82 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



the important fact emerges that neither Pithecanthropus erectiis nor 

 Neanderthal man can any longer be regarded as standing in the direct 

 line of man's ancestry, or as exhibiting any of the progressive phases 

 through which man passed in his upward course. 



All the evidence we have been able to gather suggests, rather, 

 that man's remote ancestor, Homosimius precursor, was a creature of 

 quite different character, possessing a relatively-high cranial develop- 

 ment accompanied by a somewhat pithecoid mandible and dentition 

 such as are represented in Eoanthropus Dawsoni, and in the young 

 of all the present-day anthropoids; and further that in his head 

 form and general cranial characters man has remained practically 

 unchanged from the period when he and the anthropoids first set 

 forth upon their divergent careers; for whereas they have undergone 

 striking and characteristic changes in these respects, developing 

 along lines of excessive facial and cranial musculature, which cramped 

 and restricted their brain development and greatly modified the 

 forms of their heads; man, with the exception of the Neanderthal 

 race, developing along the very opposite lines, has kept and perpetu- 

 ated the ancestral cranial form and characters and attained a brain 

 expansion which has made him what he is to-day and given him the 

 sovereignty over all other forms of life. 



