Prehistoric man / by W.L.H. Duckworth.

  • Wynfrid Duckworth
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Prehistoric man / by W.L.H. Duckworth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    active brain. And now that additions have been lately made to those older remains (other than the Javan bones), the same ‘reversed’ order seems to be con- firmed, so that the supporters of the erect attitude as the essential and preliminary acquisition, have either altered their opinion or else have made way for those who contend that following a preliminary increment of brain-material, the erect attitude came as a further evolutionary advance. But to return from this digression to the objections against the Pithecanthropus erectiis, it must now be explained that the very contrast between the thigh- bone and the skull-cap in respect of these inferences, has been used as an argument against the association of these bones as part of one skeleton. The objection may be met in two ways at least. For instance, the thigh-bone may yet possess cha- racters which lessen its resemblance to those of recent men, but are not recognised on a superficial inspection. Careful investigation of the thigh-bone seems to shew that such indeed is the case (so much so that the human characters are by some absolutely denied). But together with this result comes the discovery that the characters of straightness and slenderness in the shaft of the bone from which the inference as to the erect attitude was largely drawn, do not give trustworthy evidence upon this point. In fact, a human thigh-bone may be much less straight and less slender
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