EVOLUTION OF MAN 239 



The cranial capacity of three of the Javan skulls ranged from 775 to 900 cc. 

 while the Peiping specimens showed a still greater capacity, ranging from 

 850 to 1300 cc. (Le Gros Clark, 1949-1957). Thus the known brain sizes 

 nearly bridge the gap between the australopithecines and modern man. 

 Perhaps no australopithecine brain was quite as large as the smallest 

 pithecanthropine brain, but the largest cranial capacity of Pithecanthropus 

 was nearly as large as the 1350 cc. which constitutes the average of mod- 

 ern cranial capacities. The average of all known pithecanthropine speci- 

 mens was about 1000 cc. In part this small average size was probably a re- 

 flection of small body size, but it is to be noted that the modern Bushman, 

 who has about the same body 

 size, has a cranial capacity of 

 around 1300 cc. (Le Gros Clark, 

 1949_1957). The evidence is 

 that the Javan representatives 

 with their smaller brains lived 

 somewhat earlier than did the 

 slightly larger-brained pithecan- 

 thropines from China. 



The small brain was housed in 

 a flattened skull with little or no 

 forehead and with brow ridses 

 projecting "to form a prominent 

 and uninterrupted shelf of bone 

 overhanging the eye sockets" (Le 

 Gros Clark, 1959; Fig. 11.10). 

 The brain case was broadest at 



the level of the ears and was pointed in back, rather than broadly rounded. 

 The bones of the brain case were of extraordinary thickness, averaging 9.7- 

 10 mm., as compared whh 5.2 mm. for the thickness of corresponding 

 bones in the skull of modern man (Weidenreich, 1943 ). We may note that 

 this thickness was not an essentially apelike characteristic, since modern 

 apes are not thicker skulled than are modern men. 



As in the australopithecines, the teeth were large, the face prognathous 

 and chinless. The molar teeth were so like those of the australopithecines 

 as to be almost indistinguishable (Le Gros Clark, 1955). 



Was Pithecanthropus confined to Asia? Recently three fossil jaws and 

 a parietal bone almost indistinguishable from those of Pithecanthropus 

 were found in Algeria. The name Atlanthropus has been given these fossils 

 but they are probably better regarded as North African Pithecanthropus. 



FIG. 11.10. Restored skull of Pithecanthropus 

 from Java. (After McGregor and von Koenigs- 

 wald; from Romer, Vertebrate Paleontology, 

 University of Chicago Press, 1945, p. 357.) 



