Il8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL.83 



modern Man it cuts through the fossa about mid-way between the glabella and 

 the bregma ; sometimes almost at the bregma. 



The Rhodesian skull, on the other hand, recalls Neanderthal Man, and espe- 

 cially the Gibraltar race, in the width and form of the nuchal plate, the supra- 

 occipital region of the skull ; but it is much larger. 



Some further, and very significant, features are brought out when the Rhode- 

 sian skull is compared with that of the Chimpanzee and Gorilla, orientated on 

 the meato-nasion line 



The meato-lambda angle (46°) of the Rhodesian skull is noteworthy. In 

 modern human skulls it varies between 50° and 60°. A further peculiarity is the 

 fact that the meato-lambda line, produced downwards and forwards, passes 

 through the maxilla to the prosthion. In all other human skulls it passes be- 

 neath the jaw 



Finally, the thickness of the skull-wall in Rhodesian Man was not greater 

 than in many existing races. Considering the many simian features of the skull 

 this is noteworthy. In the anthropoids, owing to the compression of the inter- 

 mediate layer of cancellated tissue, the cranial wall is markedly thinner. From 

 the tusk-like canines of the great anthropoids one would have supposed that a 

 thick skull-wall would have been necessary. 



An additional interesting paragraph is found in Mr. Pycraft's 

 accoimt under "Affinities" (p. 48) ; it deserves to be quoted in full: 



There are differences of opinion on the affinities of Rhodesian man. Sir Arthur 

 Smith Woodward regards him " as a primitive species of true man, in which 

 a slightly incomplete development of the brain is accompanied by an enlargement 

 instead of a reduction and refinement of the face." That is to say, he does not 

 regard him as Mousterian. Prof. Elliot Smith on the other hand remarks that, 

 " in the bones found in the Broken Hill mine, we have the remains of a type of 

 mankind definitely more primitive than all the known members of the Human 

 Family, with the exception only of Pithecanthropus and Eoanthropiis." Sir 

 Arthur Keith regards him as near the ancestor of Neanderthal and modern Man ; 

 " he has assumed too much of the modern type to serve this purpose [/. e., to be 

 regarded as the ancestor of both]. His just place seems to be in the modern stem 

 soon after this stem had broken away from the Neanderthal line." The strik- 

 ing likeness between the Rhodesian and Gibraltar skulls, and the undoubted like- 

 ness to the La Chapelle skull, is convincing evidence of a common relationship, if 

 not of a common descent. This is expressed, with slight differences, by all 

 three of the authorities quoted. Rhodesian man, then, is to be regarded as an 

 independent development of the nascent Neanderthal stock, an opinion which 

 would explain both the resemblances to and the differences from the Neanderthal 

 race. 



Mr. Pycraft's excuse for associating the tibia, pelvis, etc., with the 

 skull, is, finally, as follows (p. 49) : 



It may be urged that there can be no certainty that the remains of the axial 

 and appendicular skeleton and the skull are all parts of the one individual. This 

 is doubtless true, but, when the outstanding features of these several parts are 

 critically studied, it is found that they display a reciprocal inter-relationship so 

 intimate that any attempt to dissociate the skull from the remaining parts of the 

 skeleton must do violence to all ordinary rules of evidence and inference. 



