E. Cecil Curwen 1937

[5] All this is a preliminary to the principal method of prehistoric research, namely excavation.

Now excavation does not consist simply in moving soil and grabbing specimens. It is almost as improper for an inexperienced person to dig into an ancient site without supervision as it would be for such a person to perform a surgical operation. Unless excavation is properly carried out it merely results in the destruction of evidence that might have been correctly interpreted by someone more skilled. Careful planing and forethought are necessary, both as to the choice of site and as to the particular method of recording results which is most suitable to the circumstances. It is not merely what is found that is so important as exactly where it is found. Therefore everything that is found has to bear a label indicating in some manner its precise position in relation to certain fixed points. Accurately surveyed plans and sections must be drawn, and these, together with full records of details and adequate illustrations of the objects found, must be published without delay for the [6] benefit of other workers, for success depends upon co-ordination between all who are engaged in this study. Every one who by excavating destroys the evidence contained in the ground undertakes the responsibility of restoring that evidence on paper as fully, but concisely, as the limits imposed by editors will allow. Such a report should aim at being, first and foremost, a record of fact; whether it is readable or interesting to the public is of far less consequence. The cream of the matter can be served up for the public later.

Let us try to see why it is so important to record accurately the positions in which objects are found. It is self-evident that the lower levels of a mass of soil have been laid down before the upper levels. If the process of deposition of the soil has been slow, any objects of human workmanship found in the lower levels may be older than some of those found in the upper levels; but the latter may contain objects of various ages down to, but not later than, their period of deposition. This sounds complicated, but let us illustrate it by a simple comparison. Let us suppose that in the year 1900 a man lays down a book in a place where it will not be disturbed for many years, but before doing so slips in between the pages all the small change he has in his pocket at the time. Then let us suppose that in the year 1910 he does precisely the same thing, laying the second book on top of the first, and so on, every ten years. Finally, we examine the pile of books and by studying the dates on the coins try to arrive at the approximate date of the deposition of each book. In the lowest book we shall find coins dating, perhaps, anywhere between 1850 arid 1900, but nothing later; in the next the range of dates may be extended to 1909 or 1910, though there will still be many of earlier date than 1900. And so we shall find throughout the series that the earliest possible date of the deposition of each book will depend upon that of the latest coin found in it. This illustration is crude, but it indicates the principle by which successive layers of soil can be dated–not so often by coins as by pottery. The principle is this: [7] at any given level a deposit of soil cannot be earlier than the latest datable object found in it at that level. Naturally we cannot conclude in an isolated instance that a single datable object dates the deposit in which it is found; it may already have been very old when it got into that deposit. But in the case of superimposed layers with a sufficient number of datable objects in them a very fair estimate of the date of each layer can often be obtained by this method. . . . .

Hence we see the extreme importance of accurately labelling objects as to the exact position in which each was found. The deposits of soil which one needs to date are usually the ramparts of fort)five settlements, the soil that has silted into their ditches or into dwelling or other pits, or the accumulations of plough soil resulting from processes of cultivation.

As a result of co-ordination in research it has been established that most of the common objects of everyday life have, as the centuries passed, undergone progressive modification, or gradual change of style or fashion, or in some cases abrupt transition from one style to a completely new one. These changes can be studied in their proper order, because the earlier styles are normally found at lower levels than the later. The most useful objects for this study are pottery shards and, to a less extent, tools, "capons and ornaments of metal. At the present day we have an analogy in the possibility of dating a photograph by the dresses worn by the ladies in it, or by the year-model of a motor-car.

Thus by attention to stratification a system of sequence-dating can be established. The next step is to discover, if possible, where the ideas and improvements came from, that is, whether they were derived from neighbouring [8] people in other lands. . . .

[9] The climate of these islands has not remained constant during the last few thousand years, but has undergone fluctuations as regards temperature and humidity. These fluctuations are not nearly as great as those which occurred during the various geological epochs of much earlier date, when the evidence of fossils indicates that Britain was at one time enjoying a tropical climate, and at another suffering the rigours of the Arctic. The minor changes to which we refer were due to the shifting northwards or southwards of the belt of cyclonic depressions which form so prominent a feature of our present weather reports. In the chalk areas, such as we have in Sussex, their nature can be to some extent determined by studying the snail shells that are found at levels datable by pottery or other objects, for some varieties of snails have marked preferences as regards humidity. Many of them are so small that they can only be found by washing samples of soil under a strong lens in a laboratory–hence the desirability of collecting such samples from datable levels during an excavation. . . .

