THE NEANDERTHAL SKULL 585 
Blumenbach’s figure, but it cannot well be higher than the point (a). 
If now, the glabello-occipital lines of the Neanderthal skull and it be 
made to coincide, as in fig. 1, the prodigious difference between the 
two will become obvious ; the occiput of the Dutch skull projecting 
backwards far beyond the point (a), while, on the other hand, that of 
the Neanderthal skull slopes upwards and forwards from it. 
What appears to me to have misled Professor Schaafhausen is the 
circumstance that if the contour of the Neanderthal skull be simply 
superimposed upon that of the “ Batavus genuinus” the two will 
nearly coincide. But the fallacy of concluding from this circumstance, 
that the skulls have a real similarity is at once demonstrated by the 
fact that, when the contours are thus superimposed, the superior curved 
line of the occiput of the Neanderthal skull is nearly on a level with 
the summit of the lambdoidal suture of the other. In other words, 
the more the two skulls are made to agree in front and above, the less 
their correspondence behind and below. 
M. Pruner-Bey, in some observations appended to Professor 
Schaafhausen’s communication, expresses the opinion that the Nean- 
derthal skull is * undoubtedly that of a Celt.” 
“In the first place it belonged to a person of high stature; it is 
voluminous and dolichocephalic ; it presents the groove at the posterior 
third of the sagittal suture common to the Celts and the Scandinavians ; 
lastly, the occipital projection is equally characteristic of the two races.” 
But the bones found with the skull lend no countenance to the 
opinion that the Neanderthal man was above the middle stature of 
five feet six inches; and as the other two characters are avowedly 
common to Celts and Scandinavians, I can hardly think them good 
diagnostics of Celts. Australian crania may be found with the occiput 
quite similarly formed to that of the Neanderthal ; and, as to the 
capacity of the skull, I shal] demonstrate, by and bye, by the help of 
casts, that some Australian skulls were certainly as large. 
M. Pruner-Bey seems to incline to the hypothesis that the Nean- 
derthal man was an idiot: but I confess I find much weight in the 
pithy reply of M. Broca :— 
“Idiocy, competent to produce a cranium of this kind, is necessarily 
microcephalic ; now this skull is not microcephalous, therefore it is not 
that of an idiot.” 
4. Mr. Turner’s careful essay appears to me to be one of the most 
valuable contributions we have had upon this subject. By comparison 
with a skull from St. Acheul, Mr. Turner shows the existence of the 
closest resemblance between the Engis cranium, and one from the 
valley of the Somme, which there is no reason to think older than the 
