THE MISSING LINK.

Shannon News, 7 September 1923, Page 4

THE MISSING LINK.

SKULL OLDER THAN GWANDA FIND. GLIMPSES OF ANCIENT TARZAN. A skull, believed to be older than the one recently found at Gwanda, and reported on by Sir Arthur Keith, has been discovered at Belingwe. It also has been sent to Sir Arthur, says a Bullawayo correspondent of “The Daily Chronicle.” If the Belingwe fossil is really older than the Gwanda man, this drscovery is .of first-class scientific importance, and it may be that South Africa will come to be looked on as one of the most important “birthplaces of the human race.” It was in 1921 that Sir Arthur Keith reported on the marvellous antiquity of the Gwanda skull, just then dug up in the Broken Hill Mijnp, South Africa.

That fossil competes in age and interest with the famous Neanderthal and Cromagnon remains, and with the Piltdown skull found in Sussex, just before the war. Sir Arthur Keith in 1921 placed the Gwanda man—“ Homo Rhodesiensis” —between the Neanderthal man and the Java man discovered in 1892. He prophesied that further remains would be fof'nd in South Africa; which, with others from India, would help to give us glimpses of the world of man 100,000 years ago. , Dr Smith Woodward, of the Natural History Museum, exhibiting the Gwanda skull when it came to England, described it as that of a primitive man who must have been capable of “either pleasant singing or effective howling.”

The palate is as high as that of* the best of modern singers. While the Gwanda skull —which is now in the British Museum —is apelike in its outlines, it is recognised to be that of a far more advanced type than any of the out-and-out monkey, tribes. ' ' *]"'}

“It is one of the links in a chain of which many species will be found,” said Dr Smith Woodward. Perhaps the new old Belingwe skull will form another missing link.