The famous Heidelberg Man’s lower jaw–all that’s left of him
I entertained myself this morning with the chapter on “Heidelberg Man” in Roy Chapman Andrews’ Meet Your Ancestors. Written in 1945, when “Piltdown Man” was still a going concern at least among British scientists, Andrews hailed Homo heidelbergensis as a solidly bona fide human ancestor. An awful lot of water has flowed under the scientific bridge since then. Please don’t ask me to sort it out for you. Anyway, Heidelberg Man still has his spot in the lineup. For a long time that single jawbone was all they had to go on. Since then many specimens have been discovered, which may or may not belong to his species. It’s quite confusing.
But what got to me was the fact that they’re still calling him “Heidelberg Man,” thus posing a knotty problem for German newspaper headline writers.
I mean, what are we to make of a headline like this: “Heidelberg Man Charged With Reckless Driving”? Or “Heidelberg Man Receives Honorary Ph. D.”? As a former headline writer myself, I can tell you that such headlines crop up all the time.
(Well of course he’s going to screw up on the Autobahn! Where would he go for Driver Ed, three-quarters of a million years ago?)
If you don’t like the Settled Science of our time, wait a bit and it will change.