Abstract
WHEN Dr. Hrdlicka was passing through the press the revised edition of “The Skeletal Remains of Early Man” (Smithsonian Miscell. Collect., Vol. 83, 1930) he received a description, accompanied by photographs, of the then recently discovered skull of Peking man. Although it was too late for reference in the text, in an addendum Prof. Hrdlicka gave it as his opinion that the skull was neanderthaloid, resembling the Galilee skull, and that “had it been found in Europe or in Asia Minor it would hardly be taken by any expert student … as anything else than neanderthaloid”. Dr. Hrdlicka has now made a careful examination of cranial and endocranial casts of the Peking skull recently received from London, examining them side by side with comparable material in the National Museum collections at Washington. According to a communication issued by the Smithsonian Institution of Washington, Dr. Hrdlicka finds that his previous conclusions are fully substantiated. They are in complete agreement with the view recently put forward by Dr. E. Dubois before the Dutch Academy of Sciences, being in effect that Peking man is a somewhat variant member of the widespread Neanderthal race. Though the brain and skull are small, Dr. Hrdlicka holds that the former is “thoroughly human”, if low in type, while the latter is comparable in capacity with the skulls of prehistoric Peruvians in the Washington collections, of which some thirty in number are less than 1,050 c.c. in cubic capacity. In respect of both characters, Peking man is thus brought well within the range of the human.
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Classification of Sinanthropus. Nature 132, 925 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/132925a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/132925a0