26 THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



modern cubic content of about 1,400 c.c. The skull is long, as 

 are all prehistoric crania, but the vault is low and the hinder 

 part curiously depressed and broadened out, "bun-shaped," 

 as Keith expresses it, which, together with the great apparent 

 musculature of the neck, must have increased the peculiarity of 

 his appearance. Anteriorly, the supra-orbital ridges or tori 

 are greatly developed and are confluent across the forehead, 

 not divided into two parts by a median depression as with 

 modern man. The nasal bridge is depressed and the upper 

 jaw very deep, indicating a long upper lip. The lower jaw is 

 not unlike that of Heidelberg, nevertheless it shows a distinct 

 advance over the latter in that, while the chin prominence is 

 yet lacking, there is indication that dental reduction, already 

 in evidence, is beginning to cause a recession of the tooth-line 

 to a position more nearly above the chin, giving the latter a 

 greater relief. The lower border of the mandible is not so 

 much broadened out to give play to the tongue muscles as in 

 modern man, hence potential speech is less developed. (See 

 Fig. i (Frontispiece) and Fig. 7.) 



The teeth are of the taurodont character defined above, 

 large of pulp capacity and short of root, again an adaptation, 

 according to Keith, to a coarse vegetative diet. In teeth and 

 palate form, Neandertal man shows a greater degree of spe- 

 cialization than does our own race and this in a form in other 

 respects more primitive. 



The brain of this man was not as yet sufficiently advanced 

 to learn to substitute other and more effective devices for 

 various needs, so that the jaws still had varied uses in contrast 

 with their very restricted function to-day. 



The brain itself shows a certain specialization in its size, 

 but the relative development of those parts wherein lay the 

 higher mental functions was not great. Nevertheless, Nean- 

 dertal man was a skilled worker in flints, had harnessed fire, 

 and by the reverential burial of his dead surrounded by beau- 



