170 The Outline of Science 



there is evidence that before he ceased to be there had emerged a 

 successor rather than a descendant the modern man. 



4. Another offshoot from the main line is probably repre- 

 sented by the Piltdown man, found in Sussex in 1912. The re- 

 mains consisted of the walls of the skull, which indicate a large 

 brain, and a high forehead without the beetling eyebrows of the 

 Neanderthal man and Pithecanthropus. The "find" included a 

 tooth and part of a lower jaw, but these perhaps belong to some 

 ape, for they are very discrepant. The Piltdown skull represents 

 the most ancient human remains as yet found in Britain, and Dr. 

 Smith Woodward's establishment of a separate genus Eoanthro- 

 pus expresses his conviction that the Piltdown man was off the 

 line of the evolution of the modern type. If the tooth and piece 

 of lower jaw belong to the Piltdown skull, then there was a re- 

 markable combination of ape-like and human characters. As re- 

 gards the brain, inferred from the skull-walls, Sir Arthur Keith 

 says: 



All the essential features of the brain of modern man are to 

 be seen in the brain cast. There are some which must be 

 regarded as primitive. There can be no doubt that it is built 

 on exactly the same lines as our modern brains. A few 

 minor alterations would make it in all respects a modern 

 brain. . . . Although our knowledge of the human brain is 

 limited there are large areas to which we can assign no 

 definite function we may rest assured that a brain which 

 was shaped in a mould so similar to our own was one which 

 responded to the outside world as ours does. Piltdown man 

 saw, heard, felt, thought, and dreamt much as we do still. 



And this was 150,000 years ago at a modern estimate, and some 

 would say half a million. 



There is neither agreement nor certainty as to the antiquity 

 of man, except that the modern type was distinguishable from its 

 collaterals hundreds of thousands of years ago. The general im- 

 pression left is very grand. In remote antiquity the Primate 



