Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-11-19
CURATOR DOUBTS
BONES FOUND SHOW
MAN KIN TO APES
Continued From First Page1

fossil remains of mammals long ago
extinct, since there is no living animal
known which possesses the required
peculiarities. Investigators know this
and they have long been diligently
searching in rocks and caves, in gravel
pits and stream beds. AS a result OF
70 years of effort these tireleSs workers
have made exactly two finds which
are of such a nature that they can be
seriously regarded as furnishing the
looked-for evidence off mans blood
relationship with animals resembling
in some general manner the preSent-day
gorilla and chimpanzee. These are the
| Java ape man (PithecanthropuS
erectus) and the PiltdoWn dawn man.
The former was discovered in 1922
near Trinil, Central Java, and the latter
about 20 years afterward in Piltdown,
Sussex, England"
Agree Skull Cap Different.
The Java ape-man find, Miller says,
consisted of skull cap, q femur bone
and two lower molar teeth. All au-
!, thorities agree, he points out, that the
skull cap is strangely different from
that of all other known mammals, both
recent and fossil, but beyond this there
has been no agreement, so the public
assumption that the relationship be-
tween Pithecanthropus erectuS and man
has been established is not well founded.
1t is not agreed, he says, whether
the bones were found in deposits of the
tertiary geological age, which would
make them old enough to be those of
creature ancestral to man, or to the
quaternary age, which would make
them too recent, with the greatest num-
Der of authorities favoring the latter
conclusion. He cites equally distin-
guished scientific authorities as hold
ing that the. bones came from one
animal and from two or more animals !;
that the femur is that of an ordinary
man, a peculiar man, and a gibbon;
that the femur could and could not
have belonged to the same individual
as the strange skull cap; and that the
creature was definitely human. definite
ly gibbon-like ape, and a transition
! form. ,
No ltss than 10 scientists, he points
| out, have presented different opinions
on the skull cap alone-that it is pre-
| dominantly human, that of a micro
| Cephalous idiot, that of Neander-
thai man, of an intermediate type be-
| tween Neanderthal man and the higher
apes, of an intermediate type between
of gibbon and that of a chimpanzee.
Scientists, he shows, have declared
| that the curious creature was an i'm
| beetle, an idiot, an animal with some
| possible power of speech, an animal
who probably spoke as man but with a
| Limited vocabulary, and one who had
actually learned to speak. Equally
wide differences in scientific opinion.
Miller points out exist regarding the
| origin of the teeth and the possibility
| of connecting them with the skull and
the femur.
Regarding the dawn man" found in
England, Miller points out that the
| find consisted of four pieces, recon-
! structed from nine fragments, OF
Uranium and an imperfect lower jaw
| bearing two molar teeth, while after
ward a pair of nasal bones and q
canine tooth were found. Still later
two more fragments of skull and
third molar tooth made their appear
| ance.
The announcement of this find, he
says, gave rise to a contest Of opin-
ion probably unequaled in the history
of paleontology" He quotes his own
earlier work as showing that some OF
the characters relied upon to prove the
jaw human are possessed in common
by men and apes and cannot be relied
upon to prove that the skull and jaw
belonged to one individual.
Lack Important Areas OF Contact.
Deliberate malice" he continued
could hardly have been more successful
than the hazards of deposition and re-
covery in so breaking down the Pitt
down fossils and losing the most essen
tial parts of the original skull as to al
low free scope to individual judgment
III fitting the pieces together. The foul
pieces of the original Uranium lack some
of the most important areas of contact
with each other. Hence 1t has beer
possible for each student to widen Of
narrow the intervening areas according
to his personal Interpretation of the
probabilities, and so to produce bra1r
cases of narrower or broader form anC
, of greater or less capacity.
According to the different recon
Structions the form of the Uranium ma!
, be completely human in striking con
trast to the ape-like jaw, or 1t ma!
have partially simian features, which
cause this contrast to become less. IT
height may vary more than an incl
, and the capacity of its brain cavit!
I may range from 1910 to $500 cubi'
centimeters."
, All agree, he says, that the fragment
of the brain case and the nasal bone
!. pertain to man, but he lists 20 point
e of disagreement among scientists as Il
: other features of the remains On
y says the Jaw is that Of man. anothe
q of a half-man, another of a chin
panzee, and stil another of an oran
v outan.
e THE intense scrutiny to which thes
n fragments have been subjected" Mile
insists "gepmS In have WrllnU froY