On the Crania of the Most Ancient Races of Men

Abstract

The authenticated discovery of human remains in strata of high historical antiquity in the Heathery Burn Cave, near Stanhope, and at Muskham in the Valley of the Trent, and the approaching discussion which “looms in the distance” of Palæontology consequent upon the proximate publication of Sir Charles Lyell's ‘Antiquity of Man,’ induce me to offer a few observations on the osteological nature of the evidences at present afforded to us of man contemporary with the mammoths, with a view, if possible, to determine the grade of the individuals whose remains have been preserved in suprapliocene strata.The deposits on the banks of the Somme (Abbeville, St. Acheul, St. Roch), at Grenelle near Paris, at Hoxne in Suffolk, at Brixham and Kent's Hole in the south-west of England, under Gray's-Innlane in Middlesex, at Maccagnone in Sicily, the Kjökkenmöddings in Denmark, and at Wookey Hole in the Mendips, indicate to us the existence of man in a low state of civilization, as proved by his weapons, but of whom the osteological evidences have not yet been discovered. In these deposits the bones of extinct mammalia are found, as well as a more or less percentage of animals of existing species.At Engis in Belgium, Massat in France, Aurignac in Gascony, Muskham in the Valley of the Trent, the Lake habitations in Switzerland, proofs of man have been found in strata contemporaneous with the most recently extinct animals.