12. Heidelberg Man
Knowledge of Heidelberg man rests on a single piece of bone—a lower jaw found in 1907 by Schoetensack at a depth of nearly eighty feet in the Mauer sands not far from Heidelberg, Germany. Like the Pithecanthropus remains, the Heidelberg specimen lay in association with fossils of extinct mammals, a fact which makes possible its dating. It probably belongs to the second interglacial period, so that its antiquity is only about half as great as that of Pithecanthropus ([Fig. 5]).
The jaw is larger and heavier than any modern human jaw. The ramus, or upright part toward the socket, is enormously broad, as in the anthropoid apes. The chin is completely lacking; but this area does not recede so much as in the apes. Heidelberg man’s mouth region must have projected considerably more than that of modern man, but much less than that of a gorilla or a chimpanzee. The contour of the jaw as seen from above is human (oval), not simian (narrow and oblong).
The teeth, although large, are essentially human. They are set close together, with their tops flush, as in man; the canines lack the tusk-like character which they retain in the apes.
Since the skull and the limb bones of this form are wholly unknown, it is somewhat difficult to picture the type as it appeared in life. But the jaw being as manlike as it is apelike, and the teeth distinctly human, the Heidelberg type is to be regarded as very much nearer to modern man than to the ape, or as farther along the line of evolutionary development than Pithecanthropus; as might be expected from its greater recency. This relationship is expressed by the name, Homo Heidelbergensis, which recognizes the type as belonging to the genus man.