2 From the combined results of these and other measurements Schwalbe arrives at the very important and interesting conclusion that the Neanderthal skull possesses a number of important peculiarities which differentiate it from the skulls of existing man, and show an approximation towards those of the anthropoid apes. He maintains that in recognising with King and Cope the Neanderthal skull as belonging to a distinct species, Homo Neanderthalensis, he is only following the usual practice of zoologists and palæontologists by whom specific characters are frequently founded upon much less marked differences. He maintains that as the Neanderthal skull stands in many of its characters nearer to the higher anthropoids than to recent man, if the Neanderthal type is to be included under the term Homo sapiens, then this species ought to be still more extended, so as to embrace the anthropoids. It is interesting to turn from a perusal of these opinions recently advanced by Schwalbe to consider the grounds on which Huxley and Turner, about forty years ago, opposed the view, which was then being advocated, that the characters of the Neanderthal skull were so distinct from those of any of the existing races as to justify the recognition of a new species of the genus Homo. Huxley, while admitting that it was the most pithecoid of human skulls,' yet holds that it 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.' He states that it is closely approached by certain Australian skulls, and even more nearly by the skulls of certain ancient people who inhabited Denmark during the stone period.' Turner's observations led him to adopt a similar view to that advanced by Huxley. He compared the Neanderthal calvaria with savage and British crania in the Anatomical Museum of the University of Edinburgh, and found amongst them specimens closely corresponding to the Neanderthal type. While yielding to no one in my admiration for the thoroughness and ability with which Schwalbe has conducted his elaborate and extensive investigations on this question, I must confess that in my opinion he has not sufficiently recognised the significance of the large cranial capacity of the Neanderthal skull in determining the zoological position of its owner, or made sufficient allowance for the great variations in form which skulls undoubtedly human may present. The length and breadth of the Neanderthal calvaria are distinctly greater than in many living races, and compensate for its defect in height, so that it was capable of lodging a brain fully equal in volume to that of many existing savage races and at least double that of any anthropoid ape. A number of the characters upon which Schwalbe relies in differentiating the Neanderthal skull-cap are due to an appreciable extent to the great development of the glabella and supra-orbital arches. Now these processes are well known to present very striking variations in existing human races. They are usually sup posed to be developed as buttresses for the purpose of affording support to the large upper jaw and enable it to resist the pressure of the lower jaw due to the contraction of the powerful muscles of mastication. These processes, however, are usu ally feebly marked in the microcephalic, prognathous, and macrodont negro skull, and may be well developed in the macrocephalic and orthognathous skulls of some of the higher races. Indeed, their variations are too great and their significance too obscure for them to form a basis for the creation of a new species of man. Both Huxley and Turner have shown that the low vault of the Neanderthal calvaria can be closely parallelled by specimens of existing races. If the characters of the Neanderthal calvaria are so distinctive as to justify the recognition of a new species, a new genus ought to be made for the Trinil skullcap. In nearly every respect it is distinctly lower in type than the Neanderthal, and yet many of the anatomists who have expressed their opinion on the subject maintain that the Trinil specimen is distinctly human. * The Genealogy of Man,' The American Naturalist, vol. xxvii. 1893. The Reputed Fossil Man of the Neanderthal,' Journal of Science, 1864. 3 The Fossil Skull Controversy, Journal of Science, 1864. Important and interesting as are the facts which may be ascertained from a study of a series of skulls regarding the size and form of the brain, it is evident that there are distinct limits to the knowledge to be obtained from this source. Much additional information as to racial characters would undoubtedly be gained had we collections of brains at all corresponding in number and variety with the skulls in our museums. We know that as a rule the brains of the less civilised races are smaller, and the convolutions and fissures simpler, than those of the more cultured nations, beyond this but little more than that definitely determined. As the results of investigations in human and comparative anatomy, physiology, and pathology, we know that definite areas of the cerebral cortex are connected with the action of definite groups