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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 2009
In a communication to the International Medical Congress recently reported in some of the English newspapers, Professor Arthur Keith expressed complete disapproval of my reconstruction of the skull and mandible of Eoanthropus Dawsoni. I concluded that the brain capacity of this skull was comparable only with that of some of the lowest existing savages, while the mandible must have been provided in front with teeth of the ape pattern. Professor Keith, on the other hand, has restored the skull in such a manner as to have a brain capacity of 1,500 cubic centimetres, thus exceeding that of the average modern European. By distorting the curve of the front of the mandible he has also furnished it with completely human teeth. These two views, therefore, need careful examination before any definite conclusions can be drawn from this remarkable fossil.
Abridged from a lecture delivered to the British Association, Birmingham, September 16, 1913.
page 433 note 2 Dawson, C. & Woodward, A. S., “On the Discovery of a Palæolithic Skull and Mandible in a Flint-bearing Gravel overlying the Wealden (Hastings Beds) at Piltdown, Fletching (Sussex),” Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. lxix, pp. 124–39, pls. xviii-xx, 1913Google Scholar.
