1939: Anthropology

Prehistoric Man in Africa.

In 1935 Doctor F. Kohl-Larsen discovered fragments of two skulls in the gravels at the northeast end of Lake Eyassi, Tanganyika Territory, Africa, in association with fossilized bones of antelopes, pigs, and hyenas resembling types of animals now living in that area. The two hundred fragments of the skulls have been painstakingly assembled by Doctor Hans Weinert of Kiel, Germany, so that there are now available for study the skull cap of one individual and part of the face of another. Though critical study of these East African finds is still far from completion, their closest resemblance appears to be to Pithecanthropus erectus, the famous Java ape man. These remains have been tentatively dated as 100,000 years ago.

Doctor Robert Broom of the Transvaal Museum, Pretoria, has continued his study of the human-like ape remains found in South Africa. He believes the Australopithecus skulls to be the most definitely ape-like, except for their teeth, which show a closer similarity to those of man than of the gorilla or chimpanzee, and therefore that they are not actual ancestors of man, but rather, survivors of a possible ape-like ancestral stock that existed before Ice Age times.

The distal end of a humerus, the proximal end of an ulna, and the distal phalanx of a toe of Paranthropus robustus, as well as the distal end of a femur of Plesianthropus were excavated in the Pleistocene bone breccia of Kromdrai, near Krugersdorp, South Africa, under the direction of Doctor Broom, thus adding not only to the known skeletal parts of this ape-man, but according to Doctor Broom giving strong indications that this early type of ape-man walked erect, and making a distinct departure from previous assumptions as to posture of this species.

Professor Raymond Dart of Witwatersrand University (South Africa), the discoverer of the controversial Taungs skull (Australopithecus africanus) states that a high culture existed in the present habitat of the Bantu-speaking peoples of South Africa in the Late Stone Age prior to their advent in that part of Africa. Skeletons associated with the Mapungobwa finds appear to indicate that the civilization centering here was associated with a race said to be intermediate between, and possibly a hybrid of, Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal types, which as known in Europe, are distinct races.

Neanderthaloid Findings.

Finds of Neanderthaloid skulls and skeletons continue to be reported from widely separated areas. Digging in a cave at Mount Circeo on the Tyrrhenian sea, 50 miles south of Rome, Italy, Alberto Carlo Blanc uncovered an almost perfectly preserved Neanderthal skull, perfect except for a fracture in the right temporal region. It is the third of this type found in Italy. The two skulls previously reported were found in 1929 and 1935 in the Sacopastore region, near Rome, but in not nearly so well preserved a condition as the present find. No other human bones were found here, but the skull was accompanied by fossilized bones of elephants, rhinoceri, and giant horses, all fractured, thus giving some evidence of the mode of life of Neanderthal man. Professor Sergio Sergi, of the Institute of Anthropology at the Royal University of Rome, who has studied this skull in detail believes it to be 70,000 to 80,000 years old. He concludes also that Neanderthal man walked almost as erect as modern man and not with head thrust forward as had hitherto been assumed.

Another Neanderthal skeleton is reported to have been found in a cave in Middle Asia by A. P. Okladnikoff of the Anthropological Institute of Moscow University and the Leningrad Institute of Anthropology. The bones of the skeleton were badly shattered, but the jaw and teeth of the skull, itself crushed at the back, were almost complete.

Chokoutien Site in China.

The famous Chokoutien site near Peking, China, the home of ancient Peking man (Sinanthropus) previously reported, now proves also to have yielded additional more modern type skeletons which have been studied by Doctor Franz Weidenreich and Doctor W. C. Pei, the leaders in research at this site. In the portion of the site known as the upper cave were found the remains of a relatively advanced culture suggesting a resemblance to the Late or Upper Paleolithic in Europe, thus implying an age of 100,000 to 200,000 years. These cultural remains were accompanied by skeletons of bear, hyena, and ostrich, long extinct forms, as well as tiger and leopard which long since disappeared from this part of Asia. The three human skulls in condition good enough for detailed study indicate that they probably belong to three different racial groups. Of the two female skulls studied, one bears close resemblance to the skulls of modern Melanesians, with frontal deformation; the second to Eskimo skulls. The brain case of the male skull is in some respects very primitive, almost in the Neanderthaloid stage, but in other features is reminiscent of Upper Paleolithic Man. The face, is similar to, though not identical with, recent Mongolians. From this evidence it would seem that racial mixture is no product of modern times, but has its roots in extreme antiquity. It should be noted also that though Mongolian types resembling the modern population of North China were not found in the upper cave, it does not necessarily mean that they were nonexistent during that period. It has been suggested that the population represented in the upper cave may have been a migrating group. Historic and prehistoric American Indian skulls resembling Melanesian, Eskimo, or more primitive types have been reported from time to time in America, so that it would appear from the present finds at Chokoutien that long before migrations from Asia to America are assumed to have taken place, types similar to those composing the native American population were living permanently, or at least moving around in Eastern Asia.

Folsom Man in United States.

In America, the search for additional evidence of Folsom Man continues. Near Fort Collins, Colorado, Doctor Frank H. H. Roberts, Jr., continued excavation at a camp site, uncovering a variety of tools and weapons, and the first known decorated objects from any Folsom site, two decorated beads. This earliest American. Folsom Man, may have lived contemporaneously with Old World Cro-Magnon Man, or some 25,000 years ago. This tentative date was assigned recently by Doctors Kirk Bryan and Louis L. Ray of Harvard University on the basis of studies made at the Folsom camp site, known as the Lindenmeier site, in northeastern Colorado. Many of the stone points, identified as typically Folsom were found in an earth stratum above the floor of an ancient valley which is traceable to a terrace on a local stream. The terrace has been dated as of the late Ice Age. The dating is based on the assumed correlation between this late Ice Age stage with the Mankato of the Middle West and the Pomeranian of Europe. From this it appears that the culture-bearing layer of the Lindenmeier site was developed at the end of the glacial advance, or 25,000 years ago.

An attempt has been made to adapt the method of dating ruins by analysis of tree rings, so successfully carried out in America, specifically in Southwestern United States, to Viking ruins in Southern Norway. E. de Geer, who has been carrying on this work, reports, that, on the basis of a study of the remaining timbers in a wooden burial chamber in a Viking mound, it was constructed in 931 ad. A Swedish fort in Gotland was found by the same method to have been built in 5 ad. See also ARCHAEOLOGY.