SECTION H.—ANTHROPOLOGY. 
RECENT PROGRESS IN THE STUDY 
OF EARLY MAN 
ADDRESS BY 
SIR ARTHUR SMITH WOODWARD, F.R:S., 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 
WHEN meeting in East Anglia it is appropriate that the Section of Anthro- 
pology should devote some special attention to Prehistoric Archzology. 
In this part of England as long ago as 1797, John Frere made the first 
scientific observations on palzolithic implements which he had dug out 
of a superficial deposit at Hoxne. During recent years Mr. J. Reid Moir 
has excited wide interest by his discoveries of the oldest known stone 
implements which he has collected with remarkable zeal and discussed 
with acute observation. Here also arose the ‘ Prehistoric Society of East 
Anglia,’ which has been so well supported during its career of over twenty 
years, that it has gradually widened its sphere until now it becomes the 
“ Prehistoric Society ’ devoted to advances in its subject in all parts of the 
world. We are, indeed, now confronted with problems much greater 
than those which the pioneers in western Europe dealt with, when they 
were laying the foundations of research in prehistory. Traces of men 
who lived before the dawn of history in widely separated parts of the 
earth’s surface have been discovered in increasing abundance during 
recent years ; and a study which at first was more or less local has now 
become one of world-wide scope. 
Among the several branches of science which contribute to our under- 
standing of the subject, those of paleontology and geology are of con- 
siderable importance. Dr. Friedrich E. Zeuner has recently demonstrated 
this by his valuable paper on the Pleistocene chronology of central Europe 
in the Geological Magazine for August 1935. The period of man’s 
existence on the earth has been so short that there has been no appreciable 
evolution among the mammals associated with successive human races ; 
but many migrations and extinctions are observable, so that these mammals 
can often be used for determining the relative ages of the isolated deposits 
in which human remains.and implements occur. In some cases also the 
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