The Adaptive Chin

Abstract

This little book, which seems to have escaped the notice of most if not all zoological bibliographical services deserves to be rescued from such oblivion. The book is co-authored by a dentist and an M. D., but both are primarily anatomists, and they have produced a small but fine evolutionary study on the functional anatomy of mammals. Man is an actor on their stage, true, but so are several other Primates, as well as representatives of the Lagomorpha, Carnivora, and Notoungulata. Skillfully, the authors have chosen evolutionary experiments, that have occurred or are occurring in nature, from which to garner their evidence. The human chin is really incidental in this study, although it has loomed large in some “scientific” racist literature, here thoroughly discredited. Primary consideration is the relation between semi-erect or fully erect posture and concomitant evolutionary changes in the head. Data of comparative anatomy and paleontology are used...