Fossil Man Le Hon (Review)

7/28/2019 Fossil Man Le Hon (Review)

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LE HON'S FOSSIL MAN. 163rudeness of some portions of the chivalric and historic romances, andreturningto the impression they make on me, I am quite convinced,though I have no means of proving it, that they are fragments ofworks of still greater antiquity, which have descended to us interca-lated with more modern productions.

LE HON'S FOSSIL MAN.*

The science ofArchaic Anthropology may be divided thus :?Subjectswhichthe English understand and the French do not; subjects whichare understood by the French and ignored by the English ; and sub?jects which neither of them understand. It might be supposed thatthe third category would be the largest, but, on careful consideration,most heads are comprised under the second; whilst the first s a merebox formicroscopical objects. For this reason M. Le Hon's excellentbook will prove highly interesting to Englishmen, and will place themau courantwith the present state of the subject on the Continent. Thewhole book (considered as an avowed compilation) is one of the mostvaluable practical contributions to Archaic Anthropologythat has everbeen published. Far more convenient in form, written in betterlanguage, and more systematic in arrangement, than Sir C. Lyell'sAntiquityofMan, it forms one ofthe most instructive works we haveever read; and we discern with pleasure that the friend of the accom?plished Director of the Bruxelles Museum, Dr. Edouard Dupont, hasincorporated n this work all that is now known about what has beeninfelicitouslynamed the " Antrology" of Belgium. The discovery atLa Naulette of the famous pithecoid jaw (figured in this work), whichis one of the most importantpieces ustificatives n the historyof ancientman, was almost surpassed by the "find" in the Trou Magrite of theremains of cave lion, which had reversed the usual order of things,andafforded ustenance for man. The Daniel who was in the lion's denat the Trou Magrite appears to have made a heartymeal on his equallycarnivorous companions. We have rarely such valuable evidences ofthe customs ofprehistoricman affordedto us ; and we can only regretthat, with the exception of Mr. Godwin Austen and Mr. J. Jones, sofewEnglish take much interest in Belgian discoveries. We trust thatthe investigationwhichwas inaugurated by the Anthropological Societyof London in 1866, act ng in co-operation with Dr. E. Dupont, will* L*Homme ossileenEurope; son industrie, es mceurs,es ceuvresd'art.Par H. Le Hon. Second edition,Bruxelles, 1868.


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164 ANTHROPOLOGICALEVIEW.not be allowed to be altogether forgotten. The specimens upon whichthe antiquity of the human race can be most conveniently tested arethose fromthe Belgian caves. The Aquitanian relics are of late date,and less value. The most important are those fromBruniquel, de?scribed by Professor Owen some time ago before the Royal Society,but of which the description is as yet unpublished. Some others arebeing described in the work published according to the will of the lateMr. Christy, ncluding contributionsby M. Lartet, the prince of Frenchpalseontologists, edited by Professor Rupert Jones. There has beencertainly too much said about this work.It has been several times attempted by the Rev. Dunbar Heath, toidentify in some way the Aquitanian cave-dwellers with the " mutemen," which, according to his theory of the origin of language, pre-ceded the Aryan races in Western Europe. But when we examinethe cranial characters of the skulls fromLes Eyzies, we have no groundwhatever to inferthat they were destitute of language. It seems,moreover, improbable that a race which, on the whole, appeared tohave possessed a considerable amount of knowledge of elementary artshould have been destitute of language. It seems also scarcely logicalto identify the "mute men" (if they ever existed) with the race ofAquitaine, any more than with the more pithecoid and apparentlymore degraded individuals who lived at La Naulette and at Arcis.If either race was mute, the most pithecoid and the least civilisedshould be chosen, in preferenceto the cave-dweller ofAquitaine, withhis artistic skill and his vaulted cranium. The ages of the high leveland low level gravels of the Somme valley are, since the publicationof Mr. A. Tylor's paper before the Geological Society, exceedinglydoubtful, and, for this reason, we refrainfromsynchronisingthe lowlevel gravel with any of the French deposits.M. Le Hon's introductorywords give a general view of the presentstate of the science, as well as of the problems the scientificman hasto solve. We are sorrythat he should have thought fit to introducethe question of the derivation of the human race from the apes soearly in the work as the twenty-ninthpage, but have no doubt thathis analysis of the subject is as valuable as that of any other previouswriter,which is by no means too extravagant an encomium. A his?tory is given of the mode by which the flint implements which, sincethe time of Mr. Frere, of Hoxne, have attracted so much attention,have been made: and the conditions under which cavem depositshave been accumulated are carefully laid down. We would commendthis part of the work to all those who, like M. Desnoyers, have anydoubts about the authenticity of certain cavern remains. It is truethat in the infancyof the science various caverns (as c.g. Kirkdalc)


