524 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



and various fragments representing perhaps a dozen individuals 

 from Krapina, in Croatia. All these remains, though distributed 

 over a wide geographical area, are characterised by similar 

 peculiarities ; and by combining the evidence they afford we 

 are able to reconstruct the skeleton of lower palaeolithic or 

 Neandertal man. Wherever the evidence overlaps, it is 

 found to correspond, thus confirming our conclusions and 

 dissipating the mistrust which very naturally prevailed when 

 the Neandertal skeleton was the only one known. 



The face, to which we involuntarily turn to gain our first 

 impression of the man, presents a singular aspect, unlike 

 that of any existing race. One of the most salient features 

 is the prominent ridge which extends continuously from temple 

 to temple at the base of the forehead ; it is formed by an 

 excessive growth of the brow ridges, the supra-temporal ridges, 

 and the glabella, the latter a prominence of the forehead 

 immediately above the root of the nose. These several regions 

 are not only greatly developed, but they have become com- 

 pletely confluent, forming a single ridge, which we may speak 

 of as the frontal torus. The only existing race in which the 

 frontal torus at all approaches that of the Neandertal skull 

 is the Australian, and even this does so only remotely. 1 In 

 the Australian skull the torus is rarely, if ever, so completely 

 continuous and uniform as in the Neandertal ; its dimensions 

 are less and its characters different. In the Neandertal skull 

 the torus receives additional emphasis from the presence of 

 a corresponding depression which runs parallel with it along 

 its upper margin. This trough is spoken of as the frontal 

 fossa ; nothing resembling it occurs in the Australian skull. 

 In the Australian skull it is the glabellar region of the torus 

 that is most protuberant, projecting farthest immediately 

 above the root of the nose, which looks as if it had been 

 squeezed in close under the glabella : this gives an appearance 

 of concentration to the Australian face. In the Neandertal 

 skull the torus does not descend in this fashion : it rises 

 well above the eyes and root of the nose, recalling its dis- 

 position in the chimpanzee. 



1 See, however, D. J. Cunningham, "The Evolution of the Eyebrow Region 

 of the Forehead ; with Special Reference, Lo the excessive supra-orbital Develop- 

 ment in the Neandertal Race," Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin. 1908, xlvi., pp. 283- 

 3"i 3 pis. 



