68 
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [Sess. 
Pithecanthropus and Australian and Tasmanian skulls that I am more 
inclined than before to accept a very close approximation of Pithecanthropus 
to the first tribe of human beings.” 
We have already shown, or rather our final results have demonstrated 
for us, that Pithecanthropus stands nearer to the anthropoids than he 
does to Homo primigenius, let alone the modern Australian and the 
recently extinct Tasmanian, as some authors would have us believe. 
A study of the individual figures and measurements recorded by us 
on the 52 Tasmanian crania with which this work deals also shows 
that in most points the Tasmanian is well within the range of variation 
of modern man. 
From both these lines of argument we are led to conclude that the 
morphological evolution of the Tasmanian had progressed, at the time of 
his extinction, on its own independent lines, and to a higher plane than is 
generally either admitted or supposed. That his mental culture was on 
such a primitive plane is fully explained by his complete and total 
isolation for many countless years, and not to the fact that his physical 
organisation was incapable of attaining a more improved degree of culture. 
That the “ lately extinct Tasmanians recall the mental level of eolithic 
man in Britain ” we can quite believe, but that either the Australian or 
the Tasmanian “carries us back nearly to the Neanderthal physical type” 
we must, as the result of the present investigation, deny, because the 
physical construction of the Tasmanian is herein certainly shown to go 
back only so far as the Galley Hill type at farthest, and more than this 
cannot be maintained with any degree of scientific certainty. 
REFERENCES. 
(1) Berry, R. J. A., and A. W. D. Robertson, “Preliminary Communication 
on Fifty-three Tasmanian Crania, forty-two of which are now recorded for the first 
time,” Proc. Roy. Soc. of Viet., vol. xxii., N.S., pt. i., 1909, p. 47. 
(2) Schwalbe, G., “ Studien fiber Pithecanthropus erectus , Dubois,” Zeit. fur 
Morph, und Anthrop ., Bd. i., 1899, pp. 16 et seq. 
(3) Klaatsch, H., “The Skull of the Australian Aboriginal,’’ Reports from the 
Path. Lab. of the Lunacy Dept. N.S.W., vol. i., part iii., 1908, pp. 45 et seq. 
(4) Cunningham, D. J., “The Evolution of the Eyebrow Region of the Forehead, 
with special reference to the excessive supraorbital development in the Neanderthal 
race,” Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xlvi., part ii., 1908, pp. 283-311. 
(5) Guifrida-Ruggeri, V., “Nuove Ricerche morfologiche e craniometriche,” 
Atti della Societa Romana di Antrop., vol. viii., 1901, pp. 21 et seq. 
