Man Rises to Parnassus 1928

Henry Fairfield Osborn

[51

Having now considered the Bramford man, maker of the rostro-carinate flints, and the Foxhall man, maker of five kinds of small flints and the discoverer of fire, let us examine the better known Dawn Man of Piltdown, who probably belonged also to the Pliocene period and may have been contemporaneous with the Foxhall flint maker.

Over a few fragments of skull bone, three lower teeth and a portion of the jaw, the wise anatomists of Great Britain, of western Europe, and of the North American continent have expressed opinions of every variety.

Thus the Piltdown Dawn Man has shared a struggle for scientific recognition similar to that of the Neanderthal man of Germany, which was discovered by some workmen in 1856 and described by Schaaffhausen in 1858–especially through the skull-cap, thigh bones, and other skeletal fragments–and received with almost universal scepticism. The Neanderthal man was regarded by Virchow, the high German authority, as a feeble-minded modern and was [54] treated very lightly even by Darwin in his great work, "The Descent of Man," published in 1871, although the geologist Lyell (1863) had recognized the Neanderthal man as an intermediate form between man and the apes.

Even the progressive Huxley (1863, 1864) did not recognize the Neanderthal man as the missing link, his opinion being that "there is no ground for separating its possessor specifically, still less generically, from Homo sapiens. At present, we have no sufficient warranty for declaring it to be either the type of a distinct race, or a member of any existing one; nor do the anatomical characters of the skull justify any conclusion as to the age to which it belongs."

When we recall the fact that the 'Gibraltar skull' of a Neanderthal woman had been known since 1848, we may say that the Neanderthal race was under a cloud of suspicion for nearly forty years, that is, until 1887, when the discovery was made of two Neanderthal skeletons and skulls in a grotto near Spy, not far from Dinant, Belgium. It was these Spy relics, which seem to agree exactly with the Neanderthal skull top and with subsequent discoveries in other localities, that firmly established the Neanderthal race as one of the most important, and now by far the best known, of all fossil men.

There has been on the part of anthropologists no conspiracy or hasty acceptance of any of these fossil men. The Neanderthal Stone Age man discovered in 1848, the Trinil 'ape-man' of Java discovered in 1891, the Piltdown Dawn Man discovered in 1911, have had in turn a hard struggle for scientific recognition, lasting thirty-nine years in the case of the Neanderthal man, more than thirty years in the [55] case of the Trinil 'ape-man' (fide Dubois), and no less than ten years in the case of the Dawn Man of Piltdown.

A Triumph of Persistent Research

The history of anthropology does not include any story of persistent exploration, discovery, and research more worthy of recognition and praise than that connected with the Dawn Man of Sussex. Arthur Smith Woodward, who took a very bold step in originally proposing the Piltdown man as belonging to the new genus Eoanthropus, has not stopped to reply to any of his critics; he has left this to some of his colleagues, who have replied with considerable warmth, while he himself has been unremittingly engaged in endeavoring to secure material to confirm his original description and estimate of the characters of the Dawn Man.

The locality which the author will now describe from his own visit of July 26, 1921, presents exceptional difficulties, chiefly because the Piltdown gravels are almost exactly the same color as the fossils which they contain; the fossils are thus extremely inconspicuous. From prolonged experience in fossil hunting during the past fifty years in various parts of the world, the author can truthfully say that he knows of no locality where fossil remains are so indistinguishable from the stony matrix in which they are found. Under these conditions the discovery of the original fragments of the Piltdown skull was all the more creditable; the subsequent finding of the jaw fragment by Charles Dawson marked the turning point in the whole history of the discovery; the finding of the canine or eye tooth by Teilhard de Chardin indicated an almost hawk-like vision; finally, the unearthing of the two minute black-colored nasal bones of the Dawn Man was almost a miracle.

[56] Alongside the roadway leading to the Manor House, where the original find was made, the workings, 150 feet in length and 10 feet in width, have been carried on at intervals for ten years. Every pound of Piltdown gravel has been gone over minutely, or sifted, under Smith Woodward's immediate supervision. Openings were made on the other side of the hedge, revealing the same Piltdown gravel and the same superimposed layers as shown in our section (Fig. 19) without the discovery of another fragment of bone. Only during the season of 1921 was there a cut made beneath the adjacent roadway within a short radius of the very spot where the bones of the skull and jaw lay. The rewards of this exhaustive and exhausting work, which throughout required infinite patience and persistence, have been few and far between, but sparse as the new evidence is, it has all been in the direction of gradual confirmation and strengthening of the original Dawson-Smith Woodward discovery–a discovery of transcendent importance to the prehistory of man.

