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THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
temporal lobe becomes reduced almost to an ordinary 
degree. Thus a survey of the temporal lobe reveals no 
really primitive feature. The temporal convolutions 
were apparently simple in form ; the auditory centre was 
plainly indicated, and in general mass the convolutions 
are such as are met with in human brains of medium or 
even larger size. 
In skull reconstruction nothing is truer than that one 
Fig. 150. — Profile drawing of the brain cast of the Gibraltar skull. It represents 
the smallest known brain of the extinct Neanderthal race 
mistake leads to another, and the effect is cumulative. 
The malposition of the temporal bone, which led to the 
partial obliteration of a convolution, also had another 
consequence, seen in the hinder region of the base of the 
brain. In a complete brain cast, the stem which prolongs 
the central nerve system to the spinal cord is represented 
(fig. 145). The stem, or medulla oblongata, is seen to lie 
below and also in front of the cerebellum. A triangular 
interval filled by the petrous part of the temporal bone is 
