PRIMATES AND MAX 411 



which deals with the geologic history and evolution of onr own race, and 

 in this field there have been a series of discoveries and researches in recent 

 years of the highest importance. ^"^ 



First among these I may place the discovery of complete skeletons of 

 Neanderthal man; the skeleton of Chapelle-aux-Saints, so admirably de- 

 scribed by Marcellin Bonle;^^ the two skeletons of La Ferrassie, soon to 

 be described fnlly by the same distinguished authority, and a series of 

 less complete but important finds in Germany and other Central Euro- 

 pean States. These discoveries have given a very clear and definite con- 

 cept of the Neanderthal race, as a species clearly distinct from our own, 

 characterized by a series of well defined physical peculiarities, nearer in 

 many particulars to the anthrojDoid aj^es, but clearly not a direct ancestor 

 of our own species. 



The fragmentary skull and jaw found in 1911 near PiltdoAvn, in Sus- 

 sex, likewise represents an extinct species of man, as different from the 

 Neanderthal man as from our own race. Although corresponding in its 

 nearer approach to the anthropoid apes^ it probably is not directly 

 ancestral.^- 



Another remarkable skull, discovered at Broken Hill, in Ehodesia, 

 while not of high antiquit}^, is regarded as representing a survival of the 

 Neanderthal race in South Africa. The Talgai skull from Queensland, 

 rather doubtfully associated with the Pleistocene fauna of Australia, is 

 considered as representing a proto- Australian type of man. 



The sum of these discoveries is to impress strongly on the mind the 

 probability that our own species is but one out of several human species 

 which lived and flourished and competed one with another during the 

 Pleistocene period; our own species, perhaps through its higher social 

 adaptability, being at last supreme, and sole survivor at the present day. 



^° The literature on fossil primates and the evolution of man is very voluminous. A 

 numher of excellent critical reviews of the siibject by Osborn, Gregory. Boule. Keith. 

 Sollas, Giuffreda-Ruggeri, Leclie, Arldt, and others cite and discuss the chief contribu- 

 tions. The most important recent contributions on Tertiary primates are the following : 



W. K. Gregory; (1020.) Structure and relationships of XotJiarctus. Mem. Amer. 

 Mus. Nat. Hist., n. s.. vol. iii. pp. 40-24."'. pis. xxiii-lix. 



H. G. Stehlin : (1012-lOlG. ) Saiigethiere der schweiz. Eocahs, 7 Teil, Abh. schweiz. 

 paliiont. Ges., vols, xxxviii and x'li. 



G. E. Pilgrim : (1015.) New Siwalik primates and their bearing on the question of 

 the evolution of man and the Anthropoidea. Itec. Geol. Surv. India, vol. xlv, pp. 1-74, 

 pis. i-iv. 



W. K. Gregory : (1010.) Studies on the evolution of the primates. Bull. Amer. Mus. 

 Nat. Hist., vol. xxxv. 1021. pp. 239-3.5.5 ; Origin and evolution of tbe human dentition, 

 Baltimore, Williams and Wilkins. 



31 M. Boule: (1911-1913.) L'llomme Fossile de Cbapelle-aux-Saints, Ann. de PaU'ont.. 

 vols, vi-viii ; 1921. Les Hommes Fossiles. 



32 A. S. Woodward, G. Elliott Smith. Arthur Keith. G. S. Miller. W. P. Pycraft. and 

 others, on I'iltdown skull. 