[12] Before proceeding to the actual drama of man's development in Sussex, we must first take a look at the stage upon which that drama was enacted, because geology and physical geography have such an important influence on history that without them the study of the latter may be meaningless.

The most prominent natural feature of the county is the range of chalk hills known as the South Downs, which extend for about fifty miles in an east-and-west direction from Beachy Head to the Hampshire border, beyond which they merge with the North Downs of Surrey to form the chalk plateau of Hampshire and Wiltshire. The southern slopes of these hills are gradual, and are broken up into numerous dry valleys; the northern slope, or escarpment, is very steep and abrupt. Consequently the range, which averages about five miles in width, attains its greatest altitude near its northern edge where it rises to a maximum of a little over 800 feet. A remarkable feature of these hills is the way in which the rivers, instead of rising in the hills and flowing down to the sea, rise in the plain to the north of them and then cut gaps clean through the Downs before reaching the sea. In this way the Downs are broken up into blocks by the rivers Cuckmere, Ouse, Adur and Arun. The only river that appears to behave normally in this respect is the little Lavant which rises in the Downs north of Chichester. An ex[13]planation of this phenomenon of the rivers will be given presently.

The surface of the chalk hills is remarkable for its gently flowing curves and the absence of abrupt changes of contour. It is this that gives them the restful quality that is so much more soothing to tired nerves than a fussy sea or overwhelming mountains. In their eastern half, that is to say, east of the River Arun, this quality is enhanced by the absence of hedges and the prevalence of short, dry turf which makes walking a delight. At the present day comparatively small areas are under cultivation, and even so, the absence of hedges and fences is noteworthy. Considerable areas are covered with a scrub of thorn, juniper, bramble and gorse in some parts. West of the Arun the Downs are much more wooded, large areas being covered with beech-trees, while most of the remainder is given up to scrub or hazel-thickets. Open downland here is exceptional, but the resultant scenic effect, as seen, for instance, at Arundel or Goodwood, is of the most satisfying kind. The beech is, however, a fairly recent arrival; in prehistoric times both the western and the eastern Downs were in all probability open grassland with a variable amount of scrub. . . .

Standing on the crest of the Downs and looking to the north one sees a wide undulating plain stretching away some twenty miles to the North Downs, and broken by ridges of sand hills running east and west, parallel to the chalk. This, broadly speaking, is the Weald of Sussex, Surrey and Kent, though the term is somewhat differently understood by different people. Probably it is strictly applicable only to the central hillier part of the region, [14] much of which is still forest, for the name derived from an Anglo-Saxon word, akin to the German Wald, meaning

'forest ', and as the Saxons settled very freely in the plain at the northern foot of the Downs they are not likely to have included that area in the 'forest ' which we know they did not effectively colonize. Similarly, the Downs, that is, the 'hills', formed another area which they left largely uninhabited, whereas the areas in which their settlements occur most thickly have received no distinctive name. On the other hand, the geologists include the whole of the plain north of the Downs under the term 'Weald', and from an archaeological point of view it is convenient to do likewise. The soils of the Weald consist of sands and clays in alternate bands stretching east and west, and these would in a state of nature be covered with forest and heath.

West of Brighton a flat coastal plain intervenes between the Downs and the sea. It fines out to a point at Hove, but attains its maximum width of about ten miles in the meridian of Chichester and Selsey. The soils are mostly gravels, loams and clays, the former probably being covered by heath and sparse woodland in prehistoric times, and the last by denser woodland.

Thus we see that Sussex consists of three main physical divisions–the Weald, the Downs and the coastal plain–all running parallel to one another in an east-to-west direction. The sea-coast cuts obliquely across all these divisions in its course which, in the main, runs from west-south-west to east-north-east. . . .

A brief outline of the geological history of the district will help to explain the geography, and is in any case essential for an appreciation of the problems raised by man's first appearance in Sussex. For this purpose it [15] will be necessary to consider a rather larger area than the county itself.

