Identifier: mansplaceinnatur02huxl (find matches)
Title: Man's place in nature, and other anthropological essays
Year: 1890 (1890s)
Authors: Huxley, Thomas Henry, 1825-1895
Subjects: Human beings Apes Ethnology Indo-Aryans
Publisher: New York, Hurst and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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inreality, the extreme term of a series leading graduallyfrom it to the highest and best developed of humancrania. On the one hand, it is closely approached bythe flattened Australian skulls, of which I have spoken,from which other Australian forms lead us graduallyup to skulls having very much the type of the Engiscranium. And, on the other hand, it is even moreclosely affined to the skulls of certain ancient people whoinhabited Denmark during the stone period, andwere probably either contemporaneous with, or laterthan, the makers of the refuse heaps, or ^ Kjokken-moddings of that country. The correspondence between the longitudinal contourof the ^Neanderthal skull and that of some of thoseskulls from the tumuli at Borreby, very accurate drawrings of which have been made by Mr. Busk, is veryclose. The occiput is quite as retreating, the supracil-iary ridges are nearly as prominent, and the skull is aslow. Furthermore, the Borreby skull resembles the ON SOME FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN. 175
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Fig. 32.—Ancient Danish skull from a tumulus at Borreby;one-third of the natural size. From a camera lucida drawingby Mr. Busk. 176 MANS PLACE IN NATURE. iSTeanderthal form more closely than any of tlie Austra-lian skulls do, by the much more rapid retrocession ofthe forehead. On the other hand, the Borreby skullsare all somewhat broader, in proportion to their length,than the jSTeanderthal skull, while some attain thatproportion of breadth to length (80:100) which consti-tutes brachycephaly.^ In conclusion, I may say, that the fossil remains ofMan hitherto discovered do not seem to me to take usappreciably nearer to that lower pithecoid form, bythe modification of which he has, probably, become wha1;he is. And considei-ing what is now known of themost ancient Races of men; seeing that they fashionedflint axes and flint knives and bone-skewers, of much thesame pattern as those fabricated by the lowest savagesat the present day, and that we have every reason tobelieve the habits and

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