THE HUMAN SKULL 147 



It is rather curious that the book from which this 

 extract is taken should have appeared in the same 

 series as that in which Deniker's book also appeared 

 in the previous year (1900), where the statement 

 occurs that " perhaps we should refer to this (the 

 Mousterian) period the skulls which cannot be 

 definitely traced to a certain alluvial bed, like 

 those of Neanderthal, etc." But I shall show very 

 shortly how wide have been the divergences of 

 opinion in connection with this skull. It is an 

 incomplete fragment of a skull, the vault or vertex 

 has very prominent ridges above the eyes and a 

 very small altitude. This skull was found in 1857 

 in a cave in the Neanderthal, near Dj&seldorf, 

 and on its first discovery was declared to be that 

 of a being, if man at all, of a race inferior to any 

 now existing upon the earth. But, by degrees, 

 more careful examination led to the adoption of 

 totally different opinions. Setting aside the state- 

 ments of those who saw in it a pathological skull, 

 and there were those who held that view, it soon 

 became clear that it was a skull which in many 

 respects resembled those of persons still in exist- 

 ence upon this earth, not to speak of others whose 

 remains are left to us. Huxley declared that this 

 skull was in no sense intermediate between the 

 skulls of men and apes, and Sir William Turner 

 showed that its characteristics are closely 

 paralleled both by skulls of existing savage 

 races and even by occasional specimens of modern 

 European crania. Moreover, he claims that 

 the large transverse parietal diameter or breadth 

 as we might put it compensated for the brain 



