suture, we meet with ape-like
characters, stamping it as the most pithecoid of human crania yet
discovered. But Professor Schaaffhausen states ('supra', p. 308), that
the cranium, in its present condition, holds 1033.24 cubic centimetres
of water, or about 63 cubic inches, and as the entire skull could hardly
have held less than an additional 12 cubic inches, its capacity may be
estimated at about 75 cubic inches, which is the average capacity given
by Morton for Polynesian and Hottentot skulls.

So large a mass of brain as this, would alone suggest that the pithecoid
tendencies, indicated by this skull, did not extend deep into the
organization; and this conclusion is borne out by the dimensions of the
other bones of the skeleton given by Professor Schaaffhausen, which
show that the absolute height and relative proportions of the limbs
were quite those of an European of middle stature. The bones are indeed
stouter, but this and the great development of the muscular ridges noted
by Dr. Schaaffhausen, are characters to be expected in savages. The
Patagonians, exposed without shelter or protection to a climate possibly
not very dissimilar from that of Europe at the time during which the
Neanderthal man lived, are remarkable for the stoutness of their limb
bones.

(FIGURE 31.--Ancient Danish skull from a tumulus at Borreby: one-third
of the natural size. From a camera lucida drawing by Mr. Busk.)

In no sense, then, can the Neanderthal bones be regarded as the remains
of a human being intermediate between Men and Apes. At most, they
demonstrate the existence of a man whose skull may be said to revert
somewhat towards the pithecoid type--just as a Carrier, or a Pouter, or
a Tumbler, may sometimes put on the plumage of its primitive stock, the
'Columba livia'. And indeed, though truly the most pithecoid of known
human skulls, the Neanderthal cranium is by no means so isolated as it
appears to be at first, but forms, in reality, the extreme term of a
series leading gradually from it to the highest and best developed of
human crania. On the one hand, it is closely approached by the flattened
Australian skulls, of which I have spoken, from which other Australian
forms lead us gradually up to skulls having very much the type of the
Engis cranium. And, on the other hand, it is even more closely affined
to the skulls of certain ancient people who inhabited Denmark during the
'stone period,' and were probably either contemporane