[57]

Fig. 17. Relics of the Piltdown Race.

Upper: Piltdown skull (left) with brain restored to show the extreme thickness of the bony brain case and a well-formed brain; (right) profile restoration of the Piltdown head. 1/5 natural size. After McGregor, 1914.

Middle: Side and top views of (A) original jaw, with sloping chin and well worn grinding teeth resembling those of the chimpanzee; of (B) first lower grinder of another Piltdown individual. About 3/4 natural size.

Lower: Primitive worked 'Eolithic' flint found in the same layer with fragments of the Piltdown skull. After Dawson.

Fig. 18. Scene of the World-Famous Discovery of the Piltdown Dawn Man of Sussex. A : View of Piltdown Common within a few yards of the pit where the skull of Eoanthropus dawsoni was found; D: Arthur Smith Woodward (right) and the present author (left) standing on the Piltdown gravel where the skull was unearthed. Lower: Arthur Smith Woodward with Charles Dawson (left) screening and washing Piltdown gravel in search of more fragments of the skull and teeth. At the right a workman stands on the exact spot of the original discovery. After J. Leon Williams,

1912.

[59] of the remains of a second Piltdown Dawn Man, not in the original quarry but at another exposure of the Piltdown gravels about two miles distant. This second and confirmatory discovery was made by the original finder, Dawson.

If there is a Providence hanging over the affairs of prehistoric men, it certainly manifested itself in this case, because the three minute fragments of this second Piltdown Dawn Man found by Dawson are exactly those which we would have selected to confirm the comparison with the original type, namely: (1) a first lower molar tooth, (2) a bit of bone of the forehead near the right eyebrow, (3) the middle part of an occipital bone of the skull. Both the grinding tooth and the eyebrow region are absolutely distinctive. Placed side by side with the corresponding fossils of the first Piltdown man they agree precisely; there is not a shadow of difference. A shown in the accompanying photograph (Fig. 17, middle) published by permission of Dr. Smith Woodward, the two grinding teeth differ only in respect to age. The first Piltdown man was more advanced in years and the teeth were more worn; the second Piltdown man was younger and the teeth were unworn; but they present precisely the same characters. Smith Woodward very quietly published this confirmatory evidence without, however, alluding in any way to his critics or yielding to the natural temptation of writing, "I told you so," a phrase which would certainly have appeared from a less patient and dignified pen.

Seeing is believing, and in the year 1921, a decade after the discovery, the author eagerly looked forward to a return to the British Museum after so many years of absence and to the opportunity of examining these precious fossil documents, an opportunity which was most cordially ex[60]tended to him by Dr. Smith Woodward. On Sunday morning, July 24, after attending a most memorable service in Westminster Abbey, the author repaired to the British Museum to see the fossil remains of the now thoroughly vindicated Dawn Man of Great Britain. The few precious fragments of one of the original Britons, which had been preserved in a steel fireproof safe from the bombs thrown by German aviators and which will probably be thus guarded from thieves for all future time, were taken out

Fig. 19. Section of the Piltdown Gravels, with layers above and below.

1. Recent humus and surface soil, with scattered natural flints, 12-20 inches.

2. Pale yellow sandy loam with gravel and Neolithic flints and pottery, 2 feet 6 inches.

3. Piltdown gravel, probably of Pliocene age, containing remains of the Eoanthropus

skull (A), jaw (B), and teeth from the lower level, also worked flints and rolled

water-worn fossils, 18-20 inches.

4. Pale yellow clay and sand with scattered potato-shaped flints unworked. The bone tool

implement (Fig. 21) was found at the bottom of this layer, 10 inches.

5. Undisturbed strata of Lower Cretaceous (Wealden age), over the surface of which flowed

the stream bearing the clays and Piltdown gravels.

[61] and placed on the table by Smith Woodward, so that full and free opportunity was given for the closest comparison and study.

At the end of two hours of close observation in which worked flints and a large implement of cut Mastodon thigh bone were also examined, the author was reminded of an opening prayer of college days, attributed to his professor of logic in Princeton University: "Paradoxical as it may appear, O Lord, it is nevertheless true, etc." So the author felt. Paradoxical as it had appeared to the sceptical comparative anatomists, the chinless Piltdown jaw, shaped exactly like that of a chimpanzee and with its relatively long, narrow teeth, does belong with the Piltdown skull, with its relatively high, well-formed forehead and relatively capacious brain-case!

