Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1929-01-04
WHY WE BEHAVE
LIKE HUMAN BEINGS
How and Why Bodies Fossilize
BY GEORGE DORSEY. Ph. D.. IL. D.

S$.s-s-s-s-s.s.s-s-s-s.s-s-
How and Why Bodies Fossilize
I Unless well protected. or in rain
- less Peru or Egypt, or in dry
caves, or the cold storage of Arctic
Ice, or In oil, wax, or amber, the body
soon yields to the bacteria of decay
or to the teeth Of wolves and hyenas.
For bone or other tissue to be replaced
by mineral whereby 1t petrifies or
'fossilizes," many conditions must be
right. The wiser the animal. the less
likelihood of its being caught in quick
sands or engulfed by the gravel and
silt Of floods. Primitive man was as
little enamored as we are Of being
buried alive.
Fossil remains Of the famous Gro
Magnon man have been found in
Wales, and especially in France. Posi-
bly, earth never saw finer built human
beings. His brain was Is per cent
larger than ours his stature taller than
any living race by two inches. He was
clean-limbed, 1.-THE, and swift. He
had good chin, thick and strong
jaws. His head was long, his face
broad. He buried his dead. He was an
artist and an artisan. He lived about
$4,000 years ago. Did he become an
ordinary European, or did he disap-
pear? No one knows.
Beyond Cro-Magnon, our forebears
rather run to british casts. Grimaldi
man was Of the Negroid type. Mean
derthal man had huge head, Clipped
flint, and buried his dead. He Is set
down at $4,000 B. G. and left no
known heirs. He Is the first known
cave-man.
The jaw Of Heidelberg man fits
gorilla, but the teeth are ours. He Is
possibly 100000 years old. Piltdown
man is possibly hundred thousand
years der. Some think he was an
ape. Some say he was the first Eng
lishman. We have reached point in
time where no one knows who's who.
The champion fossil is Pithecan.
thropus erectus (ape.man erect), dis
covered by Dubois in Java in 1891. He
is certainly half million years old;
some say million. He is more pithe-
cold than any known human being,
more anthropoid than any known ape.
He was as erect and almost as tall
as the average European. He had
definitely left the "well-ventilated ar
boreal tenements." He was a low
browed moron-and may be represent
ed in the living flesh. But whether he
was Of the direct line that led to man,
or only of line that ended with
himself, is not yet definitely known.
It is enormously significant that, after
a debate lasting more than quarter
of a century, the biologists of the
world cannot decide whether Pithe-
canthropus erectus belongs to the first
or the second Of the earth's First
Families. That makes him pretty
good link that is no longer missing.
To import monkeys for their sex
glands Is CHASTITY business, perhaps
the lowest that has engaged the cupid
ity and lust of man, but to shoot down
simians as we do mad dogs or boys in
uniform is crime. The four Anthro-
poid apes are our next-of-kin-living
they should be respected as cousins
and not exterminated as vermin or
Indians.
Man was never a gorilla, a chimpan-
zee, an orang, or gibbon. No biol
Ogist ever made such claim Wheth.
er these apes could have developed
into human beings is different story.
They have the makings-all the parts.
If we knew how heredity works and
could control variation, we might
breed from an ape being that could
dig a ditch, play the piano, talk Eng.
lish, and sing the Messiah" We can
teach them to smoke cigarettes, chew
tobacco, drink beer, wear clothes, and
eat with knife and fork. We do not
yet know the limit Of their capacity
to learn human ways.
Why do biologists put these four
apes so close behind us that we can
feel their breath and they can catch
our diseases? Because they are An.
thropoid. Nothing has Yet surpassed
them in the race to become human.
Their anatomy, embryology, histology,
morphology, paleontology, physiology,
and psychology entitle them to second
place in the Ancient and Honorable
Order 0f FirStS
They vary in their man-likeness; no
one is in all ways closest to man. The
Orang looks like an Irishman; the
gorilla Is built like Jack Dempsey;
the chimpanzee is the most angelic;
the delicate gibbon has a lady-like
skull and an upright carriage. The first
three-the Great Apes-are the ex-
tremes Of variation from generalized
ancestor. T' gibbon varies least, and
to that extent is nearest the tree man
climbed down when he decided to
stand up and talk.
Except in teeth, the young female
gorilla is the most human. Her ia
ther is a brute in size and appear