WHOLE VOL. SKELETAL REMAINS OF EARLY MAN HRDLICKA 79 



the essential parts of these are here reproduced. The results of the 

 1925 examination call for practically no modification of the earlier 

 data. 



The handling of the original bone impressed one once more with the great 

 difference that exists between the study of a cast however well made and that 

 of the original. It is very probable that some of the statements made about the 

 jaw and the teeth and some of the conclusions arrived at by some authors, 

 would not have been made had they been able to study the jaw itself. 



The first strong impression which the specimen conveys is that of normality, 

 shapeliness and relative gracility of build rather than massiveness. When, after 

 studying the specimen for a good part of two days, the observer took in hand 

 the thick Piltdown skull, there was a strong feeling of incongruity and lack of 

 relationship, and this feeling only grew on further study. As a rule there exists 

 a marked correlation between the massivity of the skull — particularly if as in 

 this case the upper facial parts were involved in the same — and the lower jaw. 

 A finely chiselled mandible of medium or sub-medium strength belongs as a rule 

 to a skull that is characterized in the same way, and vice versa. To connect the 

 shapely, wholly normal Piltdown jaw with the gross, heavy Piltdown skull into 

 the same individual, seems very difficult. After prolonged handling of both the 

 jaw and the skull there remained in the writer a strong impression that the two 

 may not belong together, or that if they do the case is totally exceptional. 



The next important question in connection with the jaw was whether or not 

 it is human. All possible pains were taken to determine this point, regardless 

 both of the skull and of previously expressed opinions. The details of this study 

 will follow. But it may as well be said at once that all the results of the study 

 point to the specimen being very early human or that of an advanced human 

 precursor, and not anthropoid. 



Other questions were whether the canine tooth found near the jaw belonged 

 to it or not ; and if it did not whether it could have belonged perhaps to the 

 upper jaw of the same being or a being of the same variety. Upon these ques- 

 tions no absolute certainty could be reached ; but the indications are that the 

 jaw possessed a relatively large canine, and a further study of the tooth admits 

 of the possibility that it belonged not merely to the same individual, but that 

 after all it may be the lower right canine of the jaw. Mr. Miller, who in the 

 writer's knowledge subjected the available data as well as the casts to a most 

 careful study,* was at a disadvantage due to the impossibility of studying the 

 originals. 



DETAILED OBSERVATIONS 



The Jazv: The specimen is in a very good state of preservation. Besides the 

 well-known lack of condyle and the alveolar arch anterior to the first molar, 

 there is no other damage except a slight abrasion of the middle portion of the 

 posterior border of the ramus. 



The specimen is not heavy in weight nor massive in structure ; it is marked 

 in fact by relatively moderate build, strikingly at odds with both the first and 

 second Piltdown skulls which in all their parts are decidedly thick. There is no 

 perceptible correspondence between the jaw and the skulls. 



* See Miller, G. S., The Piltdown Jaw. Amer. Journ. Phys. Anthrop., Vol. i, 

 No. I, 1918. 



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