PRIMITIVE MAN IN CHINA — SMITH 541 



SO definitely different from that of all other known human teeth (an 

 extremely generalized human type presenting obvious analogies to 

 the conditions found in the fossil apes which most nearly conform 

 to the human type) Doctor Black's action in creating a new genus 

 did not meet with any widespread support. A year later, however, 

 the discovery made by Dr. Birger Bohlin, working in conjunction 

 with Dr. C. C. Young and Mr. W. C. Pei, of fragments of two jaws 

 and braincases, provided evidence which confirmed the validity of 

 the genus founded in 1927. The tooth upon which Doctor Black 

 based his definition of the new genus conformed in character to the 

 two teeth whose discovery was announced in 1926, as well as to the 

 tooth described by Schlosser in 1903, and there can be no doubt that 

 these four teeth all belong to SinantJir&pus. One of the teeth found 

 by Doctor Zdansky in 1926 probably came from the same jaw as 

 the type specimen found in 1927. The two jaws found in 1928 con- 

 tained a number of teeth conforming to the same characteristic mor- 

 j)hological types as that found in 1927. Both jaw fragments, one 

 of a child and the other of an adult, display very significant peculi- 

 arities in the chin region. The oblique slope of the anterior surface 

 is comparable only to that of anthropoid apes and the Piltdown jaw; 

 and a peculiar conformation of the lingual aspect of the jaw is 

 analogous to, though not exactly identical with, the peculiarities of 

 the jaw found at Piltdown in 1912, which has been a subject of the 

 liveliest controversy ever since. 



While the finding of this peculiar apelike type of jaw in associa- 

 tion with fragments of braincases, which are unquestionably human, 

 provides corroboration of the justice of regarding the tooth of 1927 

 as a new genus, it also affords evidence which can not be ignored in 

 support of the validity of regarding the jaw found at Piltdown a& 

 part of the same human individual whose broken skull was also 

 found alongside it. The features of the jaws of Sinanthropus at first 

 raised the possibility that the fossil man of China might be more 

 nearly akin to the early Pleistocene man of Piltdown than to the 

 Ape Man of Java. It would, however, be more accurate to say that, 

 as nothing whatever is known of the type of jaw of Pithecanthro'pus, 

 the only human jaw susceptible of comparison with the Peking jaws 

 was that found at Piltdown. The contrast between the teeth of Pithec- 

 atithropus and those of Sinanthropus suggest that there must have 

 been a considerable difference between the jaws of those two primitive 

 genera. In 1929, however, the finding of an almost complete brain- 

 case of Sinanthropus by Mr. W. C. Pei revealed a type of skull 

 which, while it was still embedded in the hard matrix of travertine 

 (involving the base and a greater part of the sides of the sloill) 

 seemed to be much more nearly akin to the jkull of Pithecanthropus 



