ANATOMICAL PECULIARITIES 139 
a bun-like form ; the modern skull Is flattened in an 
opposite direction, from side to side. All Neanderthal 
skulls show this peculiarly depressed platycephalic 
form — especially apparent in the hinder or occipital 
reaion — a feature which must have given Neanderthal 
man in life the peculiar appearance of having the hinder 
part of his head buried, apparently, in a thick, bull-like 
neck (see fig. 53). It is true that in certain modern 
varieties of mankind — as in a strain which still occurs 
in Holland, in England, and has been also found in 
ancient graves in America ^ — the skull is low-domed or 
platycephalic, but the resemblance to the Neanderthal 
type is only superficial. To find a counterpart of the 
platycephalism of Neanderthal skulls we have to go 
outside the limits of human species to the skulls of 
such anthropoids as the gorilla and chimpanzee. The 
functional meaning of this peculiar form of skull, found 
in anthropoid and in the Neanderthal species of man, will 
be discussed at a later stage in this chapter (see p. 157). 
Meantime we simply note the fact that the general form 
of the brain is modified to suit the skull in which 
that brain is contained. Hence, although the brain of 
Neanderthal man equals or exceeds that of the modern 
type of man in point of size, yet in its general conforma- 
tion it resembles the brain casts taken from anthropoid 
skulls. 
The kind of skull, just described, reveals a radical 
difference in head-formation, and can be readily recognised 
in a museum or laboratory. But let us suppose we are 
back in the world of Pleistocene man and are brought 
face to face with Neanderthal man in life — which of his 
features would force themselves on our attention as 
distinctive marks .? The colour of the skin, the texture 
of the hair, the cast of countenance, the play of eye 
and lips which distinguish at a glance the better-marked 
varieties of modern mankind — the African, the Mongolian, 
the European — are not available, for we have only, as 
regards fossil forms of man, the limited range of characters 
' See reference, p. 273. 
