THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



•55 



the hand large, but the fingers are relatively short, the thumb lacking 

 the range of movement seen in modern man. The knee was some- 

 what bent, the leg powerful, with a short shin and clumsy foot, clearly 



not of cursorial adaptation. The 

 curve of the bent leg was correlated 

 with a similar curvature of the 

 spine, so that the man could not 

 stand fully erect, as he lacked the 

 fourth or cervical curvature of 

 Homo sapiens. The average stature 

 was 5 feet 3 inches, with a range 

 from 4 feet 10.3 inches to 5 feet 

 5.2 inches, partly sex differences. 

 Neanderthal man lived in Eu- 

 rope from the Third Interglacial 

 stage through the Fourth Glacial, 

 a duration of thousands of years, 

 and then became extinct, from 

 twenty to twenty-five millenniums 

 ago. He seems to have been an 

 actual lineal successor of the man 

 of Heidelberg, but was throughout 

 his long career an unprogressive 

 static race. One of the most 

 remarkable features in connection 

 with this race, however, w^as the 

 very reverent way in which the 

 dead were buried, with an abun- 

 dance of ornaments and finely 



Fig. 39. — Skeleton of Neanderthal 

 man. A , Homo neanderthalensis, com- 

 pared with that of a living native 

 Australian; B,Homo sapiens, the latter 

 the lowest existing race. (From Lull, 

 after Woodward.) 



worked flints. This can have but one interpretation, the awakening 

 within this ancient type of the instinctive belief in immortality! 



Piltdown man. — In 191 2 was announced the discovery of a very 

 ancient man from the Thames gravels at Piltdown, Sussex, England. 

 Here again the skull was injured and partly lost, so that the question 

 of its proper restoration has been the subject of considerable contro- 

 versy. The material consists of portions of the cranial walls, nasal 

 bones, a canine tooth, and part of a lower jaw. The brain-case in this 

 instance is typically human, except for the remarkably thick cranial 

 wails. The forehead is high and lacks the superorbital ridges of 

 Neanderthal man and Pithecanthropus. While the skull is of com- 



