MAN FROM THE FARTHEST PAST 
skull of the Pithecanthropus is on the whole not human; 
nor is it a transition of any type of manlike apes to the 
human type. The agreement with the anthropoid cranial 
type, particularly that of the small gibbon species of the 
genus Hy/obates, may on the other hand be called perfect.” 
It extends to many features such as the arching of the 
vault, the receding forehead, the precerebral part of the 
frontal bone, the constriction behind the orbits, etc. 
“Tn all these points Pithecanthropus is distinguished no less 
strongly than the Anthropoid Apes from the Neanderthal 
Man.” The detailed characteristics of the skull indicate 
now to Dubois that the erect posture of the body of the 
Pithecanthropus, “‘which clearly appears from the shape 
of the femur, was not such a perfect one as in Man; the 
correlation, at least, did not extend to the skull.” 
Nor can the skull, however, have belonged to an Anthropoid Ape, 
because the relatively very large skull as regards shape presents a 
close, nay striking resemblance with the skull of a small Hy/odates 
species, the smallest of the Anthropoid Apes, whereas judging not only 
from the femur and the molar teeth, but also from the skull itself, 
Pithecanthropus must have surpassed the size of a large chimpanzee, 
and was very much that of a middle-sized man. 
As to the size of the brain, “it may be assumed that with 
equal body weight Pithecanthropus possessed double the 
brain quantity of the Anthropoid Apes.” The endo- 
cranial cast in its side view “presents a striking resem- 
blance with the endocranial cast of a small Hy/lobates 
species reproduced at the same size. There is on the other 
hand a great difference—and a difference of great im- 
portance between the profile of the endocranial cast and 
that of the Neanderthal Man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints.” 
(Fig. 28.) 
To which Dubois adds: 
It seems to me that it is evident, at least, from all this that Man and 
Pithecanthropus both descend from a common primitive Simian an- 
cestor. From this, among the living species, the Hylobatidae, though 
greatly differentiated by their long arms and sabre-shaped canines, 
depart least, several fossil Simiidae still less. Also through his mandi- 
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