616 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 2 8 



(as in Neanderthal, Spy, La Chapelle, Le Moustier) to forms that 

 approach to, or merge with, the modern (parts of the Krapina, 

 La Ferrassie, La Qxiina skeletons). To which may be added a word 

 about the brain. 



The size and its variation in the Neanderthal brain are comparable 

 with those of the Aurignacian, and even the present primitive man. 

 The idea that the Aiirignacians were exceptional in this respect is, if 

 due regard be given to the factor of stature, erroneous. The surface 

 conformation of the brain, as shown by intracranial casts, is of a low 

 type in the Gibralter, Spy I, La Chapelle, and other specimens. But 

 thi.s does not hold true of the AVeimar or the Galilee brain. The 

 intracranial cast of the Galilee skull shows, in the words of Sir 

 Arthur Keith, that " in its mass and its markings it has reached at 

 least to the level attained by individuals in living races — such as that 

 represented to-day by the aborigines of Australia." (Report on the 

 Galilee Skull, p. 106.) 



IV. RECAPITULATION 



In relation to what perhaps was its most important period, the 

 Mousterian, prehistory is found to have reached a position approach- 

 ing dogmatism. But this has only led it into a blind alley from 

 which so far there has been found no exit, notwithstanding much 

 speculation. 



It has been decided, on the weight of a limited initial group of 

 specimens, that Neanderthal man was a man of a different species; 

 that he may possibly have originated from his European predecessors, 

 but that, after a long period of existence and after having spread far 

 and wide, he perished rather abruptly and completely, without leav- 

 ing any progeny, on the approach of a superior species, the Homo 

 sapiens. 



This H. sapiens has been assumed to have come from elsewhere, 

 possibly from Africa or Asia ; or he was, somehow, cryptically, coeval 

 from far back with the pre-Neanderthaler and the Neanderthaler, 

 eventually to assert himself suddenly and completely, to take over the 

 human burden. He comes on the stage in body and brain largely as 

 he is to-day, and has, since the beginning of the Aurignacian, under- 

 gone but moderate alteration. 



A whole line of the foremost workers in prehistory are seen to 

 have become identified with these notions, which obliges every student 

 to give them an earnest and respectful attention. But no notion or 

 dogma can possibly reach the status of a fact before it has been proven 

 to be such through full demonstration. 



Owing to scarcity of material, such demonstration has hitherto 

 been impossible; but the more the material remains of early man 



