CHAPTER XXVII 

 THE SKELETON OF APES AND OF MAN 



THE upright carriage of man has entailed remarkable 

 changes in the proportions and shapes of parts of 

 his body, as well as leading to special skill in the use of 

 his hands. The vertebral column of man has not the 

 single curve of a bow, as it has (practically) in the higher 

 apes, but as he stands it curves (slightly, it is true, but 

 definitely) forward at the neck, backward at the chest, 

 forward at the loins, and backward again at the hips, an 

 arrangement which appears to protect to some extent 

 the brain from the transmission to it along the vertebral 

 column of the shock caused by the sudden impact of the 

 feet on the ground in jumping. The head is balanced 

 on the top of this slightly elastic curvilinear column, the 

 joint by which the skull rests on the vertebrae being 

 placed beneath the brain-box and near the middle region 

 of the skull. The ligaments which hold the skull in 

 place are smaller than those in monkeys. In the higher 

 apes the skull is not so balanced, but is held by very 

 strong ligaments and muscles braced, as it were, on to 

 the end of the forwardly sloping, nearly straight, back- 

 bone, from which it projects, and has further to be held 

 in position by a great ligament attached to it and the 

 dorsal processes of the neck vertebrae. As an adapta- 

 tion to the upright carriage of man, the shape of his 



pelvic bones is that of a basin upon which his coiled 



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