432 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 192 8 



(c) The creature was human without definitely simian character- 

 istics (Houze, Martin, Petit). Diagram 1, page 426, 



(d) The creature had a structure which removes it from a position 

 of direct human ancestry (Boule). 



(e) The creature was essentially a gigantic gibbon or gibbonlike 

 ape (Boule, Kollman, Volz). Diagram 4, page 426. 



(14) 



The assumption that the animal was a gigantic gibbon or gibbon- 

 like ape involves insuperable difficulties (Dubois). 



The assumption that the animal was a gigantic gibbon or gibbon- 

 like ape involves no insuperable difficulties. It is, moreover, sup- 

 ported by the fact that gigantic forms are known to have existed 

 in many groups of mammals during the Pleistocene and late Plio- 

 cene and by the circumstance that bones of a gigantic pangolin were 

 found in the same Trinil deposits (Boule, Branco). 



The assumption that the animal is a gigantic gibbon can only be 

 made by persons ignorant of the principles of systematic zoology 

 (Schlosser). 



(15) 



The large size of the remains counts against their having per- 

 tained to a creature ancestral to man (Kollman). 



The large size of the remains does not count against their having 

 pertained to a creature ancestral to man (all writers who regard 

 Pithecanthropus as a transition form). 



THE PILTDOWN DAWN MAN 



(Eoanthropus dawsoni Smith Woodward) 



The original " find " consisted of four pieces (reconstructed from 

 nine fragments) of a cranium and an imperfect lower jaw bearing 

 two molar teeth. Afterward a pair of nasal bones and a canine 

 tooth were found and described, while still later two more frag- 

 ments of skull and a third molar tooth made their appearance. 

 The specimens (except the supplementary skulj. fragments) are 

 figured in Plate 5, and Plate 4, fig. 1. Mr. Charles Dawson, to whom 

 the first discovery was due, thus describes the circumstances : 



Several years ago I was walking along a faiin road close to Piltdown Com- 

 mon, Fletching (Sussex), when I noticed that the road had lieen mended with 

 some peculiar brown flints not usual in the district. On inquiry I was aston- 

 ished to learn that they were dug from a gravel bed on the farm, and shortly 

 afterwards! I visited the place, where two laborers were at work digging the 

 gravel for small repairs to the roads. As this excavation was situated about 

 4 miles north of the limit where the occuiTence of flints overlying the Wealden 

 strata is recorded, I was much interested and made a close examination of 

 the bed. I asked the workmen if they had found bones or other fossils there. 

 As they did not appear to have noticed anything of tlie sort, I urged them to 



