Page:Smithsonian Report (1909).djvu/713

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ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN EUROPE—MACCURDY.
575

is relatively short and broad. The lower jaw is remarkable for its size, for the antero-posterior extent of the condyles, the shallowness of the incisura mandibulæ, and the absence of chin.

Boule estimated the capacity of the Chapelle-aux-Saints skull according to the formulæ of Manouvrier, of Lee, and of Beddoe, obtaining results that varied between 1,570 and 1,750 cubic centimeters. By the use of millet and of shot an average capacity of 1,626 cubic centimeters was obtained. Judging from these figures the capacity of the crania of Neandertal and Spy has been underestimated by Schaaffhausen, Huxley, and Schwalbe.

By its cranial capacity, therefore, the Neandertal race belongs easily in the class of Homo sapiens. But we must distinguish between relative capacity and absolute capacity. In modern man, where the transverse and antero-posterior diameters are the same as in the skull of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, the vertical diameter would be much greater, which would increase the capacity to 1,800 cubic centimeters and even to 1,900 cubic centimeters. Such voluminous modern crania are very rare. Thus Bismarck, with horizontal cranial diameters scarcely greater than in the man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, is said to have had a cranial capacity of 1,965 cubic centimeters.

The most remarkable thing about the astragalus is the special development of the articular surface for the lateral malleolus, development that recalls the condition in anthropoids and climbing mammals. This seems to indicate that, as among anthropoids, the foot of the man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints should repose on its external margin, also that the fibula was relatively more powerful than is the case among modern races.

The calcaneum is characterized by its shortness and especially by the large dimensions of the lesser process (sustentaculum tali). The latter in its proportions resembles that in the Veddahs and in anthropoids.

During the autumn of 1909 M. D. Peyrony, of Les Eyzies, had the good fortune to discover human remains of Mousterian age at two different localities in the department of Dordogne. The first find was made in a small cavern at Pech de l'Azé, 5 kilometers from Sarlat. Here in undisturbed upper Mousterian deposits was found the skull of a child five or six years old. About it were the numerous animal bones broken artificially, the teeth of the horse, deer, reindeer, and an abundance of Mousterian implements. The lower Mousterian deposit on which the skull rested contained fine implements of the Acheulian type.

M. Peyrony's second discovery was made September 17, 1909, in the rock-shelter of La Ferrassie near Bugue. The section at La Ferrassie comprises five archeological horizons, Acheulian, Mousterian,