﻿Vol. 66.'] ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. lxv 



However this may be, the important fact remains that the 

 Mousterian men, so far as we have any knowledge of them, seem to 

 have been endowed with a larger brain than is common among 

 existing races, whether savage or civilized. On the other hand, 

 they were obviously more brutal than existing men in all the 

 other ascertainable characters by which they differ from them ; 

 the great frontal torus, and the occipital torus as well, the 

 retreating forehead, and the massive chinless lower jaw are some 

 of the more striking of the numerous simian characters which 

 they display. 



Thus, as we proceed backwards in time Alan departs farther from 

 the ape in the size of his brain, but approaches nearer to the ape in 

 the characters of his bodily framework. This must be regarded as 

 a highly significant fact. 



The Mousterian skeletons are not perhaps quite the earliest 

 remains of Palaeolithic Man; indeed the lower jaw discovered 

 last year at Mauer, not far from Heidelberg, is unquestionably 

 older. It has been well described by Dr. 0. Schoetensack. 1 The 

 dentition is thoroughly human. The incisors and canines have 

 been worn down to a uniform level, so that the dentine is exposed 

 Avithin a ring of enamel. The premolars and molars, which rise 

 to nearly the same level as the front teeth, display scarcely any 

 signs of wear. In the apes the third molar is cut before the per- 

 manent canine, or at latest simultaneously with it : hence, as 

 Dr. F. Siffe 2 points out, if the jaw had belonged to au ape the 

 third molar should have been as much worn as the canine ; the 

 fact that it is not furnishes, therefore, additional evidence of the 

 human character of the dentition. 



The canine, so far as can be judged from its worn condition, does 

 not appear to have projected to an appreciable extent beyond the 

 general level. Far more simian characters are to be observed in the 

 dentition of existing wild races than in that of this Heidelberg 

 jaw. 



If the characters of the dentition are purely human, the same 

 cannot be said of the jaw itself, which offers a startling contrast. 

 Dr. Schoetensack scarcely exaggerates when he remarks that, if the 

 jaw had been found without the teeth it might have been assigned, 

 by some anatomists at least, to an ape. Its massive body and 



i • Der Unterkiefer des Homo heidelbergensis aus den Sanden von Mauer bai 

 Heidelberg ' Leipzig, 1908. Pp. iv & 07 ; 13 plates. 

 2 Bull. Soc. Anthrop. 1909, p. 89. 



