A CHAPTER OF CONCLUSIONS 505 
The common Pliocene ancestor which gave orii^in to 
three such types could not be of a very low iorm. At 
least in Eoanthropus, as in Neanderthal man, the brain 
was equal in size to that of modern man. If we suppose 
that in an early part of the Pliocene period there was a 
form of man in which the brain had attained a human 
size, but in which the mandible, the teeth, and the skull 
still remained anthropoid in conformation, we have such 
a type as would serve as a common ances|^or for Eoan- 
thropus, modern man, and Neanderthal man. In the 
course of evolution the first named retained the ancestral 
form of mandible and teeth ; the last preserved the 
ancestral simian features of the skull. It will thus be 
seen that I look on Eoanthropus, as on Neanderthal man, 
as a representative of an extinct form of man. 
We come, finally, to an important problem : What 
status are we to assign to Eoanthropus in the zoological 
scale of classification ? Dr Smith Woodward, in giving 
Eoanthropus a generic rank, seems to me to have altered 
the scale we have hitherto applied to the classification of 
human forms. All admit that Eoanthropus must be 
regarded as a form of man. A complete analysis of 
the structural characters of the Piltdown type (so far 
as they are known to us), of the Neanderthal, and of the 
modern types of man will show that all are of equal rank, 
and if we elevate one of them to a generic status we 
must do the same for the other two. Hitherto all 
modern races of men have been grouped under one 
species — Homo sapiens. The varieties of men which 
belong to the Neanderthal type are placed under the 
specific name of Homo neanderthalensis [primigenius). 
If we apply the same standard of classification to the 
Piltdown type, then the name ought to be Homo dawsoni^ 
not Eoanthropus dawsoni. For my part, I would welcome 
the innovation introduced by Dr Smith Woodward if it 
could be applied all round. Without doubt distinct 
varieties of Eoanthropus and of Neanderthal man will 
be revealed by future discoveries — varieties which are 
sufficiently characterised to deserve specific names. 
