МАЭ № 6080-1

Young chimpanzee

1938

plaster

The study of soft tissues of the chimpanzee’s face, nearly human owing to its agility and richness of expression, enabled Mikhail Gerasimov to understand numerous functional relationships between muscular robustness and cranial shape, on the one hand, and the topography of facial muscles on the other. The overall compositional interrelation of separate minor details of the facial skeletons and the overlying muscles became easier to understand. For instance, contrary to a widely held view, the forward protrusion of the jaws, known as prognathism, turned out to be unrelated to the thickness of the lips. In fact, the chimpanzee’s lips are thin and agile with an abrupt boundary between the mucous membrane and the skin. The sharply projecting thin upper orbital margins differ from those of humans. The shape of the nasal saddle is peculiar. The shape of the upper jaws and cheekbones, too, distinguishes the chimpanzee from Homo sapiens. The chimpanzee, however, is Man’s closest relative, and many of its anatomical features occur in our ancestors.

Anthropological plastic reconstructions, lifetime masks. 19th - 20th centuries