CHAPTER XXV 
THE PILTDOWN MANDIBLE 
All through the previous chapters we laboured to 
establish on a sure foundation of fact the size and form 
of skull and brain of the earliest example of fossil 
man yet discovered. We have not seen the slightest 
reason to doubt that all the fragments were parts of the 
same skull. Further, we did not meet with a single 
feature in the skull or brain cast which excluded the 
Piltdownman from our immediate ancestry. In the course 
of fifty thousand or sixty thousand generations we can 
well conceive that his brain and skull might have been 
converted into the forms seen in modern races of mankind. 
When we come to build up the face our steps are not 
attended by the same degree of certainty. We have to 
base our reconstruction on the right half of the mandible. 
That, the nasal bones, and part of the forehead are all that 
was found of the face. Are we certain that the mandible 
does form part of the same individual as the skull frag- 
ments ? There are many who think it highly improbable 
that the two do go together. From the very first. 
Professor Waterston^ expressed grave doubts regarding 
the mandible ; he regarded the skull as human, the 
mandible as simian or anthropoid. There are others 
besides Professor Waterston who regard the mandible as 
part of an extinct anthropoid. If only the mandible and 
the teeth had been found — two molar or cheek teeth and 
the canine or eye tooth — the great majority of anatomists 
would have regarded the extinct being of which they 
' Nature^ 1913, vol. xcii. p. 319. 
430 