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166 ANTHROPOLOGICALEVIEW.were imperfectlydescribed. It is also true that since that timeFrench geologists have thoroughly laid down the conditions underwhich the age of various deposits in caverns can be comprehensivelysynchronisedand referred to various and dennite ages, according tothe relative percentage of extant, emigrated, or existing species theymay contain. English palseontologists have fallen into the wake ofthe French, and have bit by bit accumulated such evidences of patientresearch as Mr. Pengelly, in his celebrated Kent's hole exploration(under the auspices of a committee of the Royal Society) haspresented.With regard to the Moulin-Quignon jaw, M. Le Hon prudentlyrelegates it to an obscure note at the end of a chapter, and does notcommit the error common to too many French paleeontologists ofplaying off he Moulin-Quignon jaw as a trump card in the controversyon the antiquity of man. He does not exhibit similar prudence re?specting the Neanderthal skull, of which we have here a long account.The whole chapter on the Man of the Mammoth and Ursus spelaeusperiod is most interesting. The skulls of Engis, Eguisheim, Olmo,and Neanderthal, and the jaw of La Naulette, are carefully described.As the Olmo skull is scarcely known amongst Englishmen, we translateM. Le Hon's description:?" M. Cocchi, of Florence, considers this to be anteglacial and moreancient than the Abbeville jaw. It was discovered in a railway cuttingat Olmo, not far fromArezzo. This skull was at a depth of fifteenmetres in a bed of lacustrine marl, which presented no trace of dis-turbance. This clay, of a level higher than that of the Arno alluvium,ought to be very ancient. Tt is surmounted by a bed of sandy gravel(ghiaie), by ancient and modern alluvia, and byvegetable earth. Nearthe skull was found a kind of flint hache or lance-head, chipped withlarge facets. At two metres above there was collected the tip of anelephant's tusk. These human remains seem rather to complicate thegreat ethnological (sic) question than to throw light upon it. Theformgenerallyclasses the skull amongst the dolichocephali; thebroad,low, and angular foreheadinnothing resembles that of any fossilcraniadiscovered up to the present time. M. Vogt, who has examined theOlmo skull, says that he does not know anything similar in ancientcraniology. The anterior part of the skull is much depressed, whilstthe occipital portion offers considerable development. On the whole,especially in the posterior portion,the Olmo skull appears to resemblemore the Negro type than that of any otherrace."The woodcut given, however, which exhibits a profile view of thisskull, does not present any such remarkable peculiarities as thosewhich M. Vogt seems to infer. It would, of course, be hazardous toinferfromthe profileview alone the considerable resemblance whichthis skull seems to bear to those, e.g. of the Borris and Blackwater river


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LE HON'S FOSSIL MAN. 167beds, which exaggerate the extremedolichocephalic type of the Dorset-shire long barrows and of the apostles' skulls of Switzerland. As,however, M. Vogt commitshimself to the theory that the Olmo skullis sui generis, t would be unwise to contradict him on the mere groundof the resemblance the woodcut appears to bear to other and previouslydescribed dolichocephali. M. Le Hon argues in detail the questionwhether early man was cannibal. He quotes the discoveries of M.Spring in the cave of Chauveau, in Belgium, and M. H. De Ferry atSolutr6, in the Maconnais, which certainly bear out the theory. Weare sorryto see, however, Mr. Laing's alleged discoveries in Caithnessalluded to, and the scraps of mica-schist, which the ex-M.P. forWickimagined to be works ofhuman handiwork, described as " silex /" Itis hardly necessary to say that no flintexists in Caithness.The principal caverns of the age of the Ursus spelceus and of theMammothare the following ?Grotte de Vallieres, De la Chaise, Grottedes Fees, Trou de la Fontaine, Sainte-Reine, Pontil, Moustier,Vergison,Massat, Kent's hole. A great deal of confusion has arisen by con-foundingthese caves, which are of great antiquity, with the other onesof the reindeer age. These are also described by M. Le Hon in detail.

