9o8 MAN 



and face. But back of all this is a region of the brain whicli still retains many 

 resemblances to the great apes. Thus the orbital concavities, the supraorbital 

 keels and the flattened frontal arc are reminiscent of gorilla and chimpanzee. 

 In this light it might seem that the Neanderthal brain was not yet highly 

 human. It has made certain great strides in this direction, but mere increase 

 in volume, pronounced though it may be, is not sufficient to produce the 

 cerebral characters of the fully developed human species. One indispensable 

 item must still be added to complete the stature of man. The frontal lobe 

 should acquire all of those characters peculiar to Homo sapiens. A brain not 

 so developed does not attain its full human measure. In such development 

 cerebral growth is dominant. As the brain grows, the orbital plates flatten 

 and the supraorbital torus recedes. In the end the pithecoid visage gradually 

 fades until it loses its brute-like features. It does so because the frontal lobes 

 of the brain, those last gifts of evolutional progression, have enlarged and 

 thus compelled the humanity of man to appear in his face and head. Such a 

 view seems also to reconcile the perplexing discrepancy between the ape- 

 like head and man-like brain of the Neanderthal. It shows that these parts 

 of the body arc actually in harmony one with the other. It may even offer 

 the explanation of why the Neanderthal race progressed so slowly during the 

 passage of more than 200,000 years and at length was completely replaced 

 by a more exalted type of man possessed of well-developed frontal lobes. 

 The cultural phases attributed to the Neanderthals include their feeble 

 beginnings in the Chellean period, their advances in manual dexterity to the 

 Acheulean era and their culminating refinements in design and execution 

 during the Mousterian period. But these people began as nomadic hunters 

 and so, with very slight and perhaps incidental modifications, they ended. 

 Succumbing to the invasion of the more effective Cro-Magnons, they left 

 no trace of themselves among this greater race. Such complete disappearance 

 with no evidence of that interbreeding common between victors and van- 



