Page:Antiquity of Man as Deduced from the Discovery of a Human Skeleton.djvu/13

Rh With the parts of the cranium was rescued the lower jaw, represented by the left ramus and the portion of the right ramus coalescing at the symphysis (Plates II. & III. fig. 2). This bone indicates, by the loss of masticating teeth, that the individual to whom it belonged had attained old age. Not only were the molars wanting, but their sockets had been absorbed and the tract of jaw which they had occupied was reduced to the diminished vertical diameter characteristic of the close of active life. More or less of the sockets of the two premolars, the canine, and the two incisors of the left ramus remained, indicative of such teeth not having been shed.

It exemplifies the pains taken to discover whatever parts of the skeleton had been dispersed in the excavation of their bed, that three teeth were found fitting the sockets at the fore part of the mandible (ib. i, c, p).

One of these teeth was an incisor, the second a canine, the third a premolar. Each tooth showed the extra work in mastication to which it had been put after the loss, during life, of the true grinders.

Of the incisor, i, one third of the crown had been ground down flat and polished: in Plate III., i, is shown a circular cavity at the base of the enamel on one side of the tooth, which I attribute to commencing decay. The fang, or root of the tooth, contracts to an obtuse end, which is closed.

The canine, c, shows a greater proportion of the crown worn down to a polished, slightly concave, flattened surface (c, Plate II .); the fang is similarly terminated and closed