138 



db. a. smith: woodward: description of [March 1913, 



the end of the Pliocene Epoch the representatives of man in Western 

 Europe were already differentiated into widely divergent groups. 



The skull is equally remarkable when compared with the other 

 undoubtedly ancient human skulls hitherto known, and suggests 

 generalizations of even wider import. The discoveries of the 

 brain-case of Pithecanthropus and several skulls of the Mousterian 

 (Neanderthal) type have led to the very general belief that early 

 man was characterized by a low, flattened forehead and a prominent 

 bony brow, like the corresponding parts in the adult existing apes. 

 The only opinions to the contrary have been based on discoveries 

 of very doubtful authenticity, or on theoretical considerations 

 which still need to be tested by more facts. Now, the Piltdown 

 specimen, which is certainly the oldest typically-human brain-case 



Fig. 7. — Mandibular ramus from Piltdown superposed on that of 

 Homo heidelbergensis ; two-thirds of the natural size. 



hitherto found, exhibits no anterior flattening, but has the frontal 

 eminence as steep as in modern man, without any prominent supra- 

 orbital ridge. The small development of this ridge may possibly be 

 due in some degree to the circumstance that the new specimen 

 represents a female, as suggested by the small backward extent of 

 the temporal muscles, the weakness of the mandible, and the rela- 

 tively small size of the mastoid processes. Even so, however, a full- 

 grown male of the same race could not have developed a supraorbital 

 prominence approaching that of Mousterian man. The conclusion 

 seems therefore inevitable, that at least one type of man with a 

 high forehead was already in existence in Western Europe long 

 before Mousterian man, with a low and prominent brow, spread 

 widely in this region. It is also clear that this earlier man had 

 a much lower cranial capacity than most examples of the later 

 low-browed man. We are thus reminded of the interesting fact 