of muscles, and that the nervous impulses starting from the organs of smell, sight, hearing, and common sensibility reach defined cortical fields. All these, however, do not cover more than a third of the convoluted surface of the brain, and the remaining two thirds are still to a large extent a terra incognita so far as their precise function is concerned. Is there a definite localisation of special mental qualities or moral tendencies, and if so where are they situated? These are problems of extreme difficulty, but their interest and importance are difficult to exaggerate. In the solution of this problem anthropologists are bound to take an active and important part. When they have collected information as to the relative development of the various parts of the higher brain in all classes of mankind with the same thoroughness with which they have investigated the racial peculiarities of the skull, the question will be within a measurable distance of solution. The following Papers and Reports were read : 1. Skulls from Round Barrows in East Yorkshire.1 By WILLIAM WRIGHT, M.B., M.Sc., F.R.C.S. The skulls upon which these remarks are offered are some eighty in number, and are now in the Mortimer Museum at Driffield. From the fact that the interments closely resemble each other it is inferred that they took place about the same time; from the further fact that primitive articles of bronze have been occasionally met with in the graves, albeit much less frequently than articles of stone and bone, it is assumed that they date back to the Early Bronze age, some of them possibly to the Late Stone age. As to the skulls almost all the varieties of cranial shape met with in Europe are represented types so widely different are found as those named by Sergi Ellipsoides Pelasgicus Longissimus, Sphenoides Latus, and Ellipsoides Africus Rotundus. The cephalic index ranged from 69 to 92. It is doubtful if it is possible to find a materially more mixed series of skulls in a community of to-day. Perhaps the only marked distinction between these prehistoric skulls and those of the present time is to be found in the jaws and teeth, although even here retrograde changes were discoverable such as unerupted and dwarfed wisdom teeth, an absent upper lateral incisor and a lower canine overlapping the adjacent lateral incisor on account of overcrowding of the teeth. The mandibular and coronoid indices suggested by Professor Arthur Thomson were calculated whenever possible. I found no co-relation between them and skull-shape, but that skulls with similar indices were possessed of different shapes, and vice versa. A marked resemblance was frequently noted between the skulls from any one barrow so striking was it that one was inclined to attribute it to the barrows having been family burial-grounds. This resemblance was particularly apparent in nine skulls taken from one barrow; four of the vine, moreover, although those of adults, had the metopic suture unclosed. Metopism, when found, occurred in long skulls rather than in broad skulls; a fact which on a priori grounds one would perhaps not have expected. Judging from the To be published in full in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xxxiv. 1903. 3 F frequently open sutures and the condition of the teeth, it would appear that the dead here buried had seldom reached an age greater than that of fifty. In concluding one has no hesitation in stating that Dr. Thurnam's dictum 'round barrow, round skull,' is not even approximately accurate so far as the skulls from the round barrows of Yorkshire are concerned. 2. Some Observations on the Pads and Papillary Ridges on the Palm of the Hand. By E. J. EVATT. During the course of development of the hand eleven well-defined pads or cushions appear on the palm. The disposition and form of the pads when best marked in the foetus correspond very closely with that which obtains in certain lower animals (e.g., the mouse), and the pads in both cases are probably morphologically equivalent, and, further, in man's remote ancestors possibly served similar functions. In the adult the pads may be regarded as vestigial. It is probable that when the hand began to be used as an organ of prehension rather than of locomotion, the deep layer of the epidermis invaded the corium in a fluted form, and in this way the close and complicated papilla were differentiated. The interlocking of the corium with the epidermis serves probably to strengthen the connection between the two. The interlocking ridges or deep flutings are at first comparatively simple în their arrangement, and tend to lie transversely to the long axis of the limb, even on the sites of the original pads where the patterns eventually assume most complex forms. Later on, yet long before the ridges appear on the surface, the deep flutings have assumed the patterns characteristic of the adult papillary ridges. The papillary patterns appear on the surface at about the eighteenth week, and are formed by the intervening epidermal tissue sinking in between the buttresslike processes of the underlying flutings, and they thus come to be the counterpart of the perfected patterns upon which they are moulded. The convexities of the patterns on the pads of the fingers are directed distally, while the convexities of the patterns over the remaining pads take a proximal direction; that is, in grasping, the convexities are directed in lines of least resistance; it would, therefore, seem probable that as the hand became an organ of prehension the flutings assumed the forms already described as the result of mechanical forces. 