go SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 83 



remains demonstrate the existence in the early Pleistocene, long 

 before the Neanderthal and even the Heidelberg forms, of men with 

 practically modern-sized and modern-formed skulls and brains and di- 

 rectly ancestral to Homo sapiens or recent man. This hypothesis is 

 a proposition that would change the whole face and trend of human 

 prehistory, and that against all other and better substantiated evidence 

 in this line. Such a theory, all science will agree, could only be es- 

 tablished as a fact by the most ample and satisfactory material 

 demonstration, which is quite impossible in the present case. 



Work in the Piltdown gravels by Sir Arthur Smith Woodward is 

 progressing; but because of poor financial support the progress is 

 both slow and very limited and has not been crowned so far by any 

 new finds of importance. 



ADDITIONAL LITERATURE 



The principal original publications on the Piltdown remains have 

 been quoted in the course of the preceding account of the specimens. 

 For the many other contributions see references in the works quoted, 

 especially those in Gerrit S. Miller's papers, including his " The 

 Controversy over Human ' Missing Links,' " Smithsonian Report 

 for 1928. 



HOMO HEIDELBERGENSIS 



It is a relief, after the clouds of uncertainty that surround in large 

 measure the remains of the Pithecanthropus and those of the Eoan- 

 thropus, to turn to a single, normal, clearly authenticated and well 

 defined specimen, the lower jaw of Homo hcidelbergensis. 



The Heidelberg, or more properly Mauer, jaw is one of the oldest 

 relics of early man. This precious document of man's evolution is 

 deposited in the Paleontological Institute of Heidelberg. For its 

 preservation and thorough description we are indebted to Dr. Otto 

 Schoetensack, at that time professor of anthropology at Heidelberg 

 University, who for years had been watching the finds in the sand 

 pits near Mauer which eventually yielded the specimen. But much 

 credit in this connection is due also to Herr Joseph Rosch, of Mauer, 

 the owner of the sand pits in question, who saved the specimen from 

 destruction, immediately called Prof. Schoetensack's attention to its 

 discovery, and eventually donated it unselfishly to science. 



The specimen, the lower jaw of an adult male, was discovered 

 accidentally on October 21, 1907, by two laborers. Both these were 

 still employed in the quarry at the time of the writer's first visit to 