Most of the rocks–using the term in its geological sense, of which Sussex is composed have been laid down under water at an exceedingly remote period when the physical geography of the world was totally unlike that prevailing at present. At the beginning of the Cretaceous period the whole of what is now the south-east of England, and much else besides, was covered by a shallow fresh-water lake in the bottom of which the inflowing rivers deposited quantities of sand and some clay. In these shallow waters lived enormous reptiles such as the Iguanodon and the Plesiosaurus, whose remains were found in Tilgate Forest by Gideon Mantell, more than a century ago, and occasionally these huge creatures left their footprints on it as they disported themselves among the pools; such footprints arc greatly prized by collectors! The ripple-marked sandstone which is so fashionable for our crazy pavements bears the imprint of the wavelets of these primeval waters. Deposits laid down at this early period, and known geologically as Hastings Sand, Ashdown Sand and Wadhurst Clay, constitute a large part of the north and east of the county between Horsham and Hastings.

During this time the land was gradually sinking, and the lake becoming deeper till the bed of sand attained some hundreds of feet in thickness. Now the sediment forming at the bottom was no longer sand, but clay, and this attained a depth of something like 600 feet. This is the Wealden Clay which forms a belt of low-lying ground which surrounds Horsham on the north, west and south, and thence extends in a belt to Hailsham and Pevensey. ...

[26] CHAPTER III

PRIMEVAL HUNTERS

That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: how the knave jowls it to the ground! . . Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel? Hamlet

In the last chapter we described something of the preparation of the stage for the drama enacted by the human race–a preparation which occupied immeasurable aeons of geological time, probably running into millions of years. It was pointed out that man probably does not appear–at any rate in Sussex–until the beginning of the Pleistocene period, the final phase of the geological record–a phase that is insignificant in length when compared with the whole of that record, but which is nevertheless stupendous in proportion to the historic period of Europe and Western Asia. Looking back beyond the dawn of civilization we see an immense vista of many Stone Ages in succession stretching away back to, and perhaps in some places, beyond the beginning of the Pleistocene. These are broadly classified into three main groups –the Palaeolithic or Old Stone Age; the Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age, and the Neolithic or New Stone Age. The first of these groups forms the subject of the present chapter.

The Palaeolithic period corresponds in time with the Pleistocene, the duration of which is beyond

the power of man to determine, though several guesses have been made; most of these attempts speak in terms of hundreds of thousands of years, owing to the great geological changes that took place during that period, but such guesses must be taken for what they are worth. It was at any rate a [27] time that saw many fluctuations in the relative level of land and sea, and still greater fluctuations in climate, more than one Ice Age alternating with warmer intervals. In western Europe the Palaeolithic comprised a succession of several more or less distinct Stone Age cultures or 'industries', each probably of very great duration.. These cultures are distinguished from one another mainly by references in the technique of making flint implements which are the principal relics that they have left behind. It is always difficult to find intelligible and descriptive names to apply to such cultures, consequently archaeologists fallen back very largely on the habit of calling them after the names of places where they were first discovered or where they are typically represented. In this way the Palaeolithic cultures have for the most part been named after places in France or Belgium, each of which is commonly given an adjectival form resulting in an array of technical terms which may well be a source of dismay to the general reader. This must be avoided at all costs, and, perhaps fortunately for us from this point of view, only three of these cultures concern us in Sussex. The main divisions, from the oldest culture to the latest are named after Chelles, St. Acheul, Le Moustier, .Aurignac Solutre and La Madeleine. Of these we are concerned only with the first, second and third, which commonly provide the adjectival forms Chellean, Acheulean and Mousterian. The first two of these belong to the lower (i.e. earlier) Palaeolithic, or Drift period, while the last forms the middle Palaeolithic. The last three names on the full list belong to the upper (i.e. later) Palaeolithic, or Cave period, but are only slightly, if at all, represented in Sussex.

