The Mammals and Man 



fragments of the skeleton numerous deductions have been drawn, 

 of greater or less probabiUty. It may be said with practical 

 certainty, however, that this ape-man was of the size of a smallish 

 man, and that he was accustomed to walk and stand in the char- 

 acteristically human erect attitude. The cranial capacity has been 

 calculated at from 850 to 1000 cubic centimetres, or considerably 

 greater than the highest existing apes, and about equal to 

 that of the lowest known human specimens. His statue, as his 

 discoverer conceived him, is illustrated in 

 Fig. 141. 



A restoration of the skull is shown in Fig. 

 142, and it is apparent that in respect of the 

 shape of the roof, at least, the Pithecanthropus 

 stands just about midway between the Chim- 

 panzee and the most primitive living man. 

 The gradual approach to the human type, as 

 we move upwards in the primate scale, is very 

 striking. The Pithecanthropus is by some 

 regarded as the result of an abortive attempt 

 at ' man making/ by others as a true transition 

 form. We cannot in any case be very far from 

 the truth if we hang up his picture among the 

 portraits of our ancestors, for the transitional 

 form would necessarily be closely similar to 

 him in its main features. 



The next ancestor of whom we have any 

 knowledge is definite^ a human being. This 

 is the primitive man who inhabited Europe in earlier Diluvial 

 times, particularly in the interval between the first and the 

 second great ice ages. To him, from the place of his first 

 discovery, the name of the Neandertal man has been applied, 

 and he is classed by scientists as belonging to a different species 

 from modern man, the latter being named Homo sapiens, 

 while he is given the less flattering name of Homo primigenius. 

 He was characterised, as may readily be seen from the skull 

 illustrated in Fig. 143, by a very low and receding forehead, 



151 



Fig. 141. — Imaginative 

 statue of Pithccan- 

 tJu'opiis crcctiis. 



