Vol. 69.] THE HITMAN SKULL, ETC. FROM PILTDOWX. 127 



La Chapelle-aux-Saints, 1 which have a brain-case larger than 

 that of the average modern civilized man. 



The principal characters of the brain, so far as they can be 

 observed in a cast of the cranial cavity, are described in an 

 appendix to this paper by Prof. G. Elliot Smith (see p. 145). 



A detailed examination of the several bones of the skull is 

 interesting, as proving the typically human character of nearly all 

 the features that they exhibit. The only noteworthy reminiscences 

 of the ape are met with in the upward extension of the temporal 

 fossae, and in the low and broad shape of the occipital region. 



The frontal region (PL XIX, figs. 1, 1 a, & 1 b) is complete on 

 the left side and in its upper middle portion, showing that the 

 frontal eminence is regularly and steeply rounded, and separated 

 from the temporal fossa by a sharp ridge, which extends upwards 

 as far as the coronal suture. This ridge (t.) approaches nearest to 

 its fellow of the opposite side at its upper end, where it is continued 

 by the curved groove on the parietal, which trends still farther 

 towards the middle line. At its lower end the ridge passes out- 

 wards on to the external angular process (e.a.p.), which is short 

 and directly continuous with the slope of the frontal eminence, not 

 separated from this by any depression. The facette for the malar 

 bone (m./.) is well preserved ; part of the smooth concave roof 

 of the orbit is seen (fig. 1 b, orb.) ; and the sharp supraorbital 

 border is but slightly abraded. It is, therefore, clear that there- 

 cannot have been any prominent or thickened supraorbital ridge, 

 and the missing region above the glabella may be restored on 

 the plan of an ordinary modern human skull. The median frontal 

 (metopic) suture is completely obliterated, so far as the bone 

 is preserved above; but a fractured surface show r s that the short 

 fronto-alisphenoid suture (s.f.) was only closed in its deeper half,, 

 while the coronal suture is still just visible on the wall of the 

 temporal fossa and is conspicuous on the cranial roof. The coronal 

 suture (cor.) is remarkably complicated, and its tortuous folds are 

 seen to occupy a transversely-elongated shallow depression immedi- 

 ately above the limit of the temporal fossa. The total length of 

 the frontal region along the metopic line, from the glabella to the- 

 middle of the coronal suture (bregma), must have been from 120 

 to 130 mm. ; while its maximum width at the external angular 

 processes is 125 mm. 



Immediately behind the middle of the coronal suture the parietal 

 region is distinctly flattened; but as it expands backwards the 

 roof soon rises to the broad rounded vertex already mentioned, 

 and there is a faint trace of a longitudinal median ridge near- 

 the hinder (lambdoid) border of the bone. The parietal boss or 

 eminence is conspicuous on each side above the hinder end of the 

 squamous suture; and this boss forms the apex of a large flattened; 

 triangular area, of which the base-line is at the lambdoid suture. 

 The flattening just mentioned is of the same shape on each, 



i M. Boule, L'Anthropologie vol. xx (1909) p. 264/ 



