WHOLE VOL. SKELETAL REMAINS OF EARLY MAN HRDLICKA 89 



any noticeable disturbance of the gravel. No amount of trust and 

 benevolence can quite fill these defects of the evidence. 



The apparent truth is that the brain part of the first skull was 

 found nearly whole, as the reported " cocoanut " which the laborers 

 broke, and before removal the nasals and a turbinated (one of the 

 spongy bones of the nose) were still plainly with it. Yet neither the 

 skull fragments nor the easily damaged nasals or turbinal show in- 

 juries or wear from being rolled in the gravel. Neither are there any 

 gravel marks on the pieces of the second cranium. Here is an enigma 

 which needs, it would seem, some further discussion. 



The skulls do not conform morphologically to their apparent an- 

 tiquity and evolutionary grade. Were it not for their thickness — 

 which experience teaches is an individual, or abnormal, rather than 

 racial character — they could not on their own evidence be separated 

 from modern crania. 



The very primitive jaw, with its primitive teeth, does not conform 

 at all to the skulls. It and its teeth are true to its apparent geological 

 age and evolutionary grade, the skulls are not. Its fitting to the skull 

 in the reconstructions may, or may not, be correct. 



The similarity of mineralization of the different specimens has 

 seemingly not yet been fully determined. But even if it should be 

 found identical, as is probable, the evidence of it one way or the other 

 could not be conclusive. Mineralization, it hardly needs to be repeated, 

 is a geophysical and geochemical process that is not ever-progressive, 

 but has its shorter or longer time limits ; and two or more bones, 

 though introduced into given conditions at widely different times, 

 may nevertheless reach similar degrees of mineralization if the time 

 of inclusion in both cases has been sufBcient for the consummation 

 of the changes. This is one of the a, b, c's of natural processes, yet 

 one that very often is forgotten in the presence of remains that 

 show similar color, weight, and mineral alteration. The similar 

 " fossilization " of the Piltdown bones cannot therefore be determina- 

 tive, one way or the other. 



Thus the original main problem, the genetic and chronological asso- 

 ciation of the jaw and the teeth with the two skulls, remains much as 

 it was soon after their discovery, and no amount of thought, discus- 

 sion, or even reexamination of the specimens can promise, it seems, 

 for the present, definite conclusions. The only hope, as in so many 

 other cases in these lines, lies in new and suflficient discoveries. 



In view of all this it must be plain that any far-fetched deductions 

 from the Piltdown materials are not justified. This applies particu- 

 larly to the superficially attractive conclusions that the Piltdown 



