OUR BEST FEATURES 



Indubitable marks of anthropoid kinship and 



derivation; the lower molar crowns displaying 



many intermediate stages from an almost perfect 



"Dryopithecus pattern" (Fig. 80C) with five 



main cusps and a complex, definite system of 



grooves and depressions, to a "cruciform," four- 



cusped form in which the Dryopithecus pattern is 



largely obliterated (Fig. 80F). 



Similarly the upper molar crowns of the fossil 



Neanderthal skull known as "Le Moustier" 



(Fig. 78IX) may be compared cusp for cusp and 



ridge for ridge with those of such fossil anthropoids 



as Dryopithecus rhenanus of Europe and Sivapi- 



thecus of India, both of which even possess the 



peculiar depressions known as the fovea anterior 



and fovea posterior, which are characteristic of 



primitive human upper molars. Here again, as 



in the case of the lower molars, it is only the more 



primitive members of the human race that retain 



such indubitable traces of anthropoid kinship, the 



conditions of civilization tending to reduce the 



vigorous upper molar pattern of the primitives 



to an enfeebled type with less robust cusps and 



less salient angles (Fig. 78X). 



Similarly the entire set of milk teeth of man 



149 



