HIS ANTIQUITY AND CHARACTERISTICS. 



17 



Mentone, who did rude carving and mural paintings . The skulls 

 are said to resemble those of the Bushman or Hottentot, but here 

 again the cranial capacity is larger than that of any existing 

 Negro race. Coming to the next older stage, the Mousterian, we 

 are in possession of more numerous remains, and to it the Neander- 

 thal skull belongs. From this material we learn that Mousterian 

 man was short in stature, with a disproportionally large head and 

 a face strangely unlike that of any human race with which we 

 are familiar. A retreating forehead rises out of a bold depression 

 above the massive eye-brow ridges. The orbits are large and 

 round, and the massive lower jaw without a chin. In spite of the 

 ape-like form of the head, the cranial capacity is not small, but 

 even larger than that of the Australian aboriginal, who approaches 

 most nearly to Neanderthal man in form. Neanderthal man is 

 now, however, relegated to the back-water of the stream of human 

 progression, and regarded, as I have said, as an instance of regres- 

 sion. Mousterian man is credited with having reached a certain 

 stage in the evolution of religious ideas. The remains found had 

 evidently been interred in a kind of tomb ; weapons were buried 

 with them, and in one case the leg of a bison placed beside, to 

 provide food for the departed spirit. 



Up to quite a recent period Mousterian man was the oldest 

 known. The Heidelberg jaw, however, discovered in 1909, in 

 association with remains of Elephas antiquus, is said to date back 

 to the oldest, or Chellean period. The dentition of this jaw is 

 human. The canine does not appear to have projected beyond 

 the general level . More simian characters may be observed in the 

 dentition of existing wild races, but the jaw itself ofiers a striking 

 contrast to the dentition. It is massive, and the chin is entirely 

 absent, the profile retreating in gentle curves as in the chimpanzee 

 or gorilla. The genio-glossal spines are entirely absent in the 

 apes. With the muscle of the same name these structures are 

 connected with the power of speech, but their absence does not 

 prove the inability to talk, as the jaw of the Bushman does not 

 possess them. No remains of the skull were found, but from the 

 fact that the Mousterian skull, though possessing simian char- 

 acters, lodged a large human brain, it is fair to assume that such 

 was the case with the Heidelberg man. 



I speak lastly of the famous Piltdown skull, discovered in 1912, 

 a relic of ancient man which has stirred the scientific world more, 

 and aroused fiercer controversy, than any previous discovery of 

 the same kind. The gravel in which the remains were found 



