WHOLE VOL. SKELETAL REMAINS OF EARLY MAN HRDLICKA 167 



triangular shape, with the apex of the triangle directed forward and 

 somewhat inward. It is decidedly smaller, especially in its transverse 

 diameter, than it is in modern skulls, and its transverse plane is more 

 inclined outward and upward. 



There was evidently no styloid. Between what represents the 

 base of the styloid and the retrotympanic ridge passing from the 

 spinous process towards the posterior part of the border of the ex- 

 ternal meatus and the mastoid, there is a rather broad and marked 

 depression, which is not found in modern skulls. The mastoid was 

 plainly situated less outwardly than in modern crania. The digastric 

 groove is short and broad ; it is in reality a fossa rather than a groove. 

 The petrous portions of the temporal bone are on a level with the 

 surrounding parts of the face, as in the anthropoids and some of the 

 most primitive of human skulls. 



Endocranially, the skuU shows a number of interesting features. 

 There is, throughout, a marked paucity of impressions of brain con- 

 volutions, and also of those of the blood vessels. Even the sinuses 

 have left but shallow grooves. The brain itself was not particularly 

 small for a female skull ; and it was already of a rather advanced 

 human type. The anterior parts of the frontal bone are rough. The 

 roofs of the orbits are somewhat more elevated, especially mesially, 

 than in modern skulls, encroaching thus on the frontal lobes. The 

 olfactory or mid-frontal fossa is deeper and more spacious than that 

 in recent crania, and is of different form. The frontal lobes were 

 relatively large but low, especially anteriorly ; the middle or temporal 

 fossa was relatively small ; and the same is true of the cerebellar 

 fossae, which were smaller from side to side as well as sagitally, and 

 more shallow, than is usual in modern skulls. The pituitary fossa, 

 damaged, was evidently near the average size of the structure in 

 modern crania. The petrous bones, especially in their mesial parts, 

 are stouter than ihey are in female skulls of modern times. 



There are other details and dimensions about the specimen which 

 are of more or less interest to the anthropologist, but which need not 

 be dealt with in this paper. It will sufifice to say that both the visual 

 and the instrumental examination of the specimen lead to the con- 

 clusion that the Gibraltar skull represents a highly valuable relic of 

 an early human being and that its principal characteristics justify its 

 classification with the Homo neanderthalensis. 



