ii8 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
the La Chapelle man at fifty or fifty-five years, but the 
open condition of the sutures between the bones of his 
massive skull suggests a younger age — perhaps under forty. 
For such an age,"the teeth, which were planted in jaws 
of exceeding strength and size, are in a surprisingly bad 
state. All the molar or chewing teeth had been lost from 
disease during life. The dimensions of the skull (see 
fig. 45) greatly exceed those of an average modern man. 
The maximum length is 208 mm. ; the width, 156 mm., 
represents 75 per cent, of the length ; the skull being 
thus, in spite of its great length, on the border line 
which separates the long-headed and medium-headed 
groups. The height of the vault above the ear-holes is 
about 1 1 8 mm. — a low amount for such a long and 
wide skull. The great capacity— over 1600 c.c, at least 
120 c.c. above the modern average — seems inconsistent 
with the great beetling, ape-like eyebrow ridges and 
massive jaws. Nor was it a simple brain. The cast taken 
from the interior of the skull — the subject of a special 
memoir by Professor Anthony ^ — shows that all the parts 
of the human brain were already fully represented. Like 
all men of the Neanderthal race,^ the La Chapelle man 
was not tall — under 5 feet 4 inches (r6oo m.). He 
had many characters which may justly be called simian 
or primitive, but he had others which cannot be so classed 
— such as the size of the brain and the relative proportion 
of the limbs. In apes, in certain modern and ancient 
races — such as the Cromagnon people of the Aurignacian 
period — the forearm and leg are relatively long as com- 
pared with the upper arm and thigh, but in Neanderthal 
man, the forearm and leg are relatively short, even when a 
modern European is taken as the standard. 
In the evidence provided by the discoveries at Le 
Moustier, La Ferrassie, and La Chapelle-aux-Saints, one 
is forced to the conclusion that the Dordogne, during 
the Mousterian period, was inhabited by men of the 
Neanderthal type ; in the succeeding period — the Aurig- 
^ L^ Anthropologic^ 191 1? vol. xxii. p, i. 
2 See p. 137. 
