Abstract
Sinanthropus Pekinensis: Further Discoveries.—Further investigations by the Geological Survey of China at Chou Kou Tien during the season of 1928 have brought to light more Sinanthropus material from the site on which the type form molar tooth was previously discovered. The new material is described in general terms by Dr. Davidson Black in Science for June 28. It consists of the greater part of the right horizontal ramus of an adult lower jaw with the molar teeth in situ and having the premolar canine and distal half of the lateral incisor sockets preserved. Further, there are a worn right upper molar with evidence of injury during life, the labial side of the crown and portion of the root of a permanent median incisor, an immature lower median incisor and the root of a worn lower permanent median incisor posthumously crushed and deformed. All the specimens are deeply pigmented and mineralised. Though not found in the same deposit as the earlier material, there can be no doubt as to their contemporaneity and their geological age—Lower Quaternary (Polycene). The greater part of this material has still to be prepared and studied in the laboratory, but enough is now available to make it possible to draw certain conclusions. It is evident that Sinanthropus, like Foanthropus, was a large brained form though the calvaria is not unduly thick. The morphology of the jaw of the two specimens presents features of unusual interest. The general archite ture of the symphysis region makes it evident that the very generalised hominid dentition is supported with a framework of a type hitherto encountered only among forms having relatively formidable canines. The architecture of the jaw is much less hominid than that of the teeth; it supports and represents a type which, until the discovery of Eoanthropus, had been supposed to be associated only with an anthropoid type of dentition. It is clear, therefore, that distinctive hominid teeth were evolved before the supporting jaw lost its anthropoid form.
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Research Items. Nature 124, 245–247 (1929). https://doi.org/10.1038/124245a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/124245a0