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Updated: May 7, 2025
The small, narrow, retreating frontal, prominent parietal protuberances, rather protuberant occipital, which was not in the least compressed, the well-defined supraciliary ridges, and the superior border of the orbits, presenting a quadrilateral outline, were also particularly noticed. The lower facial bones, including the maxillaries, were wanting.
In the Man, the surface of the skull is comparatively smooth, and the supraciliary ridges or brow prominences usually project but little while, in the Gorilla, vast crests are developed upon the skull, and the brow ridges overhang, the cavernous orbits, like great penthouses.
Its contours and measurements agree very well with those of some Australian skulls which I have examined and especially has it a tendency towards that occipital flattening, to the great extent of which, in some Australian skulls, I have alluded. But all Australian skulls do not present this flattening, and the supraciliary ridge of the Engis skull is quite unlike that of the typical Australians.
In the Man, the surface of the skull is comparatively smooth, and the supraciliary ridges or brow prominences usually project but little while, in the Gorilla, vast crests are developed upon the skull, and the brow ridges overhang, the cavernous orbits, like great penthouses.
In order to solve these doubts, and to decide the question whether the great supraciliary projections did, or did not, arise from the development of the frontal sinuses, I requested Sir Charles Lyell to be so good as to obtain for me from Dr.
Fuhlrott replied with a courtesy and readiness for which I am infinitely indebted to him, to my inquiries, and furthermore sent three excellent photographs. Fuhlrott writes, "a probe may be introduced to the depth of an inch," and demonstrates the great extension of the thickened supraciliary ridges beyond the cerebral cavity.
The horizontal circumference is 23 inches. But this great circumference arises largely from the vast development of the supraciliary ridges, though the perimeter of the brain case itself is not small. The large supraciliary ridges give the forehead a far more retreating appearance than its internal contour would bear out.
An Australian skull from Western Port, in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, with the contour of the Neanderthal skull. A small additional amount of flattening and lengthening, with a corresponding increase of the supraciliary ridge, would convert the Australian brain case into a form identical with that of the aberrant fossil.
Under whatever aspect we view this cranium, whether we regard its vertical depression, the enormous thickness of its supraciliary ridges, its sloped occiput, or its long and straight squamosal suture, we meet with ape-like characters, stamping it as the most pithecoid of human crania yet discovered.
D. Wilson's valuable paper "On the supposed prevalence of one Cranial Type throughout the American aborigines." The Australian skull is remarkable for its narrowness and for the thickness of its walls, especially in the region of the supraciliary ridge, which is frequently, though not by any means invariably, solid throughout, the frontal sinuses remaining undeveloped.
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