On Some Fossil Remains of Man | Page 7

early part of the year 1857, a human skeleton was discovered in
a limestone cave in the Neanderthal, near Hochdal, between Dusseldorf
and Elberfeld. Of this, however, I was unable to procure more than a
plaster cast of the cranium, taken at Elberfeld, from which I drew up an
account of its remarkable conformation, which was, in the first instance,
read on the 4th of February, 1857, at the meeting of the Lower Rhine
Medical and Natural History Society, at Bonn.*
[footnote] *'Verhandl. d. Naturhist.' Vereins der preuss. Rheinlande und
Westphalens., xiv. Bonn, 1857.

Subsequently Dr. Fuhlrott, to whom science is indebted for the
preservation of these bones, which were not at first regarded as human,
and into whose possession they afterwards came, brought the cranium
from Elberfeld to Bonn, and entrusted it to me for more accurate
anatomical examination. At the General Meeting of the Natural History
Society of Prussian Rhineland and Westphalia, at Bonn, on the 2nd of
June, 1857,* Dr Fuhlrott himself gave a full account of the locality, and
of the circumstances under which the discovery was made.
[footnote] *'Ib. Correspondenzblatt. No. 2.
He was of opinion that the bones might be regarded as fossil; and in
coming to this conclusion, he laid especial stress upon the existence of
dendritic deposits, with which their surface was covered, and which
were first noticed upon them by Professor Meyer. To this
communication I appended a brief report on the results of my
anatomical examination of the bones. The conclusions at which I
arrived were:--1st. That the extraordinary form of the skull was due to a
natural conformation hitherto not known to exist, even in the most
barbarous races. 2nd. That these remarkable human remains belonged
to a period antecedent to the time of the Celts and Germans, and were
in all probability derived from one of the wild races of North-western
Europe, spoken of by Latin writers; and which were encountered as
autochthones by the German immigrants. And 3rdly. That it was
beyond doubt that these human relics were traceable to a period at
which the latest animals of the diluvium still existed; but that no proof
of this assumption, nor consequently of their so-termed 'fossil'
condition, was afforded by the circumstances under which the bones
were discovered.
FIG. 23.--The Engis skull viewed from above (A) and in front (B).
"As Dr. Fuhlrott has not yet published his description of these
circumstances, I borrow the following account of them from one of his
letters. 'A small cave or grotto, high enough to admit a man, and about
15 feet deep from the entrance, which is 7 or 8 feet wide, exists in the
southern wall of the gorge of the Neanderthal, as it is termed, at a
distance of about 100 feet from the Dussel, and about 60 feet above the

bottom of the valley. In its earlier and uninjured condition, this cavern
opened upon a narrow plateau lying in front of it, and from which the
rocky wall descended almost perpendicularly into the river. It could be
reached, though with difficulty, from above. The uneven floor was
covered to a thickness of 4 or 5 feet with a deposit of mud, sparingly
intermixed with rounded fragments of chert. In the removing of this
deposit, the bones were discovered. The skull was first noticed, placed
nearest to the entrance of the cavern; and further in, the other bones,
lying in the same horizontal plane. Of this I was assured, in the most
positive terms, by two labourers who were employed to clear out the
grotto, and who were questioned by me on the spot. At first no idea was
entertained of the bones being human; and it was not till several weeks
after their discovery that they were recognised as such by me, and
placed in security. But, as the importance of the discovery was not at
the time perceived, the labourers were very careless in the collecting,
and secured chiefly only the larger bones; and to this circumstance it
may be attributed that fragments merely of the probably perfect
skeleton came into my possession'
"My anatomical examination of these bones afforded the following
results:--
"The cranium is of unusual size, and of a long elliptical form. A most
remarkable peculiarity is at once obvious in the extraordinary
development of the frontal sinuses, owing to which the superciliary
ridges, which coalesce completely in the middle, are rendered so
prominent, that the frontal bone exhibits a considerable hollow or
depression above, or rather behind them, whilst a deep depression is
also formed in the situation of the root of the nose. The forehead is
narrow and low, though the middle and hinder portions of the cranial
arch are well developed. Unfortunately, the fragment of the skull that
has been preserved consists