386 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— H. 



The cranium is being removed from the matrix in the Department of Human 

 Anatomy, Oxford, with the advice and assistance of Prof. Arthur Thomson. 



4. L'Abbe Breuil. — Lower Pnlceolithic Industries from the beginning 



of the Rissian to the beginning of the Wurmian Glaciation. 



5. Prof. Sir W. Boyd Dawkins, F.K.S. — The Range of the Anthropua 



Neanderthalensis on the Pleistocene Continent. 



In dealing with the Neanderthal representative of existing man, it is convenient 

 to mark his distinction from Homo sapiens by a difEerent name — Anthropus — and to 

 place him with the other members of the same indeterminate group under the name of 

 AnthropidsB. These are, for the most part, so fragmentary that more evidence is 

 needed before their place in classification can be clearly defined. 



We now know, thanks to Fraipont, Boule, Sollas, and Keith, the physical characters 

 of the Neanderthal hunter, and Elliot Smith has shown the important points in 

 which the Neanderthal brain differs from that of Homo sapiens, and is akin to that 

 of the higher apes. The Neanderthal hunter had not yet attained the erect posture, 

 and though he had a brain larger than that of the apes, his mentaUty did not come 

 up to the standard of modern man. His true place in classification is, therefore, not 

 with Homo, but with the Anthropidas. 



The Neanderthal hunters ranged over a very large part of the Great Pleistocene 

 Continent before the arrival of the Late Palaeolithic tribes of the cave artists. 

 Their skulls and bones have been found in the caves of Belgium, Middle and Southern 

 France, and in the Mediterranean region in the caves of Gibraltar and Palestine. 

 They occur in association with Early Palaeohthic implements identical with those 

 found in the river deposits over the whole of the intermediate areas. For these 

 reasons the Neanderthal tribes may be taken to have been dominant in the Great 

 Continent during the Middle Pleistocene Period, and before the arrival of the Artist 

 Hunters, the earliest representatives of Homo sapiens — the Human Race. 



6. Joint Discussion with Section E [q.v.) on The Effect on African 



Native Races of Contact with European Civilisation. 



Friday, August 6. 



7. Sir Arthur Evans, F.E.S. — The Shaft-graves of Mycence and their 



Contents in relation to the Beehive Tombs. 



8. Mr. A. M. Woodward. — Excavations at Sparta by the British School 



at Athens (1924-26). 



During its previous excavations at Sparta (1906-10), the British School had fuUy 

 explored the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, and that of Athena Chalkioikos on the 

 Acropolis (within the Sanctuary-walls only), besides tracing the Hellenistic City- 

 walls. Work was resumed in 1924 with the object of exploring the Theatre and of more 

 fully investigating the Acropolis behind it. . 



At the Theatre, already known as one of the largest in Greece, very little of the 

 upper seats was preserved, but portions of the front rows were found undisturbed. 

 The cavea seems definitely to date from the reign of Augustus. The retaining-walls 

 had a facing of massive marble blocks along the Parodoi, and those of the E. Parodos 

 were extensively inscribed with lists of Spartan magistrates, and their Cursus 

 Honorum {ca. a.d. 100-150). Near its E. end a monumental exterior staircase led 

 up to the diazoma. 



No certain traces of the Greek stage remained, and the stage-buUdings underwent 

 much reconstruction under the Empire. Coins and inscriptions show the Theatre as 

 in use (intermittently) nearly to a.b. 400. Then, after a period of abandonment, 

 came a Byzantine settlement (ninth to thirteenth century). The Acropohs yielded 



