366 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
determined by Professor Elliot Smith, and if the adjust- 
ment may be truthfully described as a slight one, its effect, 
as regards the size and shape of the skull, is revolutionary. 
Instead of being, as in Dr Smith Woodward's original 
model, a wide skull with a depressed crown — somewhat 
resembling the Neanderthal form of crania — it becomes 
a narrow, high skull, exactly similar in outline and 
structural details to modern skulls. The " slight " 
adjustment has certainly removed many of the defects 
of the original model, as well as transformed the chief 
character of the skull, but an inspection of fig. 130, B, 
will show that there still remains a high degree of 
asymmetry which can be largely removed by placing the 
parts in the position shown in fig. 128. Whether the 
reconstruction shown in fig. 130, B, or in fig. 128, A, is 
accepted as the right one, there is one conclusion which 
cannot be avoided — the Piltdown skull in its occipital 
aspect is a counterpart of that of modern man. 
In the preceding paragraphs the narrative has strayed 
in advance of the natural sequence of events. The actual 
reconstruction of the experimental skull occupied me the 
better part of two days. Having made exact drawings 
of it, according to the method used in this book, I handed 
the skull and drawings to Dr Derry at University College. 
He then showed me the cast of the original — the skull 
of an ancient Egyptian — a woman, with a peculiar form 
of head and a brain capacity of 1395 c.c. The estimate 
I returned of the brain capacity, namely, 141 5 c.c, was 
not very wide of the truth, and as regards general form 
and actual dimensions I was relieved to fipd the method 
I had followed had given — except in one respect — a fairly 
accurate reproduction of the original. 
How closely the problem of the experimental or test 
skull simulates the one presented by the Piltdown 
fragments becomes very apparent when we view the re- 
constructed skulls from above (fig. 132). In neither skull 
is there any certain mark of the middle line along the vault. 
In the test skull, the sagittal suture of the vault was pre- 
maturely obliterated, and, as may be seen from fig. 131, 
