414 



NATURE 



[Mav 25, 191 1 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 

 [The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions 

 expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications.] 



Discovery of the Teeth of Palaeolithic Man in Jersey. 



Ar the close of last year Messrs. E. T. Nicolle and 

 J. Sincl leported {,Man, Uecember, 1910, p. 185) some of 

 the results of an exploration of a I'alaK>Iithic cave-dwell- 

 ing situated in the cliffs of St. Brelade's Bay, on the 

 south coast of Jersey. Amongst the mammalian bones 

 found on the floor of the cave, Dr. A. Smith Woodward 

 and Dr. C. Andrews recognised remains of the woolly 

 rhinoceros, the reindeer, and two varieties of horse. 

 Abundant evidence of former hearths and numerous flint 

 implements were found with the bones. Nine human teeth 

 were also found, and it is to the nature of these I wish 

 now to direct attention. The exploration of the cave was 

 continued by Mr. R. R. Marett, reader in social anthro- 

 pology, Oxford University, who is now preparing for 

 publication a full account of the various " finds " made 

 in the Jersey caves. By his courtesy I was given an 

 opportunity of examining the human teeth, which are to 

 be fully described by Mr. Francis H. J. Knowles. Three 

 of the teeth, all of which are fossilised, but in an excel- 

 lent state of preservation, belong to the upper jaw — a 

 second left premolar, a first right and a second left molar ; 

 the six teeth from the lower jaw are a canine, first and 

 second premolar and second molar of the left side, a 

 second incisor and second molar of the right side. It is 

 thus possible to reconstruct the dentition of this individual 

 — for clearly all are from the same set — with a fair degree 

 of accuracy. The recognition of each member of the series 

 was made easy by their close resemblance to the teeth of 

 the Heidelberg mandible, usually regarded as the oldest 

 example of Pleistocene man yet discovered in Europe. 

 The teeth of the Gibraltar cranium, which is probably a 

 very primitive and early example of the Neanderthal type, 

 were also of assistance. In many features the teeth of 

 the Krapina men are recalled. There can be no doubt 

 that the St. Brelade individual to whom these teeth 

 belonged must be ranked as one of the most, if not the 

 most, primitive of the examples of the Neanderthal tvpe 

 yet discovered. 



When the Heidelberg mandible was found in 1907 

 embedded in the Mauer sand beds, at a depth of nearly 

 90 feet, anthropologists were surprised by the fact that 

 while the crowns of the teeth did not greatly exceed 

 modern dimensions, the mandible itself was so massive as 

 to recall the form found in the orang and gorilla. The 

 important fact brought home to us bv the Heidelberg dis- 

 covery was that the outstanding feature of the teeth of 

 Pleistocene man, as compared with those of modern man. 

 are the size and character of the roots of the teeth, not 

 the size or character of their crowns. The stout roots 

 and massive mandible indicated the roughness and tough- 

 ness of the food, and the huge muscular strength exerted 

 in mastication. Now, as regards the characters of thp 

 roots, these now found in the cave of St. Brelade exceed 

 all human teeth previously discovered. Although the 

 crowns of the teeth are smaller than those of the Heidel- 

 berg mandible, the roots are in most cases absolutelv, and 

 in other cases relatively, greater in their diameters, and 

 tndicatmg a smaller but still more powerful mandible in 

 the St. Brelade individual. 



The characters of the roots of the St. Brelade teeth 

 may be seen from the adjoining figure. Two of the teeth 

 are represented. A, the left lower canine from its 

 proximal or mesial aspect, and B, the second lower molar, 

 also from the same point of view. Typical specimens of 

 the same teeth in a modern European are shown in A' 

 and B. The difference in thickness is striking; the length 

 of the roots is nearly the same. So specialised are the 

 tooth roots in Neanderthal man that Klaatsch and .\dlofr 

 exclude this race from the ancestry of modern man. In 

 the specimens figured of the second lower molars, both 

 NO. 2169, VOL. 86] 



St. Brelade and modern, the two roots are fused, but the 

 process of fusion i» absolutely different in the two lf> 

 the Brelade specimen the root* have become to ! 

 trophied and strengthened that they have come tog 

 as a result of overgrowth ; in the modern molar the ruotk 

 have dwindled and atro()hied and become approximated 

 by a process of retrogression. In the anthropoids, a>> in 

 well-developed molars of modern man, the roots are \v<ll 

 developed, separate, and spread. The roots of •*'•• ' ■ 

 molars of modern man thus resemble those of t 

 poid, whereas the typical molars of the Neand' ; 

 appear to differ absolutely from the anthropoid type. At 

 first sight it appears as if Klaatsch and Adloff must be right 

 in tracing the root-forms in the molar teeth of mcxl'-rn 

 man to a primate ancestor, and in excluding the highly 

 specialised roots of Neanderthal man from the ancestry of 

 the molars of modern man. In this I think they are 

 wrong, for were retrogression to overtake the masticatory 

 development of the Neanderthal .type of man, then the 

 apparent fusion of the roots would* vanish, and they would 

 again appear as separate structures as in the well-developed 

 molars of modern man. This stage of retrogression can 

 be seen in the teeth of the men of Spy. When we speak 

 of the Neanderthal race we must remember that it prob- 

 ably endured throughout the Pleistocene period, one cover- 

 ing several hundred thousand years, and that we must 

 expect to find many forms. The Spy men appear to belong 

 to the latter part of the period ; the Heidelberg and Brelade 

 men to the earlier. 



The teeth of Pleistocene man are highly specialised as 

 regards their roots, a character in which they altogether de- 

 part from the anthropoid form. The r' '^ •" -^■^' * •'"> 



is best explained by the supposition that the human method 

 of mastication had been evolved from the anthropoid long 

 before the end of the Pliocene period. The peculiarity of 

 the human method of mastication is the side to side or 

 grinding movement of the lower jaw ; in the anthropoid the 

 movement is a crushing or cutting movement. The great 

 canine teeth are implanted as maxillary guides to pr''V"!i: 

 any side to side action and ensure that the mandible will :,>: 

 slip or " skid " when the powerful muscles of mastication 

 are at work. The human method of mastication was only 

 possible when the canine teeth began to sink, as in the 

 female chimpanzee, almost to the level of the other teeth. 

 That the human canines were once anthropoid in form 

 there can be no doubt ; their embryological history leaves 

 room for no other opinion on this point. When, however, 

 the side to side movement in mastication was evolved, th<» 

 implantation of the teeth had to be strengthened to meet the 

 side to side strain. It is that stage which is preserved for 

 us in Pleistocene man. It is very remarkable that in modern 

 times the side to side movement has disappeared in highly 

 civilised races, and the former cutting bite, ensured by the 

 lower incisors passing up behind the upper, has appeared. 

 With the improvement in food in more modern times, the 

 usual primate form of tooth roots reappeared. In the St. 

 Brelade dentition the first lower premolar is highly special- 

 ised, as is the case in the anthropoid ; its specialisaticm 

 originally depended on the fact that it had to ser\e as the 

 opponent of the massive upper canine. The discovery, 

 made under the auspices of the Soci6t^ Jerviaise. thus not 

 only serves to show the extension of the Neanderthal t\-pe 

 to the Channel Islands, but supplies most important facts 

 bearing on the evolution of man. A. Keith. 