One of the main problems of research in this period of overlap between geology and archaeology is to place the various archaeological cultures in their proper relation to such physical phenomena as the recurring glaciations or Ice Ages to which reference was made in the last chapter. In this matter complete unanimity among students has not yet been attained, and reference to different text-[28] books, especially to those which are more than ten years old, will yield very contradictory results. At the same time we must form some sort of provisional scheme which will co-ordinate the known facts, even if further discoveries necessitate modifications. For this purpose Mr. J. Bernard Chalkin has, at the author's request, compiled a chart, largely embodying the views of Mr. J. Reid Moir; this chart we reproduce here. In it the reader will find events recorded in chronological order from below upwards, so that the most recent is at the top and the most ancient at the bottom. The first three columns indicate respectively the succession of the most important climatic changes, that of the principal cultures or industries, and the corresponding evidence from Sussex. By way of comparison and correlation with neighbouring districts two more columns are added, tabulating the principal evidence from the Thames Valley and from Norfolk and Suffolk ("East Anglia"), which form the main regions of Palaeolithic study in Britain.

[29]

Climate Industries Evidence from Evidence from Evidence from

Sussex the Thames Valley East Anglia

Temperate Recent

Neolithic Surface soil and alluvium

Mesolithic

Cold Magdalenian(?) Scouring of Stony Loam or Trall Brown Boulder Clay

Aurignacian Slidon and Avisford and FloodPlain Gravel valleys?

Warm Mousterian Coombe Rock? Loams, &c. 50- Sands and Loams

(Levalloisian) foot terrace of Thames

Cold Levailloisian Coombe Rock Coombe Rock Upper Chalky Boulder

Clay and Cannon-shot

Gravels

Warm Clactonian III 100 ft. Raised Beach 100-foot terrace Brick earth of High

of Thames Lodge, Ipswich and

Hoxne

Cold Selsey erratica Kimmeridge Boulder

Clay

Warm Early Acheulean? Corton and Mundesley

Sands?

Cold Cromer Tills and Nor-

wich Brick earth

Warm Chellean Piltdown Man? Selsey Cromer Forest Bed

Clactonian II Rostro-carinate?

[36] THE PILTDOWN DISCOVERIES

To some foreign archaeologists, who have never heard of Sussex, Piltdown is a household name, within the compass of whose eight letters the cream of British archaeology may be included. Piltdown itself is a hamlet of no great pretensions situated about 7-1/2 miles north of Lewes. Much of the country hereabouts presents the form of a flat plateau, into which the river Ouse and its tributaries have cut deep channels or gullies, thus masking to some extent its plateau character. The average height above sea-level is about 12O feet, and above the main stream of the Ouse about 80 feet. The late Mr. Charles Dawson, F.S.A., F.G.S., says of this plateau that it 'can in places be traced along a line drawn through Lindfield, Sheffield Park, Buckham Hill, Uckfield and Little Horsted and southwards, broadening out towards the Chalk Escarpment'. Scattered on this plateau, which represents the bed of a former estuary of the River Ouse, is a layer of gravel, which near Piltdown is from 3 to 5 feet thick, lying on the native Hastings Sand. It consists of a mixture of pebbles of Wealden iron-stone, derived locally, with angular brown flints, some of which are tabular, but all of which are more or less water-worn, but not so far as to resemble beach-pebbles. These flints have been ultimately derived from the chalk, but intermediately, no doubt, from other deposits. Mr. Dawson described this gravel as being clearly stratified, that is, divided into distinct layers or strata, four in number. ² Of these the gravel proper forms the third layer, and it was at the base of this that all the discoveries were made. Sir Arthur Smith-Woodward, F.R.S., subsequently gave it as his opinion that the whole deposit is a shingle bank which may have accumulated in a comparatively short space of time, and that it presents definite evidence of flood-action.³

[37] Some years previous to 1913, Mr. Charles Dawson was walking along the private road ⁴

to Barkham Manor House, near Piltdown, when he observed two labourers digging gravel in a shallow excavation by the side of the road. In the course of examining the gravel geologically he asked the men if they had found bones or other fossils there, and urged them to preserve anything they might find. On a subsequent visit to the pit he was handed a small piece of an unusually thick human skull-bone. It was not until 1911 that anything further came to light. Apparently the labourers found the greater part, if not the whole, of the human skull to which the foregoing fragment belonged, and taking it for a cocoa-nut, deliberately smashed it–so Sir Arthur Smith Woodward informs the author. Mr. Dawson was able to retrieve from one of the spoil-heaps a larger fragment of the skull, including part of the left eyebrow ridge. Subsequently Mr. Dawson and Sir Arthur Smith Woodward employed 1abour themselves to make a systematic search among the spoil-heaps and gravel, and so found other portions of the skull. In a deeper depression in the undisturbed gravel the right half of a lower jaw was found–apparently m nearly the same spot where the first fragment of the skull came to light. A yard away, and at the same level, part of the back of the skull was discovered. An important observation is that all the fragments show little or no signs of rolling or other abrasion, that is to say, they have not been to any great extent knocked about by river or sea, and therefore may be regarded as contemporary with the deposition of the gravel which they were found. This, however, is a controversial point

