ow a general agreement as to their
nature. At first some of the experts thought that they were the remains
of an abnormally low man, and others that they belonged to an abnormally
high ape. The majority held from the start that they belonged to a
member of a race almost midway between the highest family of apes and
the lowest known tribe of men, and therefore fully merited the name
of "Ape-Man" (Pithecanthropus). This is now the general view of
anthropologists.

The Ape-Man of Java was in every respect entitled to that name. The
teeth suggest a lower part of the face in which the teeth and lips
projected more than in the most ape-like types of Central Africa.
The skull-cap has very heavy ridges over the eyes and a low receding
forehead, far less human than in any previously known prehistoric skull.
The thigh-bone is very much heavier than any known human femur of the
same length, and so appreciably curved that the owner was evidently in
a condition of transition from the semi-quadrupedal crouch of the ape
to the erect attitude of man. The Ape-Man, in other words, was a heavy,
squat, powerful, bestial-looking animal; of small stature, but above the
pygmy standard; erect in posture, but with clear traces of the proneness
of his ancestor; far removed from the highest ape in brainpower, but
almost equally far removed from the lowest savage that is known to
us. We shall see later that there is some recent criticism, by weighty
authorities, of the earlier statements in regard to the brain of
primitive man. This does not apply to the Ape-Man of Java. The average
cranial capacity (the amount of brain-matter the skull may contain) of
the chimpanzees, the highest apes, is about 600 cubic centimetres.
The average cranial capacity of the lowest races of men, of moderate
stature, is about 1200. And the cranial capacity of Ape-Man was about
900

It is immaterial whether or no these bones belong to the same
individual. If they do not, we have remains of two or three individuals
of the same intermediate species. Nor does it matter whether or no this
early race is a direct ancestor of the later races of men, or an extinct
offshoot from the advancing human stock. It is, in either case, an
illustration of the intermediate phase between the ape and man The more
important tasks are to trace the relationship of this early human stock
to the apes, and to discover the causes of its superior evolution.

The first question has a predominantly