526 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



to. Beyond the fossa the forehead is receding, and the skull rises 

 to a comparatively low vertex ; the occiput is distinguished by a 

 similar slope in the opposite direction, and swells into a strong 

 ridge for the attachment of the neck muscles. The walls of the 

 skull are thick, and the thickness of the frontal region is 

 prodigious. In this region the floor of the skull rises up to 

 an unusual extent, so that, owing to this'and the thickness of the 

 frontal bones, the space left for the frontal lobes of the brain 

 is very much diminished. It is in these lobes that the faculty of 

 speech is lodged. 



Notwithstanding these indications of inferiority, the capacity 

 of the skull is considerable ; it cannot be much less on an average 

 than 1,250 cc. This is about the same as the average for 

 the Australian skull, 1,230 cc, so that, apart from the quality 

 of the brains, of which we know nothing, the Australian and the 

 Neandertal races are on the same level. 



Not only in this respect, though it is the most important, but 

 in a great number of other characters the Australians make the 

 nearest approach to Neandertal man. Many of the more brutal 

 Australians, especially among those inhabiting the south of the 

 continent, present a depressed cranial vault with receding fore- 

 head and occiput, almost identical in profile with some forms 

 of Neandertal skull : there is a resemblance, though not identity, 

 in the characters of the frontal torus ; and the lower jaws, 

 with the teeth, present some analogies. The Australians are not 

 the same race as the Neandertal, but at the same time they are 

 more closely allied to it than any other ; and we may therefore 

 regard the Australian as in a special sense the modified de- 

 scendant of early palaeolithic man. 



We have spoken of the Neandertal race in general terms 

 as lower palaeolithic, and it is difficult to be more precise in the 

 present state of the evidence. As we have seen, the Neandertal 

 skull itself is undated, and nothing is known of the age of the 

 Gibraltar skull — the only example in which the face is preserved 

 in its natural relation to the rest of the skull ; but of the re- 

 maining specimens we are better informed. 



Spy. — The cavern in which the two skulls of Spy were 

 discovered by Professor Max Lohest is situated in Carboniferous 

 limestone forming a wooded hill above the Orneau, in the com- 

 mune of Spy. Near its mouth lay a pile of debris composed 

 of several layers. In the lowest layer, containing very rough 



