DISCUSSION 233 



Kramberger, and even Schwalbe himself, who are 

 authorities on anthropology, are of my opinion to this 

 extent, that they think the Pithecanthropus is not 

 a direct ancestor of man. In the case of the Nean- 

 dertal cranium, which I pronounced to have be- 

 longed to a human being of some lower race, Dr. 

 Plotz thinks I did not lay sufficient stress upon the 

 presence of superciliary ridges and the absence of 

 chin. I mentioned these points in my book ; there 

 was not time to discuss everything during my lec- 

 ture. I may, however, state clearly once for all that, 

 among the numerous crania examined by Kram- 

 berger, there is no uniformity on these points viz. 

 the superciliary ridges and the absence of chin- 

 but there are successive transitions leading up to 

 modern man. 1 



The so-called Homo primigenius therefore proves 



1 In several respects the opinions of the various anthropologists are 

 widely divergent. Kramberger (whom I quoted in my third lecture, 

 p. 75) thinks that genuine superciliary ridges and instances of absence 

 of chin occur sporadically as individual variations among men of the pre- 

 sent day, the blacks in Australia, etc., whereas Schwalbe does not admit 

 this to be the case (' Studien zur Vorgeschichte des Menschen,' Zeitschrift 

 fur Morphologie und Anthropologie, extra number, 1906). It is true that 

 the receding chin seems to be the most important racial characteristic of 

 man of the early diluvial age. Cf. C. Toldt, ' Zur Frage der Kinnbildung,' 

 Korrespondenzblatt der Deutschen Gesellschaft fur Anthropologie, Ethnologic, 

 und Urgeschichte, xxxvii., No. 2, February 1906, pp. 9-17. As Dr. Hugo 

 Obermaier proved in his work on the earliest remains of the human body 

 studied from the point of view of anatomy and anthropology (Vienna, 

 1905) : * With absolute certainty we can only say that man of the quaternary 

 period differed in no essential respect from man of the present day. In no 

 way did he go beyond the limits of variation of the normal human body.' 

 In body, as well as in mind, he was already a genuine homo sapiens. Cf. 

 also Obermaier, Der diluviale Mensch nach seiner intellelctuellen (kulturellen) 

 Seite, p. 11 et seq. 



