544 ANNUAL REPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1913. 



Among the more strictly human characteristics are its large size, 

 normally always a very favorable feature, though not necessarily an 

 index of high intelligence; a predominance in size of the left over 

 the right hemisphere; and certain other anatomical features. The 

 more simian characteristics included especially the general form of 

 the organ, the evident simplicity and coarseness of the convolutions, 

 and the relatively poor development of the front?d parts, which is 

 more pointed forward than obtains in man of to-day. "The brain, 

 on the whole," to quote Prof. Boule, "is already human by the 

 abundance of the cerebral substance ; but this substance is still lack- 

 ing the advanced organization which characterizes the brain of the 

 actual man." 



Regrettably, the La Chapelle-aux-Saints cave has now been com- 

 pletely exhausted, so that no hope can be entertained of securing 

 further specimens from this particular spot; but the site lies in a 

 region which is under careful scientific observation and other im- 

 portant discoveries in the neighborhood may yet be possible. 



THE " LA QUINA " SKELETON. 



On the 16th of October, 1911, Dr. Henri Martin, a physician and 

 archeologist of Paris, reported before the Academic des Sciences of 

 Paris the find of a very remarkable ancient human skeleton, at La 

 Quina, Department of Charente, in France.^ " We have discovered," 

 he says, " on the 18th of September, at La Quina, a human skeleton 

 of the Neanderthal type." It lay in a horizontal position, in clayey 

 sand, at the distance of 4,5 meters from the base of a cliff. The de- 

 posits in which it rested represent the ancient muddy bed of the 

 near-by stream Voultron, and belong, archeeologically, to the lower 

 Mousterian epoch. The clayey sand was covered by debris from the 

 cliff portion, which in former times extended shelf like over the 

 stream. 



The skeleton lay 80 cm. (2.6 ft.) deep in the sand, and was not 

 surrounded by any objects which would indicate an intentional burial. 

 Its location and position seemed to show that the body was deposited 

 where it lay accidentally. The clayey sand contained a few dis- 

 seminated worked stones and a few bones that have been utilized by 

 man, but showed none of the handsome pieces which characterized 

 the superior Mousterian epoch. The age of the skeleton is, in all 

 probability, referable to the earliest part of the middle Quaternary. 



The remains have suffered from prolonged submersion and pres- 

 sure, as a result of wdiich the cranial bones were disjointed and in 

 part broken ; but from the first instant it could readily be seen that 



1 Martin, Henri. Sur un squelette humain de I'Spoque raoustdrienne trouv6 en 

 Charente. (Comptes Rendus, tome 153, 1911, p. 728.) 



