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lies much more to the front than in Apes. The insertion of these 
muscles and bands really reached higher at the occiput, with regard 
to the internal parts of the skull, than in the races of modern Man 
with small jaws. But this had to be attended with a more powerful 
epicranial muscular apparatus, and the shape of the upper part of 
the skull, although not entirely homologous, came to resemble that 
of the Anthropoid Apes; the skull had namely to be provided with 
strong supra-orbital ridges, for the attachment of the strong frontal 
part of the epicranial muscle. 
This, apparently, must be the significance of the supraorbital ridges 
of Neandertal Man. That this torus supra-orbitalis, which is more 
pronounced in men, would have enhanced masculine charm in the 
eyes of female neandertalians, or would have contributed to give a 
fierce and awe-inspiring appearance in fight, or might have served 
as a protection of the eyes against the glaring light of the steppes, in 
which the Neandertal Man lived — these are all interpretations that 
have found little response. We have certainly to think of more mecha- 
nical causes for the origin of these strong bony ridges. Many anatomists 
consider the reinforcement of this part of the frontal bone as being in 
connection with the masticatory activity of the strong jaws, an inter- 
pretation which certainly deserves serious consideration. But the Orang 
utan has equally strong or stronger jaws than the Chimpanzee, and 
in contrast with the latter, it has no torus supraorbitalis. Certainly we 
have also to think of the circumstance that in the Apes the superior 
borders of the orbits are more prominent than in modern Man, 
because the orbits (with their contents, the eye-balls) had to advance 
‘under the relatively much smaller brain; the eye-balls of the large 
Man-like Apes have indeed about the same size as those of Man, 
the volume of the brain being less than a third of that in Man. In 
the Orang utan, on account of the existence of the large throat pouch, 
the brain is greatly displaced frontwards, above the orbits, and the 
lateral as well as the superior borders, with the roofs and the outer 
walls of the orbits are not or very little prominent with regard to 
the forehead. The Neandertal Man, however, possesses enormous 
supraorbital ridges, but the outer walls of the orbits are not more 
projecting anteriously than in the modern species of Man’). And in 
the Orang utan we find the epicranial muscle apparatus to be weak, 
consisting of long thin muscle fascicles with narrow galea, which 
can partly be brought in relation with the absence of strong bony 
ridges at the place of the orbital arches. It has, indeed, been shown 
1) This passage on the orbits in the Apes and Man was by mistake omitted 
in the “Verslag” of this communication. 
