In a conservative spirit, Schoetensack named the type represented by this jaw Homo heidelbergensis. Other authors have regarded it as of distinct generic rank; thus it has been termed Palæoanthropus heidelbergensis by Bonarelli.[(37)] The jaw itself is extremely massive; the canine teeth, unlike those of the anthropoid apes and of the Piltdown race, do not project beyond the line of the other teeth and were therefore not used as weapons of offense and defense as in the anthropoids, in which these teeth are prominently developed as tusks. As noted by Schoetensack, the teeth are not very massive in proportion to the jaw itself, which is the most powerful human jaw known, even exceeding the largest Eskimo jaw and indicating a skull of very massive and primitive character. It resembles that of the ape in the recession of the chin, hence it has been termed amentalis. There is a large development of the coronoid process of the mandible for the attachment of the temporal muscle. This jaw may well have been used as a tool in the last stages of the preparation of hides, as is the practice of the Eskimo races. We observe that the powerful bony branches of the jaw, when regarded from above, close in upon the space left for the tongue; in fact, the bone closes in to such an extent as to interfere seriously with the free use of the tongue in articulate speech.
Fig. 49. The jaws shown in Fig. 48 seen from above. A massive Eskimo jaw (above), the Heidelberg jaw (centre), the jaw of an orang (below).
It would seem that in the jaw, and probably in all other characters of the skull, as they become known, the Heidelberg race will be found to be a Neanderthal in the making, that is, a primitive, more powerful, and more ape-like ancestral form. In the matter of the retreating chin, the true Neanderthals of Spy, Malarnaud, Krapina, and La Chapelle rank exactly half-way between the most inferior races of recent man and the anthropoid apes.
Fig. 50. Restoration of the Man of Heidelberg by the Belgian artist Mascré, under the direction of Professor A. Rutot, of Brussels. This restoration presents an advance upon the Pithecanthropus type. In our opinion the Heidelberg man was more human and less ape-like in appearance.
Not only among the Eskimos, but generally throughout the savage races of Australia and of other countries, the jaws are used as tools; among the Australians the teeth are very much worn down but are in admirable preservation. When seen from above, we observe that the 'Heidelberg' grinding-teeth form a perfect arch, or horseshoe-shaped arrangement, whereas in all the apes the two lines of grinding-teeth are almost parallel with each other. Thus, while there may be wide differences of opinion as regards the relationships of the Heidelberg man, all agree that Schoetensack's discovery affords us one of the great missing links or types in the chain of human development.
The typical mammalian life of Second Interglacial times as found at Mosbach and Süssenborn belongs perhaps to a somewhat more recent stage of Second Interglacial times than that of the 'Mauer sands,' for in these localities the Etruscan rhinoceros is wanting and the more specialized broad-nosed rhinoceros is abundant; this animal differs from the Etruscan form in the possession of relatively long-crowned grinding-teeth, which were better adapted to grazing habits. On the head were borne two horns. A variety of the southern mammoth (E. trogontherii) is so highly characteristic of Second Interglacial times that Pohlig refers to this life period as the E. trogontherii stage. From the structure of its grinding-teeth it is regarded as similar in habit to the Asiatic elephant, which now inhabits the forests of India, but it has the peculiar concave forehead distinctive of the mammoth and quite unlike the convex forehead of the Indian elephant. The bears of this period belong to the primitive species U. deningeri and U. arvernensis, for so far there is no certain record of the presence of the true brown bear of Europe (U. arctos). The sabre-tooth tiger of this time is preserved in the caverns of the Pyrenees near Montmaurin, associated with the remains of the striped hyæna (H. striata), a species which was widely distributed over western Europe in early Pleistocene times. This species was contemporary with, and later replaced by, the spotted hyæna (H. crocuta), from which the very hardy cave-hyæna (H. crocuta spelæa) of the 'Reindeer Period,' descended. We observe that the 'polycladine' deer of Upper Pliocene and First Glacial times has disappeared from western Europe; nor are there any traces of the axis deer. The hippopotamus is still represented by the giant species, H. major.
Early Northern Migrations of the Reindeer
The animals that we have described belong in the warmer and more temperate regions of Europe. In the regions near the glaciers the reindeer was already to be found; in fact, this characteristically northern animal is recorded in the gravels of Süssenborn, near Weimar.