THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 747 



tions of their form. Peking man had a skull very similar to that of Java 

 man, with heavy bony ridges over the eyes, a low, slanting forehead, a 

 broad flat nose and a massive, chinless jaw (Fig. 36.8). The remains fall 

 into two groups, one considerably larger than the other, which suggests 

 that the difference between the size of males and females was greater than 

 at present. The cranial capacity of Peking man was about 1075 ml., dis- 

 tinctly larger than that of Java man. The fact that many of them are 

 found with their bases broken open suggests that Peking man was a can- 

 nibal with a taste for brains. 



As more specimens of Java and Peking man have been found, it 

 has become clear that the two are really quite similar, and represent 

 two races or subspecies of the same species, rather than separate genera. 

 The anthropologist who has studied them most intensively, Franz 

 W^eidenreich, found that Java and Peking man are identical in 57 out 

 of 74 characters of the skull, and that there are clear differences in only 

 four characters, one of which is the difference in size. He has suggested 

 that they be named Homo erectus erectus and Homo erectus pekinensis, 

 respectively. 



Traces of other ape men, much larger than Java and Peking man, 

 have also been found in southern Asia. The lower Pleistocene deposits 

 of Java have yielded a large lower jaw with molar teeth that appears 

 to have belonged to an ape man as big as a gorilla. Probably this Jav- 

 anese giant, named Meganthropus, was exceeded in size by another 

 giant, named Gigantopithecus, known only from some extremely large, 

 human-like fossil teeth found in a Hong Kong drugstore! These were 

 traced back to cave deposits from the lower Pleistocene in southern 

 China. The largest molar found is some six times larger than a human 

 molar and must have belonged to an exceptionally large ape man. 

 VV^iether these giants represent ancestors of modern man or side branches 

 of anthropoid evolution cannot be decided at present. 



The fossils of primitive man found in Europe, Asia and Africa are 

 slightly different, but similar enough to be grouped together as the 

 Neanderthaloids. The Neanderthaloids, which include Heidelberg man, 

 Neanderthal man, Solo man and Rhodesian man, probably are descended 

 from the pithecanthropoids, Java and Peking man. 



Heidelberg man (Homo heidelbergensis) is known only from a mas- 

 sive lower jaw found buried under 80 feet of sand in a pit near Heidel- 

 berg, Germany. The jaw is large and heavy and lacks a chin, but the 

 teeth are of moderate size and generally like modern man's. Since it 

 resembles the jaw of Neanderthal man in many respects, Heidelberg 

 man, who lived more than 500,000 years ago, may have been an ancestor 

 of Neanderthal man. 



The first human fossils to be discovered, a skull and some bones, 

 were found in the Neander valley near Dusseldorf, Germany, in 1856. 

 Similar skulls and skeletons have been found in widely separated parts 

 of Europe, Asia Minor, North Africa, Siberia and the islands of the 

 Mediterranean. Neanderthal remains are associated with a particular 

 Stone Age culture known as the Mousterian (named after le Moustier 

 cave on the bank of the Vezere River in France). Neanderthal man 