Background of the Piltdown Dawn Man

The Piltdown Dawn Man belongs to an age long prior to the reverent ceremonial burial of the dead which we find in late Stone Age time among the Neanderthals. At death the Piltdown skeleton was caught in the currents of the ancient River Ouse and drifted downstream, probably dismembered by preying crocodiles and fishes, the skeleton and jaw then becoming buried in the pebbly deposit now known as the Piltdown gravels. . . .

[63] For ten years, without any subvention or state aid, Smith Woodward quietly continued his work. He wrote October 24, 1921: "I did a little more digging last month, but without result."

Fig. 20. High Pliocene Level of the Piltdown Gravel. Upper: Geologic section of the Ouse River valley at Piltdown, England. The Piltdown gravels (x) were deposited at (1) the former level of the River Ouse, considered of the same geologic age as the high 90-100 foot terrace of the Medway (below). These gravels (x) are regarded by English geologists as of First Interglacial age but by the preent author as of Upper Pliocene preglacial age....

Lower: Section of the Medway River bank, Frindsbury, showing the high 100-foot terrace, which is regardedbysome geologists as of the same geologic age as the Piltdown gravels. Observe that the River Medway, like the present River Ouse, has cut its channel down from the high middle and low terraces to the 15-foot level which belongs to the period of the fourth glaciation and which contains both in England and France deposits belonging to the very close of the Old Stone Age.

It will be recalled that the working of this Piltdown gravel pit had been going on for many years previous. The successive order of discovery is approximately as follows: 1911 (reported) – Unusually thick human parietal bone [64] was found by Dawson. 1911 (autumn)–Dawson picked up another and larger piece of bone belonging to the forehead region of the same skull and including a portion of the ridge extending over the left eyebrow. 1911-1912–At various times there were found by Dawson and Smith Woodward rolled or abraded flints, known as 'eoliths,' also rolled or abraded remains of the hippopotamus, the rhinoceros, and of a mastodon proboscidean, claimed to be of greater age than the Piltdown gravels, possibly of Pliocene Red Crag age. At various times also there were unearthed (1) a Palaeolithic hammer-stone (see Fig. 21, No. 8) found in the undisturbed gravel,

Fig. 21. Sketches by the Author of the Scene of the Fifteen Years' Search by A. Smith Woodward for Fragments of the Skull and Teeth and for Evidence of the Flint and Bone Industry of Eoanthropus Dawsoni. A, general relations of the "Downs" to the Piltdown find. B, the Piltdown gravel workings from 1912 to 1921; C, relative location of some of the principal finds: skull and jaw parts found near together; (1) skull fragments in the workman's dump, (2) jaw, (3) canine, and (4) nasal bones, picked out of the undisturbed gravel near by, (5) flints and fossil bones scattered.

2) freshly worked flints, discovered by [65] Dawson in the Piltdown gravel dump (Fig. 22), and (3) the flint found by Ray Lankester. These flints are extremely important, because they are of the same geologic age as Piltdown man and can be compared with those of Foxhall and of the pre-Chellean of the Somme. 1912–Dawson and Smith Woodward began systematic search. All material was looked over and carefully sifted; it appears that the whole or greater part of the human skull mentioned above had been scattered by the workmen, who had thrown away the pieces unnoticed. One Sunday evening the blow of a pick caused the right half of a jaw to fly out of the undisturbed bottom of the gravel bed.

Fig. 22. Flints Found by Charles Dawson in the Piltdown Gravel. Three freshly chipped triangular and oval flint tools fashioned out of flint nodules split in two and flaked on one side only with very coarse, marginal retouch similar to the flints of the Foxhall quarry. 1/4-1/2 natural size. After Dawson.

The fore part of the jaw [66] had apparently been cut off by a long-previous blow of a workman's pick. A yard from the jaw an important piece of the occipital bone of the skull was found. 1913–A single right lower canine tooth, ape-like, was unearthed by Teilhard de Chardin, the French anthropologist. A pair of minute nasal bones were found, also the turbinal bones of the nasal region. 1914–A bone implement, partly shaped at one end out of a mastodon thigh bone, was discovered in the clay beneath the gravel. 1915–Annual visits and continue exploration, excavations, and sifting of materials, not rewarded by any further discovery, by Smith Woodward.

