Elliot Smith concluded that members of the Piltdown race might well have been the direct ancestors of the existing species of man (_Homo sapiens_), thus affording a direct link with undiscovered Tertiary apes; whereas, the more recent fossil men of the Neanderthal type, with prominent brow ridges resembling those of the existing apes, may have belonged to a degenerate race which later became extinct. According to this view, _Eoanthropus_ represents a persistent and very slightly modified descendant of the type of Tertiary man which was the common ancestor of a branch giving rise to _Homo sapiens_, on the one hand, and of another branch giving rise to _Homo neanderthalensis_, on the other. [Illustration: FIG. 72. Restoration of the head of Piltdown man, full front, after model by J. H. McGregor. One-quarter life size. (Compare Figs. 68 and 71.)] Another theory as to the relationships of _Eoanthropus_ is that of Marcelin Boule,(21) who is inclined to regard the jaws of the Piltdown and Heidelberg races as of similar geologic age, but of dissimilar racial type. He continues: "If the skull and jaw of Piltdown belong to the same individual, and if the mandibles of the Heidelberg and Piltdown men are of the same type, this discovery is most valuable in establishing the cranial structure of the Heidelberg race. But it appears rather that we have here two types of man which lived in Chellean times, both distinguished by very low cranial characters. Of these the Piltdown race seems to us the probable ancestor in the direct line of the recent species of man, _Homo sapiens_; while the Heidelberg race may be considered, until we have further knowledge, as a possible precursor of _Homo neanderthalensis_." The latest opinion of the German anatomist Schwalbe(22) is that the proper restoration of the region of the chin in the Piltdown man might make it possible to refer this jaw to _Homo sapiens_, but this would merely prove that _Homo sapiens_ already existed in early Pleistocene times. The skull of the Piltdown man, continues Schwalbe, corresponds with that of a well-developed, good-sized skull of _Homo sapiens_; the only unusual feature is the remarkable thickness of the bone.[AB] Finally, our own opinion is that the Piltdown race was not related at all either to the Heidelbergs or to the Neanderthals, nor was it directly ancestral to any of the other races of the Old Stone Age, or to any of the existing species of man. As shown in the human family tree in Chapter VI, the Piltdown race represents a side branch of the human family which has left no descendants at all. MAMMALIAN LIFE OF CHELLEAN AND ACHEULEAN TIMES(23)