A critical examination of the known facts does not favor the assumption of a far-back common parentage and early Quaternary separation of Homo neanderthalensis and H. sapiens, for lack of cultural evidence of H. sapiens and other great difficulties. It is equally unable ot favor a separate origin of the 2 stocks with subsequent hybridization, for again there is no evidence of the pre-Aurignacian whereabouts and the doings of H. sapiens, there is no trace of his ancestry, and knowing his and his descendants'' characteristics, it is impossible, as already said by Karl Pearson, to conceive his origin without a Neanderthal-like stage of development. There remains but the 3rd alternative[long dash]which is the evolution of the Neanderthaler into later man. This proposition is not yet capable of conclusive demonstration, on account of lack of material. But the thoroughly sifted indications appear to the writer to favor this assumption. The great current need of prehistory-is more exploration and more good fortune in discoveries. Meanwhile there appears to be less justification in the conception of a Neanderthal species than there would be in that of a Neanderthal phase of man.