Fig. 80.—Outline (one-third the size of nature) of the skull of the Neander Man from the Chapelle-aux-Saints, with all fractures and defects made good. The bony sockets of the teeth and the teeth themselves (lost and atrophied by inflammatory disease in the actual skull) are here given their full size and healthy condition. The lower jaw is seen to be very similar to that from Heidelberg ([Fig. 82]). From a photograph taken by Professor Marcelin Boule from a cast of the actual skull. The cast was “made good” by modelling upon it the deficient parts.
[Transcriber’s Note: The original image is approximately 1 inch (2.5cm) high and 3 inches (8cm) wide.]
The fact was published some four months ago that the new Corrèze skull agrees with the celebrated skull-top (called a “calvaria” by anatomists) of the Neanderthal ([Fig. 76]) in the extraordinary shallowness or absence of “dome,” in the retreating forehead, the thick prominent eyebrow ridges, and in the excessive “lowness,” or want of elevation of the back region. But further study of the new skull has enabled Professor Boule to show, as he demonstrated to me, that the outline of the new skull looked at from above coincides not merely approximately, but exactly with that of the Neanderthal skull. There is the same great length from eyebrows to occiput, and the same great breadth at a series of corresponding regions. The curious thing is that both these skulls are of enormous size—a good deal bigger in length and breadth than modern European skulls, and not small and ape-like, though they are far shallower (that is, less high in the dome) than any skulls of living men. I had, myself, always been astonished by the great breadth and length of the casts of the Neanderthal skull which we possess in England, and supposed that possibly the casts were carelessly made. Now Professor Boule shows that both the Neanderthal and the Corrèze skull are so much larger in breadth and length than average European skulls, that in spite of its flat, depressed shape, the Corrèze skull (and consequently the Neanderthal skull, too) has a brain-cavity holding 1600 cubic centimetres, whilst the average modern European skull only holds 1500 to 1550. The estimate given by former observers for the Neanderthal skull was as low as 1200. This calculation was based on the diminution of volume caused by the flatness of the skull, and would be correct were the skull of the Neander race no longer or broader than an ordinary European skull. If we imagine a skull of the ordinary European proportionate height, but as long and as broad as the Neander skulls, then its volume would be something like 2000 cubic centimetres. This is a very remarkable result. The ancient Neander Men’s brain was not smaller, but actually a little bigger than that of modern Europeans; it was bigger in regions where the modern European is small, and smaller where that is large!
Fig. 81.—The skull of a male chimpanzee. Drawn one-third the natural size (linear) to compare with the human skulls and jaws here figured. The dotted lines and the letters a, b, c, d, e, and f have the same signification as in [Fig. 65], to which reference should be made. The flatness of the cranial dome and the reduction of the frontal boss (d) are very marked. So are the relatively large size of the jaws and teeth. Compare the shape of the lower jaw with that from Heidelberg ([Fig. 82]), and with that of a modern European ([Fig. 79]).
[Transcriber’s Note: The original image is approximately 2¼ inches (6cm) high and 2½ inches (6.5cm) wide.]
Fig. 82.—The Heidelberg jaw, from a lower Pleistocene deposit, near Heidelberg. Observe the absence of chin and the great breadth of the up-turned part of the jaw. Compare with the lower jaws drawn to the same scale in Figs. [79], [80], and [81]. One-third the size of nature.