3. Some Recent Excavations at Hastings, and the Human Remains found. By J. G. GARSON, M.D., and W. J. LEWIS ABBOTT. In this paper a description is given of the geological formation and position of Hastings in relation to certain excavations recently made for the purpose of constructing a passenger-lift from the foreshore to the top of the cliff, in the course of which a number of human remains were found. The date at which these were deposited is uncertain, but they appear to include two racial elements, the earlier of which presented characters agreeing with those typical of the Neolithic race, while the other remains were of people of a much later date. 4. Remarks on a Collection of Skulls from the Malay Peninsula. These skulls were obtained by Mr. H. C. Robinson and myself in the Patani States, the population of which is very mixed, consisting partly of so-called Malays and partly of so-called Siamese, the difference between these two peoples being chiefly one of religion. The skulls fall naturally into four groups, one of which, represented by three adult specimens, shows many primitive characters, and is especially remarkable for the great development of the cerebellar part of the occiput, agreeing in this character with a series of Orang-Laut skulls from the State of Trang, on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula, which the author has recently described1 in brief. An interesting feature of the series at present under discussion, and also, so far as can be seen, of the Orang-Laut specimens, is the large proportion of individuals in which the third molar has not developed normally. Though the Malay and Siamese skulls in our collection show certain resemblances to those representing the jungle tribes of the Malay Peninsula, they are separated from them by having a much higher cephalic index and a greater cubic capacity, and by other differences of racial importance. 5. Grattan's Craniometer and Craniometric Methods. By Professor J. SYMINGTON, M.D., F.R.S. 6. Anthropometric Measurements in Crete and other parts of the Egean Area. By W. L. H. DUCKWORTH, M.A.-See Reports, p. 404. 7. Report of the Committee on Anthropometric Investigation in Great Britain and Ireland.-See Reports, p. 389. 8. Report of the Committee on a Pigmentation Survey of the School Children of Scotland-See Reports, p. 415. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11. The following Papers and Report were read :- 1. Palæolithic Implements from the Shelly Gravel Pit at Swanscombe, Kent. By Mrs. C. STOPES. The late Mr. Stopes on April 27, 1900, discovered in a newly opened section of sand and gravel in a pit at Swanscombe, Kent, many remains of animal mollusca and other fossils interstratified with flint implements of various kinds. The latter included the following varieties: (1) Ordinary axe or hache type; (2) fine smaller, of same shape; (3) broad leaf-shaped type; (4) ovate types; (5) boat-shaped type, pointed at each end; (6) discs; (7) large many-angled projectiles; (8) very finepointed stones as awls; (9) worked as if for graving tools; (10) worked as if to clear marrow-bones; (11) scrapers, spokeshaves, and combined stones in all colours and shades of flint and patina-white cream, ochreous, brown, black. Many of them are derived and waterworn, many are glaciated. As these are associated with a fauna containing many extinct species, Mr. Stopes considered that his discovery pushed back the geological date of man's appearance in the lower Thames valley to a period much earlier than has hitherto been supposed. The pit is now entirely worked out, and the specimens already in hand alone remain to show its contents. The fossils have been verified by Mr. Kennard and are here given, Those 1 Fasciculi Malayenses: Anthropology, part i. are extinct, those marked † are extinct in this country but living on the marked 2. Saw-edged Paleoliths. By Mrs. C. STOPES. Among the stones collected by Mr. Stopes during the last two years of his life, and left by him at Swanscombe, are a beautiful series of saw-edged paleolithic flakes and implements from the Craylands gravel pit at Swanscombe. The roughnesses are not the result of accident or use, but are intentional serration, generally on a straight edge, though sometimes continued into the spokeshaves and scrapers so frequently combined in the multum in parvo implements of the period. At the York meeting of the British Association, 1881, when Mr. Stopes brought forward his carved Pectunculus from the Red Crag, as the first recorded |