Page:Palæolithic Man and Terramara Settlements in Europe.djvu/174

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ANTHROPOLOGY

wards; and the "genial tubercles" on its inner surface are entirely awanting.

3. All the teeth are absent from this jaw, but as will be seen from their sockets the posterior molar or wisdom tooth was larger than the two molars anterior to it, a fact said to be the reverse of what is to be found in modern races. Further, the former shows the impression of five roots— a peculiarity which, according to Dr Hamy (Pal. Humaine, p. 234), is very rarely observed in modern man except amongst the lowest races. Also, the extremities of the alveolar arch come closer to each other than in the ordinary human jaw, a feature which gives the entire curve the appearance of a horse-shoe.

Specialists in comparative anatomy regard all these peculiarities as simian characteristics. Dr Broca informs us that, although they have all been observed more or less in other human jaws, they have never before been known to be all conjoined in the same specimen. Hence he concludes that the Naulette jaw, in its anatomical characters, approaches the simian type more than any hitherto known. "Nous serons autorisés à conclure," says he, "que cette mâchoire, dont 1'antiquité prodigieuse remonte au temps du Mammouth, est de tous les restes humains que l'on connait jusqu'ici, celui qui se rapproche le plus du type des singes." (C.A.P., 1867, p. 401.) With respect to the retreating slope of the chin, and the character of the teeth, he considers that the individual who owned the Naulette jaw held an intermediate place between man and the anthropoid apes ; and in support of this view he gives an outline sketch (Fig. 4) of a number of human jaws showing a regular upward gradation from the chimpanzee to a modern Parisian.

Trou du Frontal.

M. Dupont describes the Trou du Frontal as the burying-place of the reindeer-hunters inhabiting the Trou des Nutons, the latter being a large cavern situated about 200 metres lower down the valley. The former is a small recess at the end of a rock-shelter which had in front of it deposits containing relics of different ages. The cavity measured 2 metres in depth and 1 metre in height and breadth, and contained the remains of sixteen human skeletons, five being those of children. The bones were