THE JAW OF THE PILTDOWN MAN 391 



of the likenesses between these fragments and the skulls of 

 the chimpanzee which he has so woefully misread. 



When Mr. Miller commits himself to the statement, " Thus 

 must be associated in a single skull : (a) one type of jaw with 

 another type of glenoid region," he implies that there exists 

 a relationship between the mandible and the glenoid cavity 

 which has no existence in fact. With the whole mammalian 

 phylum to choose from he will seek in vain for data which will 

 enable him to foretell, by an inspection of the glenoid cavity 

 alone, what was the form of the jaw articulating therewith. 

 What Mr. Miller appears to mean is, that because the glenoid 

 cavity of the Piltdown man is of the type characteristic 

 of modern man, therefore the mandible must be in keeping 

 therewith, that is to say it must possess a " chin," and must 

 be horse-shoe shaped. This does not in the least follow, and 

 there is less reason to expect it in the present case because 

 the cranium has not lost all its primitive characters, though 

 he apparently assumes the contrary. What he really means 

 becomes apparent when his remarks on p. 17 are compared 

 with his indictment under heading " (c)," where he protests 

 that it is impossible to associate in this skull " a high degree 

 of basicranial adjustment to the upright position " with the 

 11 absence of that corresponding modification in the lower 

 jaw called for by all that is now actually known of the structure 

 of the brain-case and mandible in primates." In the first 

 place there is good reason for believing that the Piltdown man 

 had not yet fully attained to the upright position, agreeing in 

 this respect with the Heidelberg man. In the second the 

 mandible does not present " the exact characters of a genus 

 belonging to another family." The " absence of mechanical 

 unity " between the mandible and the postulated face of 

 this skull referred to on p. 1 7 is a purely imaginary absence. 

 The jaw of the Piltdown skull/ applied to a recent human 

 skull of the same length as the Piltdown skull — of a Torres 

 Straits Islander in the British Museum, to be precise — pro- 

 jects, at the incisors, no more than 3 mm. ! Mr. Miller 

 proposes to hang a lot on 3 mm. if he insists on his in- 

 terpretation. As a matter of fact the Piltdown skull, even 

 with this jaw, was less prognathous than in many modern 

 men. This much is demonstrated by the restoration of the 

 skull made in the American Museum of Natural History, 



