New Skull from South Africa

Abstract

PROF. DUBOIS' comment on the skull recently discovered at Ngandong, Java, and its relationship to Rhodesian man, which appeared in NATURE for July 2, p. 20, enhances the interest with which anthropologists will await further particulars of the human skull which, it is announced, Prof. T. F. Dreyer, of Grey University College, Bloemfontein, has discovered at Florsbad hot springs. According to a message in the Times for July 27, Prof. Dreyer has found parts of a human skull and a tooth, associated with stone implements of a primitive type and the remains of extinct fauna on this site, which lies twenty-five miles north of Bloemfontein. The lower jaw is missing, but, it is said, most of the facial bones are present. The character of the skull cannot be determined with certainty until the base has been found I but Prof. Dreyer is reported to be of the opinion that it is that of either Neanderthal man or Rhodesian man. According to the measurement of the skull over the eyes it would hold a place intermediate between the two, the figure given being 130 mm., as against the maximum in Neanderthal man of 125 mm. and 139 mm. in Rhodesian man. These figures, slender evidence as they are, are certainly suggestive of the possible significance of the new find in relation to the affinities of early types of man in South Africa. Should it appear eventually that the skull is a second specimen of Rhodesian man, its association with stone implements and extinct fauna should provide the much desired evidence indicating the geological age and the culture of that remarkable type of primitive man.