At the time when Darwin published his Descent of Man comparatively little was known of the fossil remains either of men or apes, so that the discussion of the evidence of palaeontology played an altogether insignificant part in his argument. Apart from the discoveries that had been made in the Neanderthal cave and at Gibraltar, nothing was known of fossil man, and what little was known was puzzling rather than helpful. Little more had then been recovered of the fossil remains of apes than a few fragments of Pliopithecus and Dryopithecus.