Societies and Academies

Abstract

LONDON. Geological Society, December 17, 1913.—Dr. Aubrey Strahan, F.R.S., president, in the chair.—C. Dawson and Dr. A. Smith Woodward, with an appendix by Prof. G. Elliot Smith: Supplementary note on the discovery of a Palaeolithic human skull and mandible at Piltdown (Sussex). The gravel at Piltdown (Sussex) below the surface-soil is divided into three distinct beds. The first, or uppermost, contains sub-angular flints and “eoliths,” and one palaeolith was discovered there in situ. The second is a very dark bed, composed of ironstone and subangular flints. All the fossils so far found in the pit have been discovered in, or traced to, this bed, with the exception of the remains of deer. A cast of a Chalk fossil, Echino-corys vulgaris, from the zone of Micraster cor-testu-dinarium, occurred as a pebble. The third bed was recognised only in 1913, and consists of reconstructed material from the underlying Wealden rock (Hastings Series). It is only about 8 in. thick, and contains very big flints (8 to 15 in. long) which have been little rolled, and are not striated. They are saturated with iron, and have undergone considerable chemical change. They differ very markedly in appearance from the smaller flints in the upper strata. No implements, “eoliths,” or fossil bones have been met with in this bed. The floor of the gravel, where the remains of Eoanthropus were discovered, has been carefully exposed, and many irregularities and depressions have been found to exist. In some of these depressions small patches of the dark overlying bed remained, and new specimens were discovered. The method adopted in excavation is described. The finds made in 1913 are few but important, and include the nasal bones, and a canine tooth of Eoanthropus discovered by Father P. Teilhard de Chardin; also a fragment of a molar of Stegodon and another of Rhinoceros; an incisor and broken ramus of Beaver (Castor fiber); a worked flint from the dark bed; and a Palaeolithic implement from the debris in the pit. It will be noted that the remains are those of a land fauna only. The further occurrence of bedded flint-bearing gravels in the vicinity of the pit is noted. The authors' former conclusions, as to the Pliocene forms having been derived, are maintained. A further study of the cranium of Eoanthropus shows that the occipital and right parietal bones need slight readjustment in the reconstruction, but the result does not alter essentially any of the conclusions already published. The nasal bones, now described, are typically human, but relatively small and broad, resembling those of some of the existing Melanesian and African races.—In a note appended to the paper Prof. Elliot Smith points out that the presence of the anterior extremity of the sagittal suture, which hitherto had escaped attention, had enabled him to identify a ridge upon the cranial aspect of the frontal bone as the metopic crest, and thus to determine beyond all question the true median plane. It is 21 mm. from the point of the large fragment (in the frontal region). The backward prolongation of the frontal median crest cuts the parietal fragment precisely along the line determined by Dr. Smith Woodward on other grounds.