Reconstruction of the Piltdown Skull and Brain

The brain size of the Piltdown Dawn Man is one of the [67] points about which has raged the greatest controversy. It is interesting now to recall that in 1913 Smith Woodward first estimated the brain size at 1070 cubic centimeters. Arthur Keith, the distinguished comparative anatomist, maintained that when the skull was properly reconstructed the brain capacity would be found to equal 1500 cubic centimeters. Elliot Smith and Smith Woodward later maintained that the brain measured nearly 1300 cubic centimeters, equally the size of the smallest human brains of today and surpassing that of the Australians, which rarely exceeds 1310 cubic centermeters in the male and 1154 cubic centermeters in the female. ...

[72] Anatomists now agree that Eoanthropus is of a very ancient type, altogether such as we should expect to find at the very beginning of the Quaternary Age of Man or even in the Pliocene Age of Mammals. The present author came to the following conclusion in 1914: "It seems rea[72[sonable, therefore, to intepret the Piltdown skull as exhibiting closer resemblance fo the skulls of our human ancestor in mid-Tertiary times than any fossil skull hitherto found." ⁶

The author not only recants his former doubts as to the association of the jaw with the skull, but expresse his admiration of the great achievement of his life-long friend, Arthur Smith Woodward, in making the original discovery and in finally establishing beyond question the authenticity of the Dawn Man of Piltdown. The confirmation of the reality of the Piltdown man as a veritable ‘dawn man’ must be followed by renewed and determined effort to fix more precisely his geologic antiquity, about whih there has also been a great deal of difference of opinion andon which the discovery of Foxhall man, described above, may have some bearing.

We have to be reminded again and again that Nature is full of paradoxes and that the order of the universe is not the human order; we should always expect the unexpected and be prepared to discover new paradoxes.

Fig. 23. Worked Bone and Flint Tools Found Near the Piltdown Skull. Left: Partly shaped tool cut from the thigh bone of a mastodon or mammoth, possibly used for hide dressing. 1-12 natural size. After Smith Woodward.

Upper right: Most recent restoration of the Piltdown skull by Smith Woodward in which the nasal bones appear in place and the canine is inserted in the right half of the lower jaw. 1-5 natural size. Lower right: rolled flints, or ‘eoliths’; perçoir or borer above, râcloir or scraper below.

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1 Charles Dawson and A.S. Woodward: On the Discovery of a Palaeolithic Human Skull and Mandible in a Flint-bearing Gravel overlying the Wealden (Hastings Beds) at Piltdown, Fletching (Sussex). With an Appendix by Prof.. G. Elliot Smith, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., London, Vol. LXIX, 1913, pp. 117-151; Pls. 15-21. Ibid. Vol. LXX, 1914, pp. 82-99.

2 Marcellin Boule: Les Hommes Fossiles. Eléments de Paléontologie Humaine, pp. i-xi, 1-491, figs. 1-239.

3 T.H. Huxley: Further Remarks upon the Human Remains from the Neanderthal. Chap. XXXVI, p. 588, of "The Scientific Memoirs of Thomas Henry Huxley."

4 A.S. Woodward: Fourth Note on the Piltdown Gravel with Evidence of a Second Skull of Eoanthropus dawsoni. With an Appendix by Prof. G. Elliot Smith, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., Vol. LXXIII, 1917, pp. 1-10, Pl. 1, Figs. 1, 2.

5 A recent comparison of the single canine tooth has convinced Gregory, Hellman, and the author that it most nearly resembles the right lower canine of a female gorilla of relatively small size. It is very unlike a human canine in form and proportion. The doctors still disagree, for McGregor, another expert, feels strongly (December 15, 1921) that the identification of the Piltdown canine is a very uncertain matter.

6 Osborn: Men of the Old Stone Age, p. 25.

["Dawn Man of East Anglia" is an renovation of an earlier Osborn article, "The Dawn Man of Piltdown, Sussex," that appeared in Natural History, 1921. From that article, the following illustration has been taken.]

Fig. 1. All that was found of the fractured Piltdown skull, during the years 1911-1913, from which the complete skull was restored as shown in Figs. 2a 2b, 3a, 3b, 14.

A, B, C, D, skull fragments found by Dawson and Smith Woodward in 1911, 1912. E, jaw fragment found by Dawson in 1912. F, canine tooth found by Father Teilhard de Chardin in 1913. G, nasal bones found by Dawson in 1913. H, single worked flint found near original skull fragments by Smith Woodward. Jaw one third natural size; other fragments a bit larger than one third (distorted somewhat by camera.)