82 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
the Hailing skull, the irregularity may arise from the 
presence of such a bone, which has become joined to the 
left parietal bone. It is a remarkable circumstance that 
one should find two ancient skulls from neighbouring 
localities showing such a very uncommon form of 
abnormality. 
When we sum up the lesson to be learned from the 
discovery at Hailing, it falls under two heads. First, 
that at this early date the river-bed type of man was 
already in England. We have seen that Dr Schmerling 
had discovered this type in the Engis cave with the 
remains of extinct animals and the culture which 
characterise the Aurignacian age. The inference we 
draw from the discovery at Hailing is that a human type 
may be transmitted over a long period of time and 
remain almost unchanged as regards size of brain and 
cranial characters. 
But there is a much more important lesson to be 
learned, namely, that there probably still remain many 
untouched and undiscovered records of Palaeolithic man 
in England, similar in nature to the hearths and skeleton 
discovered at Hailing. Hitherto, we have sought for 
traces of Palaeolithic man in caves ; we hardly expected 
to read his history in the open country, in exposed 
valleys and in submerged land surfaces. Near Hastings, 
on the south coast of Sussex, not more than fifty miles 
from Hailing, Mr Lewis Abbott discovered work-floors 
of Magdalenian date. Before the Hailing discovery 
had been made, Mr J. Reid Moir had discovered and 
described a true Aurignacian floor, markeci by hearths 
and characteristic flints, in a valley to the north of 
Ipswich, in Suffolk. Almost at the same time, Dr Allen 
Sturge discovered a similar floor in another part of Suffolk, 
near Mildenhall. More recently, Mr Reginald Smith, 
of the British Museum, has described a series of 
Aurignacian floors found in England — all of them buried 
under sandy (loess) deposits.^ We see, then, that it is 
possible that we may still find under or near those 
' See/c/^/v/. Roy. Anthrop. InsitL, vol. xliv., July 1914. 
