198 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



The Piltdown man as one of the 

 "Missing Links" 



As stated above, the temporal bone 

 ard its mastoid process, the back of the 

 head and the whole brain-case, as well 

 as the brain cast, are human in character, 

 although of low type, while the lower 

 jaw and dentition are prevailingly 

 simian. And while this regional dis- 

 tribution of human and simian charac- 

 ters was unexpected and in a way un- 

 precedented, it means, as Professor 

 Elliot Smith has noted, that the erect 

 pose of the body, the freeing of the 

 hands from locomotive functions, and 

 the human development of the brain 

 were associated in the Piltdown man 



with a more conservative or simian 

 structure of the dentition and jaw. 



Whether or not the Piltdown man 

 could talk is an open question. Dr. 

 James Robinson has pointed out that in 

 modern man the genioglossus muscle, the 

 principal muscle of the tongue, is 

 differentiated into many more or less 

 separate strands, each with its own nerve 

 supply and that this arrangement per- 

 mits the extremely rapid and delicately 

 coordinated movements of the tongue 

 in speaking, whereas in the apes this 

 muscle is much smaller and less differ- 

 entiated. In modern man the muscle 

 is attached to two little tubercles on the 

 inner side of the chin, known as the genial 

 tubercles (Fig. 6, g. /.). In the Piltdown 



Fig. 10. A. Young chimpanzee skull 



B. Piltdown skull 



C. Adult male chimpanzee 



D. The La-Chapelle-aux-Saints skull (Neanderthal race). 



After Smith Woodward 



