88 



READINGS IN EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 



vision were well developed there was a limited faculty for profiting 

 by experience and accumulated tradition. The femur associated with 



the skull is remarkable for its 

 length and sHght curvature as 

 compared with the primitive 

 Neanderthal race of Europe 

 and indicates a creature fully 

 as erect and nearly as tall as the 

 average European of today, 

 the height being estimated at 5 

 feet 7 inches as compared with 

 5 feet 3 inches for the Nean- 

 derthals and 5 feet 8 inches, 

 the average height of modem 

 males. The erect posture of 

 course implies the liberation 

 of the hands from any part in 

 the locomotor function. The 

 teeth are somewhat ape-like, 

 but are more human than are 

 those of the gibbon, and the 

 human mode of mastication 

 has been acquired. Certain 

 authorities have tried to prove 

 that Pithecanthropus is nothing 

 but a large gibbon, but the 

 weight of authority considers 

 it prehuman, though not in 

 the line of direct development 

 into humanity. It is neverthe- 

 less a highly important transi- 

 tional form. 



Associated with the Pithe- 

 canihropus remains are those 

 of a number of the contem- 

 porary animals which fix the 

 Fig. 7.— Jaws, left outer aspect, of A, date as either of the Upper Plio- 

 chiinpanzee,Pa«,sp.; B, fossil chimpanzee, cgne or lowermost Pleistocene 

 Pan veins, found in association with Pilt- j^j, which being rendered 



down man; C, Hcidclbertr man, Homo . . 



, . , ,, • ^ J TT J.- m terms of years gives an esti- 



hetddbergensis; D, modern ma.n,H. sapiens. j b 



(From Lull, afier Woodward.) mated age of about 500,000! 



