THE DAWN MAN OF PILTDOWN, ENGLAND 



By William King Gregory 



SEVERAL years ago an English geol- 

 ogist, Charles Dawson, F. S. A., 

 F. G. S., was walking along a 

 farm road close to Piltdown Common, 

 Fletching, Sussex, when he noticed that 

 the road had been mended with some 

 peculiar brown flints not usual in the 

 district. On inquiry, he relates,^ he was 



1 Quar. Jour. Geol. Soc, vol. 69, pp. 117-144 

 Paper read Dec. 18, 1912. 



[Note: The now celebrated fossil liuman re- 

 mains found at Piltdown, in Sussex, continue to 

 excite widespread discussion and interest not only 

 in scientific circles but also in the public press both 

 here and abroad. The following summary has 

 been made after a patient and impartial study of 

 this still controversial subject. The Dawn Man 

 is illustrated by means of casts and models which 

 are on exhibition in this Museum, in the loan 

 collection of Dr. .1. Leon Williams.] 



astonished to learn that the flints were 

 dug from a gravel-bed on a certain farm, 

 and shortly afterward he visited the 

 place, where two laborers were at work 

 digging the gravel for small repairs to 

 the roads. As this excavation was 

 situated about four miles north of the 

 limit where the occurrence of flints 

 overlying the Wealden strata is recorded, 

 Mr. Dawson was much interested, and 

 made a close examination of the bed. 

 "I asked the workmen," he says, "if 

 they had found bones or other fossils 

 there. As they did not appear to have 

 noticed anything of the sort, I urged 

 them to preserve anything that they 

 might find, l^pon one of my subsequent 



Fig. 2. Model of the Piltdown skull as reconstructed by Dr. Smith Woodward. Seen from the 

 left side; one-half natural size. Williams Collection, American Museum 



The dark areas represent the portions preserved in the original fossil; the light areas are restored. 

 The lower jaw (except the front part) is restored from the opposite side 189 



