DIFFICULTIES OF RECONSTRUCTION 343 
the majority of fossil skulls the anterior part of the base is 
rarely preserved. As a rule, however, the lowest point 
of the eyebrow ridge — to be more exact, the junction of 
this ridge with the malar or cheek bone— is sufficiently 
near the plane we want to serve to mark the level of the 
lowest part of the frontal lobe, so far as human skulls are 
concerned. Having thus sketched the method to be em- 
ployed, we are in a position to undertake the reconstruction 
of the Piltdown skull. 
When we place Dr Smith Woodward's reconstruction 
of the Piltdown skull within the framework just de- 
scribed, we are at once in a position to see how far this 
very ancient type of man agrees or differs in head form 
from modern man. In fig. 118 the parts of the skull 
actually recovered are shaded ; the missing parts are left 
as blanks. The whole occipital bone was not found ; 
only the middle part of the lower or nuchal part, with 
the ridge which marks the middle line of the neck and 
skull, and a considerable part of the upper or supra-nuchal 
part. A fragment (marked O' in fig. 118, A) carries the 
supra-nuchal part of the occipital on the right as far as 
the lambdoidal suture, where it comes almost in contact 
with the right parietal. We have, in this fragment, a sure 
indication, not only of the width of the upper part of 
the occipital bone, but also of the position and direction 
of the lambdoidal suture. The right lambdoidal suture, 
it will be observed (fig. 1 18, A), crosses the right lateral 
(50-mm.) line very obliquely ; it is not vertical, as we 
should expect from a comparison with a modern skull 
(fig. 117). A remnant of the left half of the lambdoidal 
suture is preserved on the hinder margin of the left 
parietal bone (fig. 118). It ought to be, as far as direc- 
tion is concerned, symmetrical with the corresponding 
part of the right, and also, in accordance with the law 
already stated, should be situated further from the 
mid-line. Exactly the reverse is the condition shown in 
Dr Smith Woodward's reconstruction , the parts d, b and 
a\ b' (fig. 118) certainly correspond, but the one is lying 
obliquely and crossing the 50-mm. line, the other (the 
