Fig. 25.—The Piltdown Jaw (shaded) and the Heidelberg Jaw (outline only) super-imposed and compared by placing the first and second molar teeth (1 and 2) of the two specimens in exact coincidence on the horizontal line A, B. The linear dimensions of the drawings are reduced to two-thirds of those of the specimens. It is obvious that when the front bony part of the Piltdown jaw is completed with an outline like that of the Heidelberg and Neander jaws, as shown by the dotted line m, the space between its molars and the sockets of its front teeth cannot be filled by teeth of the normal human dimensions, as it is in the Heidelberg jaw. As the figure shows, they would stop short half an inch from the front of the jaw. Hence Dr. Smith Woodward inferred that larger teeth like those of a chimpanzee were present in this region in the Piltdown jaw (Eoanthropus).
The astonishing thing about this half-jaw from Piltdown is that it is definitely and obviously more like that of a chimpanzee—especially a young chimpanzee—than it is like that of a man (see [Fig. 23, A, B, and C] and their explanation). If it had been found under other circumstances it might quite well have been described as the jaw of a simiid—a large ape allied to the chimpanzee—with some unimportant resemblance to a human one. The front part of the bony jaw of Piltdown, instead of forming a narrow ridge below the protruding bony chin as in man, is wide and flat; there is no protruding chin. This very important fact is shown in our Fig. 24, in which the lower margin of the lower jaw of modern man, of the chimpanzee and of the Piltdown specimen are compared. The jaw ended in front in a wall of bone sloping forward and upward continuously from the flat and broad lower surface of the jaw. In this the great incisor teeth were set, as in all Simiids. In man, on the contrary, the front group of teeth is much smaller than in the apes, and the semicircle formed by the line of the gums is much smaller than the semicircular lower margin of the jaw. The semicircle of teeth in man retreats (as it were) behind the front part of the bony jaw which is left projecting far in advance of the line of teeth, forming the "chin" or "chin protuberance." The Piltdown jaw when found had only two of the cheek-teeth in place, as shown in Fig. 25. They were certainly very human in pattern and in the smoothness of their worn surfaces. But it was found impossible to fill the front part of the bony jaw with the missing teeth if they also were fashioned according to human pattern. They would in that case only reach along the jaw to a distance of an inch and three-fifths from the first molar tooth, whereas to fill the space from that tooth up to the front end of the bone in which the teeth are socketed they must be big enough to occupy a length of two inches and two-fifths (consult Fig. 25 and its explanation). Dr. Smith Woodward did not hesitate, in view of the shape of the jaw so closely like that of a chimpanzee, to postulate the former existence in it of big front teeth—canines and incisors—like those of a chimpanzee, and unlike those of man, although there was no trace of them left in the specimen. He restored the jaw, giving it very much the shape and the teeth of a chimpanzee's jaw ([Fig. 23, B]). That this was a correct interpretation was proved a year later, in a startling, almost romantic way, by the discovery by Mr. Dawson and a young French naturalist who were resifting and searching the gravel at the exact spot where the jaw was found, of one of the great canine teeth, twice as big as that of any man and resembling that of a chimpanzee (see Fig. 26 and its explanation). There was a good deal of hesitation about the admission of the correctness of Dr. Smith Woodward's presentation of the jaw of Eoanthropus, with so close a resemblance to that of a chimpanzee. But the careful consideration of the specimen, and above all the welcome discovery of the great ape-like canine, has now convinced every anatomist of the truth of Dr. Woodward's restoration. The jaw itself and the recovered canine tooth, as well as the completely restored model of the two sides of the lower jaw and of the brain-case, may now be seen and studied by visitors to the Natural History Museum. They are placed in the Geological Gallery. I have visited with Mr. Dawson the gravel at Piltdown where the jaw and skull were found, and have picked up there humanly worked flints of very primitive workmanship. I have also followed with Dr. Smith Woodward the development and confirmation of his interpretation of the jaw.
