I r 1 D. Schaaffhausen DISCOVERY OF THE NEANDERTHAL SKULL "On the Crania of the most Ancient Races of Man," by Professor D. Schaaffhausen, of Bonn. (From Muller's Archiv., 1858, pp . 453.) With remarks an d original figures, taken from a cast of the neanderthal cranium, by George Busk. Th e Natural History Review, Vol. I, No. II (April, 1861), Article XVII. (London and Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1861) 155-174. [4 [ In the early part of the year 1857, a human skeleton was discovered in a limestone cave in th e Neanderthal, near Hochdal, between Dusseldorf and Elberfeld. Of this, however, I was unable to procure more than a plaster cast of th e cranium taken a t Elberfeld, from which I drew u p a n account of its remarkable conformation, which was, in th e first instance, read on the 4th of February, 1857, at the meeting of the Lower Rhine Medical an d Natural History Society, a t Bonn (Verhandl. d. Naturhist. Vereins der preuss. Rheinlande und Westphalens, xiv. Bonn, 1857). Subsequently Dr. Fuhlrott, himself gave a full account of the locality, and of the circumstances under which the discovery was made. He was of th e opinion that the bones might be regarded as fossil; and in coming to this conclusion, he laid especial stress upon th e existence of dendritic deposits with which their surface was covered, an d which were first noticed upon them by Professor Mayer. T o this communication I appended a brief report on th e results of my anatomical examination of the bones. T h e conclusions at which I arrived: (1) that th e extraordinary form of the skull due to a natural conformation hitherto not known to exist, even in the most barbarous races; (2) that these remarkable human remains belonged to a period antecedent to the time of the Celts an d Germans, an d were in all probability derived from on e of the wild races of northwestern Europe, spoken of by Latin writers; an d which were encountered as autochthones by th e German immigrants; an d (3) that it was beyond doubt that these human relics were traceable to a period at which th e latest DiscoJ'ery o f the Neanderthal Skull know what th e beings looked like, he was at least conl'inced that they were true men. He wrote, "N o human skeleton o f undoubted Pleistocene age has as ye t been discovered in river I gravel] strata on th e continent suffi- ciently perfect to allow us to Jorm an idea oj th e physique oJ th e Klver- drift [Paleolithic] men, an d no human bones have as ye t been recorded from the flul'iatile deposits o f Great Britain. The fe w fragments, however, which remain to us, prove that at this remote period ma n was present in Europe as man, and no t as an intermediate form connecting the human race with the lower animals. ,. r
