CHAPTER XX 
EOANTHROPUS DAWSONI 
Having thus settled, so far as the evidence will permit, 
the approximate position of the Piltdown man in the 
scale of time — and beyond question he represents the 
earliest specimen of true humanity yet discovered — we 
now proceed to see what sort of being he was. The 
truth is that we have to discover his characters from 
fragments of the skull, for no other part was found. 
The characters of his limbs and body are matters of 
inference. The reader will quickly realise the number and 
size of the actual parts of the skull which were found, by 
examining fig. lOO ; the missing parts are indicated by 
stippled lines. The bone which forms the forehead — the 
frontal bone — is only partly present. Fortunately, the 
region which forms the upper margin of the left orbit 
has been preserved in its outer part, so that we can form 
a definite opinion as regards the supra-orbital ridges. 
These are not formed as they are in the chimpanzee, 
gorilla, and Neanderthal man, but are more like the 
conformation seen in modern human races. A great part 
of the left side of the frontal bone has been recovered ; 
the right side is wholly missing, but we know that the 
right and left sides of the frontal bone are nearly 
symmetrical, so we can reconstruct the greater part of 
the forehead with some degree of assurance — all except 
the middle part lying over the root of the nose. 
Taking the bones which form the roof of the skull just 
behind the frontal bone, we see that practically the whole 
of the parietal bone is present on the left side. It forms 
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