Fig. 26.—The canine
tooth of the right side
of the lower jaw of
Eoanthropus Dawsoni,
found at Piltdown
a year after the
discovery and description
of the lower
jaw, to which it belongs.
Drawn of the
natural size. To the
left a back view, to
the right a side view,
showing the wearing
away of the surface
of the tooth.
Fig. 27.—Canine
tooth of the right
side of the lower
jaw of a European
child, milk dentition.
This "first"
tooth is drawn of
twice its actual
length and breadth,
which brings it very
nearly to the same
size as the canine of
Eoanthropus. It is
more closely similar
in shape to the
canine of the Piltdown
jaw than is
the canine of the
second or permanent
dentition of
modern man.
I now desire to insist upon the legitimate conclusion to be drawn from this wonderful specimen. That conclusion is that the creature, indicated by it, is not (or was not when it was alive) an eccentric cousin either of the Simiid or of the Hominid stock, but represents a real "missing link," an animal intermediate in great and obvious features between the two stocks, and either to be described as an ape which had become man-like or as a man who still retained characteristic ape-like features—a truly connecting or linking form. Nothing like it, nothing occupying such a position, has hitherto been discovered. It brings the focus of interest in the knowledge of primitive man away from the caves of France to the thin patch of iron-stained gravel in the meadow-land of the River Ouse as it flows through the Sussex weald. These remains are the first remains of a man-like creature found in a Pleistocene river gravel, and they exceed in interest any human remains as yet known. There is now reason to hope that more such remains will be discovered in similar gravels.[12]
[12] The human lower jaw found at Moulin-Quignon fifty years ago by workmen who brought it to M. Boucher de Perthes, was dismissed after much study and examination by the most competent anatomists at the time as being a comparatively recent specimen. I do not know whether it has been preserved. I have a flint implement found with it which was given to me in 1862 by M. de Perthes as genuine. It is a forgery, and the jaw was fraudulently buried with it and others in order to deceive M. de Perthes and earn a pecuniary reward for the forgers.
It would be highly important were we able to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion as to what age must be attributed to the Piltdown jaw and skull. Did we know their age their true significance as a link between man and ape would be more easily estimated. The gravel in which they were found contains a handful, as it were, of the sweepings of the land surface of the great Weald valley of Sussex of all ages and periods since the emergence of the chalk from the ocean floor—an immense lapse of time, amounting probably to millions of years! In this sparse and inconspicuous patch of gravel we find fragments of teeth of mastodon and elephant and rhinoceros of Miocene and Pliocene age; we also find bones of quite late kinds of mammals of the Pleistocene period; we also find two kinds of roughly chipped flint instruments belonging the one to an earlier and the other to a later age. All are mixed up together in the gravel. When we come to the question as to which of these remains are of animals which were the contemporaries of Eoanthropus, all we can say is that Eoanthropus, the creature whose jaw was found at Piltdown, may have lived as late as the latest or as early as the earliest of the animals whose remains are associated with it. The Eoanthropus remains are not so heavily mineralized, it seems to me, as are the fragments of teeth of Miocene age found with them. At the same time, we have no ground for assuming that this creature made either the earlier or the later type of flint implements found with it, or was capable of such manufacture. I see no reason for supposing, whatever may be the age which we may have to attribute to Eoanthropus, that that creature was capable of flaking flints to a desired shape or of making fire or had developed the use of articulate speech. Nor is there any evidence to show that the humanly cut elephant-bone recently found at Piltdown by Mr. Dawson was cut by Eoanthropus. It is more probable that this was done by a more highly developed creature of the genus Homo. In fact, the only ground which at present justifies the association of Eoanthropus with the Hominidæ or human series rather than with the Simiidæ or ape series—derived from a common ancestry—is the man-like rather than ape-like size of the brain, which we must attribute to Eoanthropus on the assumption, which is at present a reasonable one, that the half-jaw and the incomplete skull found near each other at Piltdown are parts of the same individual.[13]
[13] But see foot-note on p. 284.