NEANDERTHAL PHASE OF MAN — HEDLiSkA 619 



ing of the less, fit. But greater sustained mental and physical exer- 

 tion, where not over the normal limits, leads inevitably toward 

 greater efficiency attended by further bodily and mental develop- 

 ment which, with the simultaneous elimination of the weak and 

 less fit, are the very essentials of jDrogressive evolution. 



Strong evidence that a relatively rapid progressive change, both 

 mental and physical, was actually taking place during the Neander- 

 thal period is furnished by the great variability of the skeletal 

 remains from this time. 



(5) But such evolution would certainly differ from region to 

 region as the sum of the factors affecting man differed, reaching a 

 more advanced grade where the conditions in general proved the 

 most favorable; while to many of the less favored groups disease, 

 famine, and warfare would bring extinction. All these agencies are 

 known to science to-day; only they acted with more freedom of old 

 when social organization and mutual aid were at a low level. 



(6) With these processes it is conceivable, if not inevitable, that 

 toward the height of the glacial invasion the population decreased in 

 numbers, and that the most fit or able-to-cope-with-the-conditions 

 group or groups eventually alone survived to carry on. 



Here seems to be a relatively simple natural explanation of the 

 progressive evolution of Neanderthal man, and such evolution would 

 inevitably carry his most advanced forms to those of primitive 

 H. safiens. 



(7) The physical differences observable between Neanderthal and 

 later man are essentially those of two categories, namely: (1) Reduc- 

 tion in musculature — that of the jaws as well as that of the body — 

 with consequent changes in the teeth, jaws, face, and vault of the 

 skull; and (2) changes in the supraorbital torus of the order known 

 well to morphology as progressive infantilism. For both these cate- 

 gories of changes there are later parallelisms. Further reduction of 

 teeth, jaws, and the facial bones has taken place since Magdalenian 

 times, and is now going on in more highly civilized man, of whatever 

 racial derivation; while infantilism is commonly accepted as an 

 explanation of the differences of the negrillo from the negro, and for 

 the greater average reduction of the supraorbital ridges in the negro 

 than in the whites. It would be illogical to deny the probable instru- 

 mentality of these agencies in men of an earlier period. 



(8) Anthropology is thus confronted with the following condi- 

 tions : 



Neanderthal man is of a primitive physique, appears to have ended 

 by a sudden and complete extinction, and to have been replaced by 

 H. sapiens. 



But there has been discovered no previous home of this H. sapiens, 

 nor any remains whatsoever of his ancestors; and, if he coexisted 



