Man's place in nature, and other anthropological essays . eing, asfas as possible preserved. In the first place, I must remark that these human re-mains, whicli are in my possession, are characterised, lil^e thethousands of bones which I have lately been disinterring, bythe extent of the decomposition which they have undergone,which is precisely the same as that of the extinct species; all. ON SOME FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN. 137 with a few exceptions, are broken; some few are rounded, as isfrequently found to be the case in fossil remains of otherspecies. The fractures are vertical or oblique; non
Man's place in nature, and other anthropological essays . eing, asfas as possible preserved. In the first place, I must remark that these human re-mains, whicli are in my possession, are characterised, lil^e thethousands of bones which I have lately been disinterring, bythe extent of the decomposition which they have undergone,which is precisely the same as that of the extinct species; all. ON SOME FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN. 137 with a few exceptions, are broken; some few are rounded, as isfrequently found to be the case in fossil remains of otherspecies. The fractures are vertical or oblique; none of themare eroded; their colour does not differ from that of otherfossil bones, and varies from whitish yellow to blackish. Allare lighter than recent bones, with the exception of thosewhich have a calcareous incrustation, and the cavities ofwhich are filled with such matter. The cranium v^hich I have caused to be figured, Plate I,figs. 1, 2, is that of an old person. The sutures are beginningto be effaced: all the facial bones are wanting, and of the. Fig. 23.—The skull from the cave of Engis—viewed fromthe right side. One half the size of nature, a glabella, & oc-cipital protuberance (a to & glabello-occipital line), c auditoryforamen. temporal bones only a fragment of that of the right side ispreserved. The face and the base of the cranium had been detachedbefore the skull was deposited in the cave, for we were un-able to find those parts, though the whole cavern Y/as regularlysearched. The cranium v/as met with at a depth of a metreand a half [five feet nearly] hidden under an osseous breccia,composed of the remains of small animals, and containingone rhinoceros tusk, v/ith several teeth of horses and of^iimmants. This breccia, which has been spoken of above 138 MANS PLACE IN NATURE. (p. 31), was a metre [3^4 feet about] wide, and rose to theheight of a metre and a half above the floor of the cavern, tothe walls of which it adhered strongly. The earth which contained
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