MAN FROM THE FARTHEST PAST 
first sight about the La Chapelle cranium are the lowness 
and the large size, especially the length, of the vault; the 
huge supraorbital arch; primitive features of the face; 
and the large and primitive lower jaw. 
The La Chapelle skull, as a whole, is plainly one of 
the more typical representatives of Neanderthal man. 
Its closest relations, particularly in the facial portion, are 
with the skull of Gibraltar. It approaches in many es- 
sentials the human skull of today; yet it carries still many 
remnants of the prehuman past. It belonged to a male 
of short stature but very muscular, massive frame, which 
doubtless accounts in great measure for the large brain 
(Plate 38). 
For the nontechnical reader, the most vivid impres- 
sions of the similarity of the La Chapelle skeleton to 
others of Neanderthal man, and of its differences, on the 
other hand, from skeletons of modern Europeans, will 
be gathered from the accompanying illustrations where 
these comparisons are displayed. 
THE REMAINS OF LA FERRASSIE 
“La Ferrassie” is the name of a rock-shelter close to a 
hamlet of that name, near Le Bugue, Dordogne, France. 
The locality belongs to the general region of the Vézére 
and Les Eyzies. 
In this rather exposed rock-shelter M. Peyrony with 
some associates discovered in September, I1g0g, a human 
skeleton of Neanderthal affinities. The discovery was 
announced by the Academy of Inscriptions on November 
10, 1909, and was shortly afterward published in the 
Revue de I’ Ecole ad’ Anthropologie. 
M. Peyrony had been exploring the rock-shelter and 
its prehistoric deposits for ten years. The excavations 
showed that the spacious shelter had been inhabited for 
a very long time by successive prehistoric populations 
and that each group of these left behind a layer of its 
kitchen refuse with its special stone industry. 
[ 118 ] 
