154 



EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 



though of course the subject of a most heated controversy, being con- 

 sidered as non-human, or, as Virchow believed, owing its distinctive 

 ■characters to disease. The sagacity of Huxley threw true light upon 

 "he problem, though it was not until the mute testimony of other 

 representatives of the race (the men of Spy) was offered that even 

 Huxley's masterful conception of the Neanderthal characters was 

 taken as an accepted fact. 

 Professor Huxley's descrip- 

 tion of the Neanderthal 

 type is classic. He says : 



"The anatomical char- 

 acters of the skeletons bear 

 out conclusions which are 

 not flattering to the appear- 

 ance of the owners. They 

 were short of stature but 

 powerfully built, with 

 strong, curiously curved 

 thigh bones, the lower ends 

 of which are so fashioned 

 that they must have walked 

 with a bend at the knees. 

 Their long depressed skulls had very strong brow-ridges; their lower 

 jaws, of brutal depth and solidity, sloped away from the teeth down- 

 wards and backwards in consequence of the absence of that especially 

 characteristic feature of the higher type of man, the chin prominence." 



Subsequently several more specimens have come to light, at Spy 

 in Belgium, at Krapina in Croatia, at Le Moustier, La Chapelle-aux- 

 Saints and La Ferrassie in France, and at Gibraltar, which, while 

 differing in various details, effectually serve to establish the race, whose 

 main characteristics are : Heavy, overhanging brows, retreating fore- 

 head, long upper lip; jaw less powerful than that of the Heidelberg 

 man but very thick and massive; chin generally strongly receding but 

 in process of forming; dentition extraordinarily massive in the La 

 Chapelle specimen, whereas in those of Spy the teeth are small. The 

 skull in many characteristics is nearer to the anthropoids than to 

 modern man. 



The brain is large and its volume is surely human, but the pro- 

 portions are again less like those of recent man than like the anthro- 

 poids. The chest is large and robust, the shoulders broad, and 



Fig. 38. — Neanderthaloid skull of La 

 Chapelle-aux-Saints {Homo neandcrtlialaisis). 

 {From Lull, after Boule.) 



