WHOLE VOL. SKELETAL REMAINS OF EARLY MAN HRDLICKA 6/ 



It was not until some years later, in the autumn of IQII, on a visit to the 

 spot, that I picked up, among the rain-washed spoil heaps of the gravel pit, 

 another and larger piece belonging to the frontal region of the same skull, 

 including a portion of the left superciliary ridge 



I took the bones to Dr. A. Smith Woodward at the British Museum (Natural 

 History) for comparison and determination. He was immediately impressed 

 with the importance of the discovery, and we decided to employ labor, and to 

 make a systematic search among the spoil heaps and gravel as soon as the 

 floods had abated, for the gravel pit is more or less under wat«r during five 

 or six months of the year. We accordingly gave up as much time as we could 

 spare since last spring (1912) and completely turned over and sifted what 

 spoil material remained ; we also dug up and sifted such portions of the gravel 

 as had been left undisturbed by the workmen 



At Piltdown the gravel bed occurs beneath a few inches of the surface soil 

 and varies in thickness from 3 to 5 feet 



Portions of the bed are rather finely stratified, and the materials are usually 

 cemented together by iron oxide, so that a pick is often needed to dislodge 

 portions — more especially at one particular horizon near the base. It is in 

 this last mentioned stratum that all the fossil bones and teeth discovered in 

 situ by us have occurred. The stratum is easily distinguished in the appended 

 photograph (pi. S) by being of the darkest shade and just above the bedrock. 



The gravel is situated on a well-defined plateau of large area .... and 

 lies about 80 feet above the level of the main stream of the Ouse. 



Since the deposition of the gravel, the river has cut through the 

 plateau, both with its main stream and its principal branch, to this 

 extent. 



Considering the amount of material excavated and sifted by us, the specimens 

 discovered were numerically small and localized. 



Apparently the whole or greater portion of the human skull had been shat- 

 tered by the workmen, who had thrown away the pieces unnoticed. Of these 

 we recovered from the spoil heaps as many fragments as possible. In a some- 

 what deeper depression of the undisturbed gravel I found the right half of a 

 human mandible. So far as I could judge, guiding myself by the position of 

 a tree 3 or 4 yards away, the spot was identical with that upon which the 

 men were at work when the first portion of the cranium was found several 

 years ago. Dr. Woodward also dug up a small portion of the occipital bone 

 of the skull from within a yard of the point where the jaw was discovered and 

 at precisely the same level. The jaw appeared to have been broken at the 

 symphysis and abraded, perhaps when it lay fixed in the gravel and before 

 its complete deposition. The fragments of cranium show little or no sign of 

 rolling or other abrasion, save an incision at the back of the parietal, probably 

 caused by a workman's pick. 



A small fragment of the skull has been weighed and tested by Mr. S. A. 

 Woodhead, M. Sc, F. I. C, public analyst for East Sussex and Hove, and 

 agricultural analyst for East Sussex. He reports that the specific gravity of 

 the bone (powdered) is 2.1 15 (water at 5° C. as standard). No gelatine or 

 organic matter is present. There is a large proportion of phosphates (originally 

 present in the bone) and a considerable proportion of iron. Silica is absent. 