These excavations also brought to light teeth or fragments of teeth of a Pliocene ⁵ type of elephant, of a mastodon, a stegodon, a hippopotamus, a rhinoceros and a [38] Pleistocene beaver. ⁶ A few feet away, in the surface soil behind the hedge bordering the lane, part of a red-deer's antler was found, and also the tooth of a Pleistocene horse. A piece of a bone of a deer, found in one of the spoil-heap, bears on its surface certain small cuts and scratches which were apparently made by man. All the specimens are highly mineralized with oxide of iron.

Fig. 4.–Flint Implement, Piltdown (1/2)

After G. M. Woodward (Natural Hit. Museum, S. Kensington)

Careful watch was also kept upon the flints, nearly all of brown colour. A few which have quite a brilliant red tinge, especially on recently fractured surfaces, may have been heated in a fire. The forms of many of the flints resemble those of the so-called Eoliths, which by some are regarded as representing man's first unskilled efforts at chipping tools, and by others as the results of purely natural forces acting upon a mass of angular flints which are submitted to pressure and rolling Besides these, a few flint implements of an early type were found in the gravel (fig. 4), and

several others on the surface in the neighbourhood. The chipping appears chiefly on one face in each case, and all are slightly water-worn or rolled. They are thick and clumsy, and the flaking is broad and sparing. Their rolled condition seems to indicate that they may belong to an earlier date than that of the deposition of the gravel.

Work went on, every spadeful being laboriously sifted. I August 1913 a lower canine tooth was discovered, [39] apparently belonging to the original skull, and also some of the bones of the nose. In 1914 a remarkable piece of bone came to light apparently shaped by the hand of man. Though found near the surface, where it had probably been thrown by the labourers, its staining and adherent soil proved that it had ultimately come from the same level as the skull. This implement, which with the skull and other remains, is to be seen at the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, is a straight, pointed tool or weapon, about 16 inches long, 4 inches wide, and from 1-1/2 to 2 inches thick (fig. 5). The thicker end has been artificially sharpened to a point by such hacking blows as might be produced by a sharp flint, while the thinner end which forms the butt has been rounded by trimming o£ a similar character. On one edge of the tool, near the point, is a cross-groove which represents a perforation from which the outer wall has been broken off; this accident probably occurred while the tool was still in use, because the beginning of another perforation is visible beside the first, as if the owner had attempted to remedy the defect. It is important to notice that, like the skull-bones, and unlike the flint implements, this tool shows no sign of having been water-worn, and therefore may be regarded as probably contemporary with the human remains.

Fig. 5.–Implement made from Elephant's thigh-bone, Piltdown (1/6)

After G. M. Woodward (Nat. His. Museum, S. Kensington)

The implement which we have just described proves to have been made from the middle part of the thigh-bone of a very large elephant, larger than the mammoth, and [40] it is considered to have been flaked from a fresh piece of bone by a blow delivered at one end, in the same way that flint-chips were flaked from their original cores. The original thigh-bone must have been a little over 4 feet in length. Such gigantic elephants are only known to have lived in Western Europe at the end of the Pliocene and the beginning of the Pleistocene period. ⁷

The uses of a pointed tool may have been numerous and seem fairly obvious, but the purpose of the lateral perforation near the point is far from clear. If intended for the attachment of a thong, the whole thing would resemble a very large harpoon-head.

In 1915 a further discovery was made, at a point about two miles from the original gravel-

digging. In a heap of stones that had been raked together and collected from the surface of a field Mr. Dawson found two pieces of a fossilized human skull and a molar tooth, of precisely the same peculiar type as the remains of the first individual from Piltdown. Shortly afterwards the tooth of a rhinoceros also came to light in the same gravel. ⁸

Having described the various objects found at Piltdown and the circumstances of their discovery, we must now turn our attention to the peculiarities of the original skull. The remains comprise the greater part of the brain-case, some nasal bones and one half of the lower jaw with three teeth (plate I).

