G. G. Mac Curdy — Significance of the Piltdown Skull. 



Art. XXIX. — The Significance of the Piltdown Skull : by 

 George Grant MacCurdy. 



A discovery of unusual importance from the viewpoint of 

 human origins was officially announced on December 18 at a 

 meeting of the Geological Society of London. Briefly the 

 facts are these. Four years ago in passing up the Ouse valley 

 from his home in Lewes (Sussex) into the Weald, Mr. Charles 

 Dawson, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Geo- 

 logical Society, noticed that the roadway had been mended 

 recently with flints of a kind that he had not seen before in 

 that region. These were traced to their source, which proved 

 to be a pit near Piltdown Common. Visiting the pit he 

 learned that the workmen had dug out a "thing like a cocoa- 

 nut " and after breaking it up had thrown away the pieces. 

 After a long search Mr. Dawson and Dr. A. Smith Woodward, 

 of the Natural History Museum, London, recovered most of 

 the fragments, which proved to be parts of a human skull. 

 At a later date the right half of a lower jaw with first and sec- 

 ond molars in situ was dug out of the undisturbed gravel. 

 Both skull and jaw came from about four feet below the 

 surface and not far apart, so that both probably belong to the 

 same individual. The bones are mineralized and stained to a 

 ruddy-brown color as are the sands and flints among which 

 they were found. 



The most diligent search has failed to reveal other parts of 

 this human skeleton. But the finding of fossil animal remains 

 in the same pit, both associated with rudely worked flints, 

 makes Piltdown one of the most extraordinary prehistoric sta- 

 tions ever uncovered. The fossils include broken pieces of a 

 Pliocene type of elephant (Elephas meridionalis), a cusp of 

 the molar of a mastodon, teeth of Hippopotamus, Castor, and 

 Equus, and a fragment of an antler of Cervus elaphus. 

 These were all in the same mineralized condition and of the 

 same color as the human bones. 



When the pieces of the cranium were all put together, it was 

 possible to estimate the cranial capacity, which Dr. A. Smith 

 Woodward gives as not less than 1070 cc . The bones are tough 

 and hard, and the walls of the brain case exceedingly thick, 

 the average thickness of the frontal and parietal being at least 

 one centimeter. The face and the greater part of the brow 

 ridge are missing. The length of the cranium from glabella 

 to inion is about 190 mm , while the greatest parietal width is 

 150 n,m . The forehead is steeper and the brow ridge feebler 

 than in the later Neanderthal type. The cranium is low and 



