File:Annual report (1913) (14783254755).jpg

Identifier: annualreport671913newy (find matches)
Title: Annual report
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: New York State Museum
Subjects: New York State Museum Science Science
Publisher: Albany : University of the State of New York
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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stricted to human fossils of the Middle and Early Pleistocene.The Middle Pleistocene man, which has generally been designated Jaw of the Heidelberg man (Homo heidelbergensis) by the name of Homo neanderthalensis, is actually very well known morphologically, thanks to the beautiful work of M. Boule. We know much less of the man or the anthropoid creatures which preceded Homo neanderthalensis; in fact, we have as documents here only insufficient and scattered bone fragments. The lower jaw, the only relic of the creature to which the name of Homo heidelbergensis has been given, is remarkable for the association which it presents of pithecoid and human characters. It is striking throughout by its massive appearance, by the large size of its ascending branches and by the complete absence of a chin. The mandibular angle is truncated, the semilunar groove but slightly marked, the coronoid apophysis obtuseand with rounded edges, the articular surface of the condyle much 148 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM
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■ REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I913 149 extended. Finally, if the bone is placed on a horizontal plane it will be seen that there is a large open space under the median symphysis. All these characters give this jaw more the aspect of an anthropoid than of a human jaw, and it is certain that if it had been deprived of its alveolar border it would have been greatly to the embarrassment of paleontologists; but the teeth are distinctly human and the canines no more prominent than the adjoining teeth. Again, we find the association of such pithecoid and human characters, in a fashion perhaps still more pronounced, in Eoanthropus dawsoni; that is to say, in the being whose remains have been discovered at Piltdown. Morphologically, this jaw is the jaw of a chimpanzee, and the recent discovery of the canine tooth notably more developed than the human canine accentuates this resemblance; but the cranium, as far as one is able to judge fromthe deteriorated condition in which it was found and after some-wha

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