Page:The World's Most Famous Court Trial - 1925.djvu/241

Rh very broad, as in the anthropoids. This jaw is so narrow behind that it is thought the tongue could not have sufficient play to allow of articulate speech. The teeth, although very large, are essentially human with even tops, as in man, while the canines lacked the tusk-like character which they still retain in the apes. This jaw was found in the year 1907 in a sand pit working near Heidelberg, Germany. It was discovered in place at a depth of nearly eighty feet and lay in association with fossil remains of extinct animals which make possible its dating in geologic time. It is difficult to picture a man from the jaw alone, but this much we can say the mouth must have projected more than in modern man, but less than in the chimpanzee or gorilla. He had a heavy protruding face, high muscles of mastication, essentially human teeth, and he was already far removed from his primatic ancestors with large canines. He was nearer to man than to the apes; he was further along the line of evolutionary development than Pithecanthropus erectus, the Java ape-man, and he lived at a much later period. This being is known as the Heidelberg man.

The second of these two finds which we have mentioned occurred near Pitdown in Sussex, England. This consisted of the crushed skull of a woman and a jaw which can scarcely be distinguished from that of a chimpanzee. For a time there was much question if the two could possibly belong together, but a more recent find, which occurred about three miles distant from the first, again showed portions of the same type of skull and jaw. The skull is exceedingly thick and its capacity much less than that of modern man, but it is distinctly human, while, as indicated, the jaw approaches that of an anthropoid. Here again we seem to have an approach toward man in very ancient strata.

Toward the end of the second interglacial period in Europe at least 225,000 years ago we begin to find stone implements which give indication of haying been intentionally formed and used by intelligent beings. By the third interglacial period, more than 150,000 years ago these utensils have taken on definite form and we find thousands of stone axes of crude type scattered over a large portion of central and southern Europe. We have no fossil remains of man during this third interglacial period, for he then lived in the open and it would only be by the merest chance that his skeletons might be preserved to us. But when the fourth glacial epoch spread over Europe these men were compelled to make their homes in the shelters and caves of the rocks, and here in the debris around their ancient hearths we can read the record of their home life, and from this period on for a period of at least 50,000 years, we can read the record of man’s occupancy of Europe as clearly as though we were reading from the pages of a book. Fortunately for the scientists, these people buried their dead and we have preserved for us a considerable number, ranging from children to adult men and women, so there is no guessing as to the sort of man who occupied Europe at this time.

They were massively built, with long arms and short legs, in height they averaged about five feet three for the men, and four feet two, for the women, or about the same as the modern Japanese. The head was long and narrow, above the eyes was a heavy bony ridge, back of which the forehead retreated abruptly, indicating rather little development of the fore brain. The nose was low and broad, the upper lip projecting, but the jaw was weak and retreating. The head hung forward on a massive chest, this we know because the foramen magnum, the opening by which the spinal cord enters the cranium, was situated further back than is the case in modern man, and the points of articulation with the bones of the neck also show conclusively that the head hung habitually forward. In all cases we find the thigh bone to be curved and this, together with the points of articulation, show that the knee was