THE “MISSING LINK.”

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9415, 8 April 1909, Page 7

THE “MISSING LINK.”

The mnoh-talked-of “missing link” has been fonnd at last, and amply justifies Darrin’s theory that we are ail descended from the ape. So, at least, we gars told by two uiench 'scientists, who have been examining some remaips which were fonnd the other day tea grotto by two priests. It is confidently assented that they belonged to a very low type of pre- ■ historic man, who had probably no language, who walked on all fours, and who walked and lived and died thirty thousand years ago. The fragmentary’skeleton was fonnd lying in ' a shallow trench three yards from the entry to the grotto. The soil at /'the same level as the skeleton was -without remains, while the soil abovp contained the remains of the rhinoceros, reindeer, hyena and wolf. The skeleton was on its side, with the legs folded towards the body. .It appears to have been buried, and beside it was the hind foot of some large bovine, which seems to have been placed there as if for food for the dead. The age of the “first man” at the time of death was probably over fifty years. The thigh bones were carved in like those of the . ape. establishing a belief that this member of the human snebies moved on all fours. One thing that bridges over the cen • turies that have passed since the owner of those bones lived is teat they shqw their owner suffered from rheumatism. The remains are certainly those of a man, but they are of the lowest type of fossilised man yet discovered. If the anthropoid apes are placed at onfe end of the scale and the man at the other, between them comes the pithecanthropus, which is near the former, while the newly-found specimen is nearer man without losing touch with the pithecanthropus. He was carnivorous, it is said, this ancestor of the human race, for in the grotto where he was found, there were the bones of a reindeer and fossil remains of other animals, all prehistoric, which it may be be had killed and brought to the cave for time of stress. One of the professors referred to has expressed the opinion that the grotto in which the skeleton- was found had been a prehistoric burial, ground. This would argue that the man had companions and friends, and that even some sort of tribal organisation existed. As tending to prove that the “first man” reposed in the burial ground of his tribe, it is pointed out that the bones were found in a triangular hollow that might have served as a primitive sarcophagus. The skull bones were resting on a pillow of stones, surmounted by a large bone placed flat on tbe stones, which, it is said, indicates that the relatives or '.he “missing link” placed a jointof meat in xiis sepulchre that he might not go hungry on his long journey into the Unknown, after the manner of other primitive peoples. There was, however, 'no trace in the grotto of fire or of an altar for sacrifice, and the scientists conclude that this early man did not know how to create fire, and ate liis reindeer and wild horse raw. There were rude stone instruments in the cave, hot upon them was no carving, for their owner lived even before the vaguest dream of. the rudest art dawned in the mind of man. From the position in which the bones were found it is argned that the prehistoric man was lying on his side when death came to him, or was placed in that position by those who laid him in the grotto. The legs were drawn up towards the body. The thigh bones show that there was an incurvation, which indicates that the man habitually stooped, walking upright with difficulty.