338 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
fragments, in order that visitors to the museum might 
have a ready means of ascertaining the actual parts of the 
skull which had been recovered. It will be remembered 
(see fig. lOO, p. 317) that the greater part of the left 
parietal bone — which forms so large and important a part 
of the brain chamber — was recovered ; I was surprised to 
find that the superficial area of the Piltdown parietal bone 
was only slightly smaller than that of the Australian 
native, the exact figures being 1217 cm.- for Piltdown, 
132-9 for the Australian. This surprise was increased 
when I came to compare the areas of that part of the 
temporal bone — the squama or plate — which reaches up 
on the side of the skull and actually overlaps the lower 
bevelled ridge of the parietal (see fig. 1 1 2). It is true that 
part of the squamous plate was broken, but its original 
size can be estimated with some degree of exactitude. 
The Piltdown squama was larger than that of the 
Australian native ; the area of the first named was 247 
cm.'-, of the second, 21*4 cm.^ Now, students of the 
human body have been in the habit of regarding a large 
temporal squama as indicating a large brain. It is true 
that a mere increase in thickness of the skull leads to 
an increase in the area of the squama, but even allowing 
for the thickness of the Piltdown skull, the plate was 
remarkably extensive for a brain of 1070 c.c. The size 
of the parietal bone and temporal squama indicated a 
capacity nearly equal to that of the Australian native. To 
find an explanation of these ciiscrepancies — or peculiar 
characteristics, they may prove to be — of the Piltdown 
race, I turned to Dr Smith Woodward's reconstruction 
to see if there was any apparent error in the manner in 
which the fragments had been fitted together. It was 
then I noticed a very marked degree of asymmetry in its 
formation ; the right side was not only smaller than the 
left, but there was also a marked degree of flattening on 
its hinder part. 
We have always supposed that the skulls of primitive 
races were remarkably symmetrical ; in the lower forms 
of man, as in anthropoid apes, the right and left halves 
