THE DEVELOPMENT OE SKULL AND BRAINS. (i59 



the Neanderthal skull possesses a number of important peculiarities 

 which differentiate it from the skulls of existing- man and show an approx- 

 imation toward those of the anthropoid apes. He maintains that in rec- 

 OD-nizing- with King-" and Cope^ the Neanderthal skull as belonging to a 

 distinct species, Iloino N^eanderthalensis, he is onl}- following the usual 

 practice of zoologists and paleontologists, by whom specitic characters 

 are frequently founded upon nuich less marked differences. He main- 

 tains that as the Neanderthal skull stands in many of its characters 

 nearer to the higher anthropoids than to recent man, if the Neanderthal 

 type is to be included under the term Homo ^aplcnH^ then this species 

 ought to be still more extended, so as to embrace the anthropoids. 



It is interesting to turn from a perusal of these opinions recently 

 advanced l)y Schwalbe to consider the grounds on which Huxley and 

 Turner, about forty years ago, opposed the view, which was then 

 being advocated, that the characters of the Neanderthal skull were so 

 distinct from those of any of the existing races as to justify the recog- 

 nition of a new species of the genus Homo. Huxley, while admitting 

 that it was "the most pithecoid of human skulls, '\vet holds that it 

 "is b}" no means so isolated as it appears to l)e at first, l)ut forms in 

 reality the extreme term of a series leading graduall\' from it to the 

 highest and best developed of human crania." He states that " it is 

 closely approached by certain Australian skulls, and even more nearly 

 by the skulls of certain ancient people who inhabited Denmark during 

 the stone period." Turner's'^ observations led him to adopt a similar 

 view to that advanced b}' Huxley. He compared the Neanderthal 

 calvaria with savage and British crania in the Anatomical Museum of 

 the University of Edinburgh, and found among them specimens 

 closely. corresponding to the Neanderthal type. 



While yielding to no one in my admiration for the thoroughness 

 and ability with which Schwalbe has conducted his elaborate and 

 extensive investigations on this (luestion, I must confess that in my 

 opinion he has not sufficientU' recognized the signiticance of the large 

 cranial capacity of the Neanderthal skull in determining the zoolog 

 ical position of its owner, or made sufficient allowance for the great 

 variations in form which skulls undoubtedl}' human may present. 



The length and breadth of the Neanderthal calvaria are distinctl}^ 

 greater than in many living races and compiMisate for its defect in 

 height, so that it was capable of lodging a brain fully equal in volume 

 to that of many existing savage races and at least double that of any 

 anthropoid ape. 



A luimber of the characters upon which Schwalbe relies in differ- 

 entiating the Neanderthal skullcap are due to an appreciable extent 



«The Reputed Fossil INIan of the Neanderthal, Journal of Science, 1864. 

 ^The Genealogy of Man, the American Naturalist, Vol. XXVII, 1893. 

 <^The Fossil Skull Controversy, Journal of Science, 1864. 



