superior race. Archæologists find traces of a new culture and industry in certain Mousterian stations preceding the disappearance of the typical Mousterian industry. Such a mingling is found in the valley of the Somme in northern France.