612 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 192 8 



Taking the Neanderthal remains by themselves, we find that, not- 

 withstanding their defects, they constitute a very respectable array 

 of precious material. Let us see what it teaches. 



If we placed all this material on a table before us, ranged by the 

 date of discovery, we should see a remarkable assembly of more or 

 less deficient or fragmentary skulls, jaws, and bones, with an array 

 of loose teeth, the whole differing widely in color, weight, state of 

 petrifaction, and in principal morphological characters. We should 

 be struck by the prevailing aspect of inferiority of the material, but 

 the arrangement would soon prove unsatisfactory and we should 

 proceed to another. 



As there is not enough for a geographical subdivision, it would 

 be logical to try next an arrangement of the specimens by their 

 antiquity, from the oldest to the latest. The indications are that 

 the Mousterian period was a long one, and of three stages — the 

 inferior, middle, and superior. We should like, therefore, at least 

 to arrange our material by these stages. 



But we strike at once great difficulties. The very type-specimen 

 of the lot, the Neanderthal skeleton, lacks direct chronological identi- 

 fication. There were neither animal nor industrial remains with it, 

 or, if there were, they were not saved. Everything indicates that 

 it is very old : Physically it is in every one of its parts a prototype 

 of Mousterian man ; chronologically it may be even pre-Mousterian. 

 Similar and other difficulties confront us in the case of the first 

 Gibraltar skull and the Banolas jaw, the important Krapina remains, 

 the Ehringsdorf jaws; and it is not certain just where within the 

 period to place most of the remainder of the specimens. The final 

 conclusion is that, if the eyes are shut to the somatological characters 

 of the remains, a satisfactory chronological grading of them becomes 

 very difficult and uncertain. 



The state of preservation or petrifaction of the remains is a ques- 

 tion of local geophysics and chemistry, and thus incapable of giving 

 any fair basis for classification. Thus there remain only the soma- 

 tological characteristics of the skulls and bones themselves, and the 

 endeavor to arrange them on this basis proves of much interest. 



The general physical characters of the Neanderthal race have been 

 more or less summed up by a number of eminent anatomists and 

 anthropologists, including especially Schwalbe, Keith, SoUas, and 

 Boule. The main features of the average Neanderthaler are there- 

 fore fairly well known. They include a moderate stature, heavy 

 build, and a good-sized, thick, oblong skull, with pronounced supra- 

 orbital torus, low forehead, low vault, protruding occiput, large, 

 full upper maxilla, large nose, large teeth, and a large, heavy lower 

 jaw with receding chin. To which may be added stout bones of the 

 skeleton, particularly the ribs and the bones of the lower part of the 



