478 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— H. 



Helen Keller's education only began when she realised that everything 

 had a ' name,' which could be spelt in the hand alphabet. 



Civilisation may have begun when man — in Aurignacian times — became 

 an Artist, and thus learnt to symbolise the isolated elements of his environ- 

 ment ; characteristic hand gestures then produced corresponding mouth 

 gestures — ^i.e., words. 



The poetic gift enabled man to develop signs for abstract ideas — by 

 analogy to their concrete counterparts. 



A ' verbal ' type of sign language would be of great value for the education 

 of deaf children. Their parents could learn it very easily — the child would 

 then think in terms of verbal symbols represented by hand signs. From 

 these, the transition to written words would be relatively easy. 



Sign language gives also the clue to the development of grammatical 

 forms, inflexions, etc., in speech, and offers a new field for grammarians. 



The writer pleads for the co-operation of anthropologists and linguists, 

 so that human speech may take its legitimate place among the sciences of 

 human behaviour. 



(concurrently with above session.) 

 Sir Arthur Keith, F.R.S. — Re-examination of the Piltdown problem 



{2.6). 



A prolonged re-examination of the Piltdown fragments in the light 

 thrown on them by the intact bones of the Swanscombe skull has led the 

 speaker to alter his original reconstruction of the Piltdown head. Of all 

 the early forms of humanity known to us, that of Piltdown is the most strange 

 and most misunderstood. 



The early types of humanity found in all other parts of the world frankly 

 proclaim their ape-like heritage. It is otherwise with Piltdown man. His 

 forehead is strongly made, but it is upright compared with that of his con- 

 temporaries in China, Japan and Africa. His head was high-vaulted and 

 his brain relatively large, but as regards some parts of his face, particularly 

 in the region of the chin and jaw, Piltdown man was the most ape-like of all. 

 This early English representative of humanity blended characters of ancient 

 ape and evolved man and represents one of Nature's vain attempts to produce 

 a new type of mankind, for we have every reason to suppose that Piltdown 

 progeny became extinct before the dawn of modern conditions. 



Asymmetry of the brain is believed to be a mark of specialisation and a 

 feature confined to highly evolved modern races of mankind. Now there 

 is no doubt that the brain of Piltdown man was asymmetrical to a degree 

 rarely met with in modern human heads, and in Swanscombe man there is 

 also a high degree of asymmetry. We must alter our conception of the 

 antiquity and meaning of asymmetry of the brain. In the Piltdown breed 

 of humanity Nature was trying a bold experiment of concentrating the higher 

 functions in one hemisphere of the brain. It is only when we accept the 

 existence of cranial and cerebral asymmetry that the Piltdown fragments fit 

 into their appropriate anatomical position. 



Modern man has shed many of his ape-like features, which have been 

 replaced by those proper to juvenile stages of growth, and this tendency is 

 called pedomorphism. Piltdown man has several pedomorphic characters 

 in his skull — an unexpected finding in so early a type of humanity but not so 

 surprising when we consider that one of the most primitive of living races, 

 the Bushmen of South Africa, manifests such characters abundantly. 



