The Piltdown skull (Eoanthropus dawsoni) / by Charles Dawson.

  • Charles Dawson
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Piltdown skull (Eoanthropus dawsoni) / by Charles Dawson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ‘ ID b22441] — 184 — equivalent to the smaller human brains of the present day, but the result does not alter essentially any of the conclusions already reached, based on the study of the primitive characters in the brain-cast. The new restoration is now exhibited in the British Museum (Natural History) at South Kensington with othei discoveries from Piltdown, but it is indistinguishable from the original restoration except by experts. The point as to whether Eoanthropus was capable^ of articulate speech lias been made the subject of discussion. 1 he general characters of the jaw are associated with Primates supposed to be incapable of articulate speech ; but as the jaw of Eoanthropus was much wider and more capacious than that of any known ape the majority of anatomists consider that this being was at all events capable of simple articulation, though perhaps to a less extent than the South African Bushmen who retain some exceedingly primitive characters in the conformation of their lower jaws. One more worked-flint flake similar to those already discovered of an Early Drift type, was found in the debris and another in situ in the dark Eoanthropus bed. These worked-flints are readily distinguished from the other flints in the bed, which are mostly of “ prismatic flint,” and contain many “Eolithic” implement- like forms. The discovery by us of a recent mud-bed about a foot thick, beneath the Eoanthropus bed, made from the Tunbridge Wells Sand immediately below it, led to the remarkable discovery of a large bone implement fashioned from a portion of a thigh bone of one of the early Pleistocene or late Pliocene elephants such as Elephas meridionalis, and larger than the Mammoth. It was rudely pointed at one end, and roughly trimmed at the other to a rounded form, as if for the hand. It is the earliest bone implement yet discovered and may have been the work of Eoanthropus. It was broken into many pieces by our excavator but a small fragment was noticed by Dr. Smith Woodward, which led to the recovery of the whole implement, now pieced together. No one has doubted that the old cuts upon it are artificial. For those who wish to read a popular detailed statement (with illustrations) regarding the discoveries at Piltdown, I recommend them to purchase for font-pence, the new Guide to the Fossil Remains of Man, in the British Museum, written by Dr. Arthur Smith Woodward, F.R.S., and printed by order of the Trustees of the Museum. For a full scientific account the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society first above mentioned must be consulted.