19+ Part Three I 18~IO to 1925

T' Dubois I Place of Pithccanthropw in the Genealogical Trce

195

than it was the home of man's biological progenitors. If only a portion of

related only indirectly to modern man. Theirs were phylogenetic lines that
the prehistoric cultural patterns of the Old World were within the European
withered, while the sapiens line flourished and survived. Sir Arthur Keith
area, then hominid progenitors might also be forthcoming from Africa
was the leading voice in support of this "Presapiens School" and the first
and Asia. Yet in 1924 when the first Australopithecus was discovered,
to draw up a phylogenetic tree to represent the branching off of the Homo
very few scientists were aware of its significant role in future interpretations
sapiens from those stems leading to other fossil hominids. Keith differs in his
early works from later adherents of the Presapiens School, for he did not set of the story of human evolution.
apart particular fossil sp€cimens as representative of direct human ances­
tors of modern man. Also he relegated Eoanthropus, in spite of its Homo
sapiens skullcap, to a separate evolutionary stem that had become extinct.
The Presapiens School arose in part because of the dissatisfaction of
many early twentieth century scholars with the tenets of the Polyphyletic
and Unilinear Schools which had been inherited by the discipline from
the writings of the previous century. Nor was the Presapiens School the
only result of this need to assess the data in a new way in the light of the
The Place of Pithecanthropus in the

current amplification of the hominid fossil record. The Unilinear School Genealogical Tree

has sometimes been called the Neanderthal School because of its tenet
that the Neanderthal specimens marked a necessary link in the evolutionary Marie Eugene Francois Thomas Dubois
sequence of types that led to Homo sapiens. This Neanderthalism, or
pan-Neanderthal theory, was favored by Dubois, who placed between his
1896
Pithecanthropus and modern man the Neanderthal specimens then
known. Grafton Elliot Smith agreed that Homo sapiens shows a number the accompanying diagram, rqJIT­
In the report on the scientific meet­
of neanderthaloid traits and that our species of the Late Pleistocene scnting the evolution of the Old
ing of the Royal Dublin Society
followed in time the European Neanderthals. But Smith differed from his \Vorld ;Ipes ft'Olll a hypothetical COIll­
on November 20, in l\'ature of
colleagues in the Unilinear School by his interpretation of the popular mon ancestor, whom I call Prol't'r­
December 5, 1895, it is stated that
belief that while all living races today are members of the same genus and I placed Pithecanthropus in the copithecus.
species, certain races are more primitive than others. Smith saw these In Prof. Cunningh'1IIl's tree,
genealogical tree, drawn by Prof.
primitive groups as the less evolved representatives of the Homo sapiens figured in ~ature of December 5, p.
Cunningham, below the point of
branch that departed from the main human stem at a period in the 116, he regards the left branch as all
divarication of the Anthropoid apes
Plesistocene prior to the continuation of the Neanderthals into their blind human, the right one as entirely
from the human line. This indeed I
alley of evolution, marked by the "classic" or extremely robust Neanderthals simiall, and he placed Pithecanthro­
did. But this statplllent could be
found in western Europe and in the Broken Hill site of Northern Rhodesia. pus midway between recent ~Ian
misleading as to my real views on
Nor did Smith accept Pithecanthropus as the ancestor of Neanderthal and the point of divarication. Now
the gene,110gy of Pithecanthropus,
Man. This Javanese fossil appeared to him too specialized to be on that I could find no place for the fossil
such as I stated them already on p.
main human stem leading from the Miocene apes up to the "Nordic .1ayant'se form, which I consider as
38 of my original memoir (''Pithe­
racial group" of modern man. It was primarily Smith's thesis that Homo intermediate between NIan and An­
canthropus erectus, Eine rnenschen­
thropoid apes, many of the branches
sapiens became divorced from the Neanderthals and evolved separately at ahnlichc Uebergansforrn aus .1 aY ;I,"
some period of the Third Interglacial that became the basic premise of the of that tree. only in the third chi"f
BataYia. 1894), and more fully at the
"Preneanderthal School." The supporters of this theory differ from the lint'. the main stem. \-cry Ileal' to the
last nICeting of the Anthropological
Presapiens adherents mainly by placing the origin of the Homo sapiens Institute of (;reat Britain and Ire­ point of divarication.
Owing to the same circumstances.
line later in time-namely, within the period of the Third Interglacial­ land, on Novl'J1]l)('r 25.
\\,hic!J indirectly preYented me from
than do their colleagues, who would place this time of species formation It tllay not be superfluous to
explaining my own yiews on the
at the Second Interglacial or earlier. explain my yiews here by J1]eans of
By the first quarter of the present century these four ways of interpreting
"The Place of 'l'ithecanthrojms' in the Genealogical Tree." Nature. Vol. 5:;,
the fossil record had been defined. The results of prehistoric researches
pp. 2+5-47, 1896.
suggested that Europe could not be the cradle of human culture any more


196
Ccre '( 'l'i I hecid"c HY/oiJ" t C.l'
matter at Dublin, I did not then
reply to two remarks of Prof. Cun­
ningham, which mission I now wish
to repair by the following declara­
tion.
(1) I did not exaggerate the
rclatin~ height and quality of the
cranial arch, which Prof. Cunning-
"""""'"
Part Thrt>e / IS~)O to 1')2", Dubois / Place of Pithecanthropus in the Genealogical Tree
Sillli" HOlllo Allrhro!)(i{iirhcclI.I' (;ori//ac cranial arch is exactly equal to the
one-third part of the glabella-inion
linc, and in the skull of a Hylobates
agilis it i, about 2 mm, higher than
the third part of the corresponding
line. If in the", diagram in my
memoir that line in the gibbon skull
were drawn equal in length to that
of the fossil calvaria, instead of the
natural size, this would be more
apparent there than it is even now.
The said cranial areh of a Hylobates
syndactylus in the same diagram is
Illuch lower than that of the other
gibbon species, and the same arch
in the chimpanzee would even be
lower than in Hylobates syndactylus.
It is easy of find skulls of Semnopith­
eeus with a higher "cranial arch"
than the chimpanzee has. Further,
between different individuals of the
same ape species and of man, we
f)no{iirhcCII,\ find great differences in the height
/
of that arch.
All these facts tend to show that
there is no reason for regarding the
Pre 'rhy/oiJar C.l'
!i /'(}ccreo!'i rh""II.I'
ham had in view (the arch of the
glabella-inion part of the calvaria)
in Hylobates. The profile outline of
the skull of Hylobates agilis ... is
even somewhat higher than that of
Pithecanthropus, of which I have
an accurate bisected cast before me.
In the latter the height of the said
197
height of the suprainial part of the
calvaria as of real importance in our
judgment on the place which any
human-like being should occupy in
the genealogical tree.
(2) In my original memoir, I
have already pointed out that the
occiput of the fossil skull is very
ape-like, especially gibbon-like. But,
nevertheless, the inclination of the
planum nuchale in the glabella-inion
line is very different from that of all
the Old World apes. These accord
\'ery nearly with one another in the
degree of this inclination, whilst the
angle in Pithecanthropus approached
closely human conditions. I not only
compared photographs of the median
line of the skulls, but also the bisected
skulls with the bisected exact cast of
the fossil calvaria. The means which
I have taken to determine the degree
of this declination are therefore, I
believe, entirely calculated to yield
trust-worthy results.