THE MOST ANCIENT REMAINS OF MAN 
cleaned it, repaired it, and in 1908 published its descrip- 
tion in an exemplary fashion (Plate 45). 
Shortly following the discovery of the jaw a most care- 
ful examination and study were made of the Mauer de- 
posits. They were found to range from recent accumu- 
lations on the surface to Tertiary deposits in the lowest 
layers. The jaw lay a little less than three feet (0.87 
meter) above the floor of the excavation and seventy-nine 
feet (24.1 meters) from the surface. The same level, as 
well as some of the higher layers, yielded fossil bones of the 
straight-tusked elephant, Etruscan rhinoceros, an extinct 
lion, and various other animals. The age of the human 
jaw has been determined by these and later explorations 
to be of the early Quaternary, or Glacial Period, though 
there is still some uncertainty as to the exact subdivision 
of that period to which it should be attributed. 
The original specimen, when seen, impresses one at 
once and strongly with its remarkable character. So com- 
pletely mineralized is it that it resembles limestone rather 
than bone. It is an enormous lower jaw, which presents 
at one and the same time both human and apelike char- 
acteristics (Fig. 27). 
There is no indication of abnormality or any diseased 
condition which might have altered it in shape; on the 
contrary it may be regarded as a perfectly normal repre- 
sentative of its type. The bone is dull yellowish-white 
to reddish in color, with numerous small and large black- 
ish spots. The crowns of the teeth are dirty creamy 
white, with blackish discolorations on the somewhat 
worn-off chewing surfaces of the canines and incisors, 
and a few similar spots over the molars; while all the parts 
of the teeth beneath the enamel are dull red, as if espe- 
cially colored. 
The jaw is considerably larger and stouter than any 
other known human mandible. The ascending rami are 
exceedingly broad, and the coronoid processes, thin and 
sharp in modern man, are thick, dull, broad, and markedly 
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