The account which is given by M. Le Hon of the caves of the rein?deer period is especially valuable : and gives a far better account ofthem than in any book we have yet examined. Those described areMassat, Bise, Savign6, La Vache, Bruniquel, Des Eyzies, De la Balme,Bethenas, Chaleux, and Solutr6, few of which have been described inEnglish works on Archaic Anthropology. At the termination of thisperiod took place that submergence of a large portion of northernEurope, during which the Limon hesbayenof Dumont was deposited.The waters in Belgium, according to M. Dupont's observation, attainedthe height at the epoch of the red drift cirgileaune d blocaux) of atleast 250 metres.We pass over a large portion of the work relating to the polishedstone and bronze ages, inasmuch as our readers are already familiarwith this period, which has been sufficientlydescribed in Englishworks. The analysis here given, however, is most valuable andcomprehensive. At the conclusion of the work, however, is an epi-zoon, which rather detracts from its merits; i.e., an abridgment ofthe theoryofDarwin, or " Transformism", translated fromthe Italianof Prof. Omboni, with prolegomena by M. Le Hon. This has abso?lutely nothing to do with the work itself; and we regret that somuch space has been wasted on discussing elementary Darwinism, ofwhich we have had quite enough. Whether " Darwinism", or " De-rivation"* be the real method by which the various living beings* Owen,Comparative natomy fVertebrates,vo., Lond. 1868,vol. iii.


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168 ANTHROPOLOGICALEVIEW.on the globe have been created, matters at present very little ;and has nothing to do with the question of " Fossil Man." IfM. Le Hon had called his book one on the Origin of Man, the ap-pendix would have been justifiable and necessary, but as it standsit is a blemish which we hope to see removed in the third edition.Belgium, however, in which country the most important evidences ofthe originof man have been discovered, has just cause to be proud ofthe present work.

ANALYTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE CHIEF CHARACTERSTENDING TO SEPARATE MAN FROM ANIMALS.*

By M. Rochet.

Man cannot be defined, as many naturalists have attempted, by asacramental phrase. His distinctive characters are multiple, and it isby their ensemble that we are enabled to understand him; he is asummary of all living beings, in some respects the conclusion; andhis infancyhas not yet terminated. From our point of view man maybe considered under fiveprincipal heads :?1. Man examined externallyas regardsform.?There is not a singlefeature n the human face which,examined froman artistic stand-point,does not constitute a character of beauty and nobility foreign to theanimal. He alone has an expressive and intelligent physiognomy.This applies also to the body. Thus the trunk of man is both suppleand flexible; it rotates on itself in a manner observed in no otheranimal; like the head the body is of incomparable beauty, and showsa harmony ofproportion not observed elsewhere.'' The erect stature,the perfectionof the hand, and of the foot,are characters of the samevalue. The hand is especially characteristic. Man alone has a truehand ; he alone uses this admirable instrument forcreating thousandsof industrial and artistic masterpieces.2. The internal, sensitive,or moral man.?Man is endowed with amoral sensibility altogether unknown to the rest of organised beings.Everything affectsand agitates him. He loves, or believes in thingsanimals have no notion of. He possesses the feelingof the beautiful,the ugly, of wrong and right. He alone is conscious of the moralityor immoralityof his acts. He alone in the whole universe is conscious

* Translatedfrom heBulletinsofthe Paris Anthropological ociety. Thisis thesummary f the author's importantmemoiron this subject.

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Fossil Man Le Hon (Review)