THE RHODESIAN SKULL.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 April 1922, Page 5

THE RHODESIAN SKULL.

TYPICALLY HUMAN PALATE. A SERIES OF MISSING LINKS. London, January 26. Keen interest still centres round the primitive skull which was unearthed by Mr. W. E. Barron, (formerly of Dunedin) at Broken Hill Mine, Rhodesia, and the bearing of this discovery on previous theories of the origin of man wan discussed by Dr. A. Smith Woodward, keeper of the Geological Department at University College. lie said the first impressive fact about the skull was its freshness. Only three definite cases had been discovered of remains of man dating back to the remote pro-burial time. The most important of them was that of the man discovered some twelve years ago by Mr. Charles Dawson at Piltdown, Sussex. The skull had been preserved practically intact, and was a most valuable link between man and his ape-like ancestor. In quite modern times a most important specimen of the Neaudc.thal man was discovered by the, French in a little cave at La Chapelle, in the south-west of France. In that specimen several features resembled the ape, particularly in the shape of the skull, the prominent brow ridges, and in the length of the face. It was necessary to consider how the new fossil recently found in Rhodesia compares with those earlier discoveries. After comparing the three skulls, Dr. Woodward summarised his deductions in the observation that in the Rhodesian fossil they had a creature reminiscent of the gorilla, whereas in the La Chapelle fossil they had a creature reminiscent of the chimpanzee. The palate of the Rhodesian skull, however, was typically human. It was beautifully domed, and there was no doubt that its owner possessed a very fine voice. “He was a fine singer or else a very line howler, probably the latter.” (Laughter.) The canine teeth were just as typically human as our own, and the arrangement of the mouth was so modern that even the wisdom teeth were disappearing. That bad. never been seen before in a primitive type of man. Another extraordinary fact proved, by the fossil was that the man in life suffered from caries, and there were traces of root abscesses having penetrated the jawbone. But the most important fact of all was the way into the brain cavity, which was exactly similar in its formation to that of modern man.

“How are we to interpret this new man in the terms of what we know already?” asked Dr. Woodward. “I think it is perfectly clear that he belongs to an entirely new race. He is certainly not the European Neanderthal man. At the present date there is no doubt that we may regard the white race as the highest and the black race as the lowest, but although in a general way that is true, there is no graduated series from one to the other. There are traces of the ape in us which are not found even in the blacks. There are, of course, more traces in the blacks that are not to be found in us, but there is no clear and definite line, and every fresh discovery that is made seems to add to our perplexity. The Rhodesian man is merely one of the last links in the chain, and it is perfectly certain we will have to find many species varying in different directions, and wait a long time before we get a connected series of missing links which will be convincing ”