434 ANNUAL REPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 192 8 



concluded that the race which the fossils represented was human, but 

 that it differed more widely from modern man than any race here- 

 tofore discovered and that it definitely marked the way by which 

 the line of human ancestry runs back to early anthropoid apes. On 

 page 139 he writes : 



Our knowledge of the principles of palaeontology compels us to suppose that 

 the full-grown skull in the ancestral mid-Tertiary apes was of the immature 

 rounded shape just mentioned, although we have not yet been fortunate 

 enough to discover an example, and during the lapse of upper Tertiary time the 

 skull type in the whole race of apes has gradually undergone changes which 

 are more or less exactly recapitulated in the life history of each individual 

 recent ape. Hence it seems reasonable to interpret the Piltdown skull as exhib- 

 iting a closer resemblance to the skulls of the truly ancestral mid-Tertiary apes 

 than any fossil human skull hitherto found. 



This announcement gave rise to a contest of opinion which is 

 probably unequaled in the history of paleontology. More than 75 

 writers have taken part in it, and one of them ^ has not hesitated to 

 declare that " tlie Piltdown jaw is the most startling and significant 

 fossil bone that has ever been brought to light . . . because this jaw 

 and the incomplete skull found with it really and in simple fact 

 furnish a link — a form intermediate between the man and the ape." 

 This may be an extreme view but it indicates something of the enthu- 

 siasm which has prevailed and which has brought about the result thus 

 described by Prof. H. F. Osborn in 1921.* " Over a few fragments 

 of bone, three teeth, and a portion of the jaw, the wise anatomists 

 of Great Britain, of western Europe, and of the North American 

 continent have expressed opinions of every variety." In reviewing 

 these opinions I shall begin with a summary which I published in 

 1918: 



First phase (1913) : The mandible was admitted to be almost precisely that 

 of an ape, with nothing human except the molar teeth, which, however, ap- 

 proached the -ape pattern in their well-developed fifth cusp and elongated shape. 

 It was neverthless regarded as having formed part of the same individual as 

 the skull. The animal to which this skull and mandible were supposed to 

 have belonged received the generic name Eoanthropus. To the objection that 

 such intimate association of the jaw and skull might not be justified, the reply 

 was made that it could only be said that its [the mandible's] molar teeth 

 were typically human, its muscle markings " such as might be expected," 

 and that it was found in the gravel near the skull. Further arguments in 

 favor of this association were based on the circumstance that such a com- 

 bination of characters in one individual would accord with previously ex- 

 pressed opinions about the probable history of the skull in man. (Woodward, 

 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. London, vol. 69. p. 135, April 25, 1913; Waterston, Quart. 

 Journ., Geol. Soc. London, vol. 69, p. 150, April 25, 1913 ; Woodward, Brit. Med. 

 Journ., vol. 2 for 1913, p. 762, September 20, 1913 ; Smith, Nature, vol. 9^ p. 

 131, October 2, 1913; Waterston, Nature, vol. 92, p. 319, November 13, 1913; 

 Keith, The Antiquity of Man, p. 459, 1915.) 



' Sir E. Ray Lankester, Diversions of a Naturalist, p. 284, 1915. 

 * Natural History, vol. 21 (1921), p. 577, February, 1922. 



