162 READINGS IN EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 
On the other hand, Prof. Flower tells me that in his opinion it is but 
an expression of impoverished nutrition during the growth of the bone. 
11. Flattening of Tibia—In some very ancient human skeletons 
there has also been found a lateral flattening of the tibia, which rarely 
occurs in any existing human beings, but which appears to have 
been usual among the earliest races of mankind hitherto discovered. 
According to Broca, the measurements of these fossil human tibiae 
resemble those of apes. Moreover, the bone is bent and strongly 
GAPVCH Wy. 
Fic. 34.—Perforations of the humerus (supra-condyloid foramen) in three 
species of Quadrumana where it normally occurs, and in man, where it does not 
normally occur. Drawn from nature. (From Romanes.) 
convex forwards, while its angles are so rounded as to present the 
nearly oval section seen in apes. It is in association with these 
ape-like human tibiae that perforated humeri of man are found in 
greatest abundance. 
On the other hand, however, there is reason to doubt whether 
this form of tibia in man is really a survival from his quadrumanous 
ancestry. For, as Boyd-Dawkins and Hartmann have pointed out, 
the degree of flattening presented by some of these ancient human 
bones is greater than that which occurs in any existing species of 
anthropoid ape. Of course the possibility remains that the unknown 
species of ape from which man descended may have had its tibia more 
flattened than is now observable in any of the existing species. Never- 
