ANTHROPOLOGY 569 



ANTHROPOLOGY. By A. G. Thacker, A.R.C.S. 



The " Broken Hill Skull " has now taken its place as one of 

 the dozen most important human crania thus far discovered. 

 As is well known, the skull and other human remains were 

 found last summer by Mr. W. E. Barren in a cave in the Broken 

 Hill Mine, in North-Western Rhodesia, and the relics have been 

 brought to England and confided to the care of the British 

 Museum. A preliminary account of the skull was contributed to 

 Nature, November 17, by Dr. A. Smith Woodward, and a few 

 days later it was exhibited to the Zoological Society ; but at 

 the time of writing it has not been subjected to a minute ana- 

 tomical examination. Dr. Smith Woodward has, however, 

 had no hesitation in constituting the skull as the type of a new 

 species of the Hominidae, which he has designated Homo rhodesi- 

 ensis. Dr. Woodward says that " the length of the skull from 

 the middle of the glabella to the inion is about 210 mm., while 

 its maximum width at the parietal bosses is 145 mm. The 

 skull is, therefore, dolichocephalic, with a cephalic index of 69. 

 Its greatest height (measured from the basion to the bregma) is 

 131 mm. In general shape the brain-case is much more ordi- 

 narily human than that of the La Chapelle Neandertal skull, 

 which differs in the expansion and bun-shaped depression of its 

 hinder region. The mastoid process, though human, is com- 

 paratively small. The supra-mastoid ridge is very prominent 

 and broad. The tympanic meatus is short and broad, as 

 always in man. The foramen magnum occupies its normal 

 forward position, so that the skull would be perfectly poised on 

 an erect trunk." 



The skull is very platycephalic, but, apart from this, its 

 most striking characteristic is the association of a large and 

 human brain-case with a monstrously simian face. It was at 

 first alleged by some writers to represent a type intermediate 

 between the Javan Pithecanthropus and Neandertal man, but 

 this was evidently a hasty judgment, and the supposed resem- 

 blance to Pithecanthropus is clearly illusory. The super- 

 ficial likeness to the La Chapelle-aux-Saints skull of Homo 

 neandertalensis is, however, striking. This is chiefly due to the 

 enormous brow-ridges, the receding forehead, and the large 

 palate ; but the likeness may not, and probably does not, 

 extend to details. The teeth are large, but quite human. An 

 extraordinary feature is that the third molars are much smaller 

 than the second molars, the length of the third molars being 

 9.5 mm. and that of the second molars being 13-5 mm. This 

 is a form of degeneracy which is not even found in the early 

 representatives of the surviving species of man. The teeth 

 are also affected with caries, which is another somewhat sur- 



