498 THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



or about four hundred cubic centimeters less than in the 

 lowest races of man, while the man-ape holds an inter- 

 mediate position, with a capacity of somewhere between 

 eight hundred and fifty and nine hundred cubic centi- 

 meters. The Java man-ape thus represents a stage 

 in human evolution where the body was held erect and 

 the hands were no longer used for locomotion; where 

 the teeth most closely resembled those in man, and speech 

 appears to have been feebly developed; while the size 

 of the brain indicates a degree of intelligence much above 

 that of the apes though inferior to man (Fig. 142). 



PiLTDOWN Man. — The discovery of the remains of 

 a very primitive type of human being in Piltdown, south 

 of London, was announced in 1913. Owing to the fact 

 that several important portions of the skull are missing, 

 its original form and the general appearance of the mem- 

 bers of the race are somewhat uncertain. It is evident, 

 however, that the brain case is typically human though 

 unusually thick, while the forehead is high and without 

 the great ridges above the eyes which characterize the 

 Java man-ape and the Neanderthal man. The lower 

 jaw, on the other hand, is most emphatically ape-like. 

 In fact it was at one time assumed by certain critics that 

 the jaw actually is that of an extinct chimpanzee. This 

 objection has been removed by the recent discovery of 

 a second skeleton with the same characteristic features. 



So far as scientists are able to judge, the Piltdown 

 man was of low stature, with a tremendous lower jaw 

 and retreating chin, but with a brain capacity at least 

 as great as that of the more primitive races of modem 

 man. The age at which he lived has been variously es- 

 timated from 100,000 to 250,000 years ago, and the fact 

 that he understood the use of fire and fashioned weapons 

 of the chase indicates that the human stock was clearly 

 defined at that remote period. 



Other Traces of Man's Antiquity. — That the 

 human stem is of great age is also evidenced by the 



