Paleontology. — ‘On the Significance of the Large Cranial Capacity 
of Homo Neandertalensis’’. By Prof. Eve. Dusois. 
(Communicated at the meeting of November 27, 1920). 
Before the discovery of the fossil man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints 
our knowledge of the most important character of Homo neander- 
talensis, the cranial capacity, rested only on estimation, especially 
from the capacity of the calvaria. SCHAAFFHAUSEN, Huxley and 
SCHWALBE started from the supposition that the capacity of the 
calvaria of the Neandertal Man, which is human as regards its size, 
was in the same ratio to that of the whole skull as in Man of the 
present type. It is not surprising, that their results are pretty well 
concordant *). 
First SCHAAFFHAUSEN*?) measured the capacity of the Neandertal 
calvaria with water, on a level with the orbital plate of the frontal 
bone, with the deepest notch in the squamous margin of the parietal, 
and with the superior semicircular ridges of the occipital. He found 
for it 1033 em.*, and estimating the capacity of the missing part at 
215 em.* from other skulls, he found 1248 cm.’ for the total capa- 
city of the skull. Later, anew measuring the calvaria with water, 
“mit ihrem oberen Rande horizontal gestellt”, he found 930 em.” for 
its capacity, and now for the whole capacity, through comparison 
with the corresponding part and the whole of a “roh gebildeten 
Schadel” of 1805 em.” capacity and of a negro skull, only 1098, 
resp. 1099 ecm.*). Accepting the first calvaria measurement by 
ScHAAFFHAUSEN, Huxrer *) estimated the capacity of the entire skull 
at about 75 cubic inches (= 1229 em.*). ScnwarBeE *) measured the 
capacity of the Neandertal calvaria with peas up to the transversal 
!) M. Boure, Sur la capacité cranienne des Hommes fossiles du type de 
Néanderthal. Comptes rendus. Académie des Sciences. Tome 148, p. 1352. Paris 
1909. 
2) SCHAAFFHAUSEN, Zur Kenntniss der ältesten Rassenschädel. Archiv für Ana- 
tomie, Physiologie und wissenschaftliche Medicin (Johannes Müller). Jahrgang 1858. 
Berlin, p. 455 and p. 464. 
H. ScHAAFFHAUSEN, Der Neanderthaler Fund, p. 43. Bonn 1888. 
3) T.H. Huxtey, Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature, p. 156 — 157. London 1863. 
4) G. SorwaLBe, Der Neanderthalschädel. Bonner Jahrbticher, Heft 106, p. 50— 
52. Bonn 1901. ScHWALBE erroneously rejects SCHAAFFHAUSEN's second deter- 
mination, „weil sie durch Wasserfiillung ermittelt ist”, which would, indeed, also 
be applicable to the first determination. In this procedure errors could be avoided. 
It is not clear what caused ScHAAFFHAUSEN to arrive at so much lower capacity 
