Research Items
1924; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 113; Issue: 2827 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1038/113025a0
ISSN1476-4687
ResumoANCIENT MAN IN NORTH AMERICA.—In the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History (December 4t 1923) Dr. William K. Gregory and Mr. Milo Hellman analyse in still greater detail the two molar teeth attributed by Prof. H. F. Osborn to “a new and independent type of Primate “Hesperopithecus which existed in North America during Pliocene times. They find that the “type “tooth is, as has been maintained, a second upper molar of the right side, but do not definitely reject the suggestion of Dr. Gerrit Miller, that it may prove to be a third molar. While Dr. Gregory sees in these recently found fossil teeth a resemblance to the molar type of the gorilla and chimpanzee, his partner leans towards their human resemblances. With only drawings to guide him, Dr. Smith Woodward (NATURE, June 10, 1922, p. 750) was disposed to regard the type tooth not as that of a primate but of a carnivore-possibly Hyænarctos- and he considered that the tooth had the characters of a lower rather than an upper molar. In their present paper the authors state that the tooth of Hesperopithecus differs profoundly from that of carnivores and that it has fundamental points of agreement with those of the ape-man group of the primates. They cite altogether ten opinions, all of them different, which experts have passed as to the nature of the two teeth ascribed to the enigmatical Hesperopithecus. Prof. Osborn was right when he wrote in NATURE (August 26, 1922, p. 283) “we must seek more material before we can determine its relationships”; and in truth the same may be said of the teeth.
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