THE IPSWICH MAN 223 
across the tibice of various races of men, giving with each 
an outline section of the Ipswich tibia/ 
The peculiar feature of the Ipswich tibia is the absence 
of the sharp, bony crest, which can be felt in all modern 
bones, descending on the front of the leg, just under the 
skin. In place of a sharp crest there is a flat, anterior 
surface. Although the absence of this sharp crest is a 
simian character, yet the Ipswich tibia cannot be said to 
resemble the same bone of anthropoid apes (fig. 78, H), 
whereas the tibia of Neanderthal man does show a distinct 
approach to the anthropoid form (fig. 78, C). In the 
Ipswich man the tibia is the opposite of the platycnemic 
leg bone of Neolithic races, in which there is a side-to- 
side flattening (see fig. 78, G). In the Ipswich specimen 
the flattening is from front to back. The functional 
meaning of this peculiar character I cannot explain ; I 
look upon it, as on the teeth of Neanderthal man, as a 
form of specialisation, the functional significance of both 
characters being unknown. The Ipswich fibula, too, is 
of a peculiar form (fig. 78, J). The femur shows none 
of the flattening in its upper third which is so frequently 
present in Neolithic races. 
With that brief description we shall leave the Ipswich 
skeleton. As Mr Moir and the writer are well aware, 
the discovery of human remains so near the surface, so 
destitute of all characters of a primitive or ape-like nature, 
cannot carry the conviction of a skeleton found at a depth 
which places its antiquity beyond dispute. If, however, 
the Ipswich skeleton had shown characters as distinctive 
as those of Neanderthal man, or as those of the Piltdown 
man — found at a depth of a little over 3 feet below the 
surface — would anyone have doubted that its age was 
older than the deposition of the boulder clay .? I do not 
think the age would then have been called in question. 
But under the presumption that the modern type of 
man is also modern in origin, a degree of high antiquity 
is denied to such specimens. It is, therefore, all the 
more important that every discovery of human remains, 
1 For full description of skeleton, see reference, p. 218. 
