1864.] Krye on the Reputed Fossil Man of the Neanderthal. 95 
Occipital.—The upper portion of this bone is quite semicircular in 
outline, its sutural (lambdoidal) border running with an even crescentic 
curve from one transverse ridge to the other :* generally in human 
skulls, including the Engis one, the outline approaches more or less to 
an isosceles triangle.t The width of the occipital at the transverse 
ridges is much less than is common to Man; and the disparity is the 
more striking in consequence of the widest portion of the fossil occu- 
pying an unusually backward position. 
Taking into consideration the forward and upward curving of the 
upper portion of the occipital bone as previously noticed, its semicir- 
cular outline, and smallness of width, we have in these characters, 
taken together, a totality as yet unobserved in any human skull belong- 
ing to either extinct, or existing races; while it exists as a conspicuous 
feature in the skull of the Chimpanzee. 
Parietals.—In Man the upper border of these bones is longer than 
the inferior one; but it is quite the reverse in the Neanderthal skull. 
The difference, amounting to nearly an inch, will be readily seen by 
referring to Figures 1 and 2, in Plate II.; the former representing the 
right parietal of a British human skull, and the latter the correspond- 
ing bone of the fossil. These figures also show that the Neanderthal 
parietals are strongly distinguished by their shape, and the form of 
their margins: in shape they are five-sided, and not subquadrate, ike 
those of the British skull; { while their anterior and posterior margins 
have each exactly the reverse of the form characteristic of Man. 
The additamentum, which undoubtedly gives the parietals their 
five-sided shape, is on a level with the superior transverse ridge, and 
much longer than usual. This peculiarity is common to the human 
foetus: I have, likewise, observed an approach to it in a “ Caffre” 
skull belonging to the Dublin University Museum, in which, also, the 
upper and lower borders of the parietals are about equal in length. 
But still the abnormality of the latter case is not at all so extreme 
as the condition observed in the fossil. These particular features 
also are characteristically simial; for in extending our survey to the 
Chimpanzee, and some other so-called Quadrumanes, their parietals 
are seen to present a great similarity to those of the Neanderthal 
skull.$ 
I have now, as it appears to me, satisfactorily shown that not only 
in its general, but equally so in its particular characters, has the fossil 
* Plate II. Fig. 4. { Plate IT. Fig. 3. 
+ The outlines were taken by pressing a sheet of paper on the parietals; and, 
when in this position, marking their margins by following the bounding sutures ; 
next, by cutting the paper according to the lines given by the sutures, and 
allowing it to retain its acquired convexity : the outlines were then marked off on 
another sheet of paper. Possibly the antero-inferior angle of the Neanderthal 
parietal, as given in the figure, is not strictly correct, owing to the coronal suture 
being obliterated in that part, but I venture to state that it is approximately true. 
§ On the cast, an incised line runs from the lambdoidal suture (where the ad- 
ditamentum joins it) towards the posterior tubercle. Is this the suture which 
occurs near and parallel to the transverse ridges in foetal skulls, and occasionally 
in that of adults? In the skull of the “ Caftre,” noticed in the text, this suture, 
which is only seen on the right side, is situated above the ridge ; but in the fossil, 
it is below this part. 
