CHAPTER XXVI 
EVIDENCE OF THE TEETH OF FOSSIL MAN 
It will be remembered that Dr Smith Woodward came 
to the conclusion, on perfectly legitimate grounds, that 
Eoanthropus had been provided with front teeth, not 
of the human, but of the anthropoid pattern. When 
the mandible was reconstructed the space for the front 
teeth was found to be so great that only teeth of the 
anthropoid type were sufficient to fill it. The conforma- 
tion of the mandible, especially in its front part, was 
essentially the same as in anthropoid apes ; it was there- 
fore a natural inference that the teeth, especially the 
canines, were pointed and prominent and used as in apes. 
I came to an opposite conclusion — on the grounds 
enumerated in the last chapter. The joint for the 
mandible on the skull is similar in all respects to the 
joint of men of the modern type ; I could not see that 
such a joint was compatible with prominent canines. 
The molar teeth were worn flat and smooth exactly as 
in primitive modern races. The temporal muscles of 
mastication were not larger than in modern man. The 
front space of the reconstructed mandible could be filled 
by teeth which were modern in form but of large 
dimensions. There can also be no doubt that the size 
of brain influenced me ; I did not expect to find a brain 
which was so eminently human combined with a tooth 
which was so distinctively simian. 
It is instructive to reproduce the reconstructions of the 
Piltdown teeth and mandible which were made before the 
canine tooth was actually found (fig. i68). On these early 
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