i5o 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



it represents, the other, the profound difference which exists be- 

 tween it and the human beings which immediately followed it. 



Wherever discoveries have been made of remains of the Middle 

 Pleistocene man, whether in Croatia, in Prussia, in France, or in 

 the south of Spain, everywhere the type shows a remarkable uni- 

 formity which contrasts in a singular way with the ethnic poly- 

 morphism of later epochs. However long may have been the period 

 of geological times in which the race lived, all discoveries of 

 Homo neanderthalensis show only a slight evolution, 

 manifesting itself by noticeable skeletal variations. Everywhere 

 and always it remains like itself. 



if^ 



Miniature diagram of frescoes from the ceiling of Altamira cavern, 



showing how the figures are thrown together with little regard for com- 

 position or position. 



After Cartailhac and Breuil Courtesy American Museum of Natural History 



The absence of the morphological link between Homo nean- 

 derthalensis and Homo sapiens is a fact no less re- 

 markable. It is, moreover, like a corollary of the first. When one 

 compares the Middle Pleistocene man with the Later Pleistocene 

 man (of Grimaldi, Chancelade or Cro-Magnon) or even with the 

 lowest representatives of living humanity, it is evident that back of 

 these superficial similarities relating to certain isolated particulars 

 one can not bring forward sufficient evidence of conformity of 

 characters to establish any admissible morphological affinity between 

 Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens. 



