THE OLDEST WOMAN

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8357, 18 February 1913, Page 5

THE OLDEST WOMAN

GEOLOGISTS’ REPOET ON REMARKABLE HUMAN SKULL. VERY LIKE CHIMPANZEE’S. Regarded by some of the leading scientists as a most valuable contribution to the world’s knowledge of prehistoric man, a human skull has been dug up at Fletching, Sussex, which is stated to be the oldest specimen in existence. It takes us back (says “Lloyd’s News”) to what geologists call the Lower Pleistocene period-—many centuries before the cave-dweller, the skull of whom is well represented in Continental museums. In the belief of one of the discoverers, Dr. A. Smith Woodward, of the Natural History Museum, the find supplies a material link in the chain of evolution associating man with the apes. Mr Charles Dawson, a Lewes solicitor and an amateur geologist, first heard four years ago that during excavations for gravel near Piltdown Common, a skull had been dug up intact, smashed, and the pieces thrown away. He searched for the pieces, and found several. Then he enlisted the help of Dr. Woodward, and bit by bit found most of the fragments in the gravel pit. The portions found have enabled the skull to be reconstructed in plaster, and, together with the cast, they will bo placed in the Natural History Museum at Kensington. “Our discovery,” explained Dr. Woodward, “confirms in a striking manner the theories of science. _ Professor Boyd Dawson, on the evidence of flint implements long ago described a race of men existing before the known cave dwellers, whom he called ‘the river drift men.’ There were no relics of his skeleton to prove that such a race had ever lived, hut these remains establish the fact. RELICS OF A MASTODON. “It is impossible to fix a_ date for the skull, hut a dim conception of its

antiquity may be gained when I state that the gravel in which it was embedded must have been carried there by a stream, which is now the Ouse, which has since cut for itself a channel'a mile distant from the spot. “In the gravel, too, were relics of an elephant, a mastodon, hippopotamus, and red deer, besides flint implements anterior to those used by the cave dwellers. There were also flints from the chalks of the heights of the South Downs, which the river no longer reaches at its source. , “This Piltdown skull has twice the thickness of an ordinary human skull. The forehead is as steep as an ordinary human skull, with scarcely any ot the ridge at the brow which characterises the cave man’s skull. The back ot the head is very low and broad, indicating that the neck resembled an ape’s more than that of a man. Ine brain capacity is two-thirds that or the lowest savage now living. “But unquestionably,” added Dr. Woodward, “the most remarkable feature is that tho jaw-bone, although bearing human teeth, is shaped like that of a chimpanzee. The inference is that man acquired a brain before he acquired a human face and jaw, and the power of articulation. It shows indisputably the connection of man with the apes.”