Plate I

Cast of the Piltdown Skull Restored

Tinted parts (darker and lighter) based on direct evidence; white parts conjectural

((Original fragment in Nat. His. Museum, S. Kensington)

The most prominent features of the cranium are its great thickness and its small capacity. The bone varies in thickness from 10 to 20 mm. (0.4 to 0.8 inches), which contrasts with the 5 or 6 mm. (l inch) which is usual in the case of modern European skulls, while the thickness of one Mousterian skull from France was no more than 6 to 8 mm. The capacity of the braincase as calculated by Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, resembles that of some of the lowest skulls of existing Australians, being about two-thirds of that of modern Europeans. Apart from these peculiarities the details of the bones are typically human, [41] with the exception that the contours of the temples and of the back of the skull are more suggestive of the ape. ⁹

By making a negative plaster cast of the interior of the brain-case Sir Grafton Elliot Smith was

able to recover the approximate shape of the brain, to the convolutions of which the bones of the skull are to some extent moulded. From this it is evident that the brain was smaller. and presented more primitive features than any other known human specimen. The arrangement of the convolutions was far less developed than is the case either in Mousterian or modern man. Two areas were, however, relatively well developed, each of which is especially characteristic of the human, as opposed to the simian, brain. One of these represents the speech-centre, which indicates that the individual possessed the power o£ 'spontaneous elaboration of speech and the ability to recall names'. The fact also that the left- half of the brain was longer than the right shows that its possessor was right-handed.¹⁰

The lower jaw is, if possible, even more peculiar. The square jut of the human chin is completely lacking, being replaced by the receding slope of the ape's jaw.¹¹ On the other hand, the molar teeth, though distinctly human, are of the most primitive type, while the canine is believed to have erupted before the second and third molars, as in man, and not after them, as in the apes. The canine, or eye-tooth, itself is remarkable in resembling the milk tooth of modern man rather than the corresponding permanent tooth. ¹¹ `,

Sir Arthur Smith Woodward sums up these characters as follows:

Though some have suggested that the jaw does not belong to the skull but to an ape, this opinion is not generally accepted. Sir Grafton Elliot Smith regards the individual as a young adult, possibly a female. ¹³

Since the original discoveries and reports which have here been summarized, much discussion has gone on in many parts of the world as to the significance and age of these remains. To record these controversies here would not be possible, and in any case it is more profitable to hear the considered judgement of a leading authority on the Palaeolithic period at the present day. For this purpose Mr.J. Reid Moir at the author's invitation most kindly written the following summary of his conclusions with regard to the Piltdown discoveries, and allows them to be included here. He says:

[43] When the artifacts ¹⁴ from Piltdown are examined it is realized that these, unfortunately, do not lend themselves to accurate dating. The specimens simulating in their forms Harrisonian eoliths I believe to be of natural origin, and produced by a type of thermal fracture. These flints, after having been flaked by these means, were subjected to rolling by water action, during which collisions with other stones caused the removal of small and typically natural flakes from some of the sharp edges. But there are other flaked from the Piltdown gravel which are undoubted artifacts.

These take the form of primitive flake-implements produced by what is known as 'free' flaking. It is known that this technique was in vogue in very early times. Numerous examples of it have indeed been found in the Cromer Forest Bed, of Early Pleistocene age, and in the still older Bone Bed beneath the Red Crag. But in the present state of our knowledge it is not possible to say whether the Piltdown specimens are referable to one or either of these periods.

The primitive flake-implements from Piltdown are certainly not greatly rolled (in this they resemble the human bones found with them), and it seems reasonable to regard these various remains as being assignable to some part of the lengthy period represented by the Cromer Forest Bed of Norfolk. The remarkable bone implement found at Piltdown, made from a part of the femur of a large elephant (probably Elephas meridonalis which is common in the Cromer Forest Bed) is not exactly comparable with anything yet discovered. Primitive bone-implements occur beneath the Red Sand in the Cromer Forest Bed, but none of these is quite like the Piltdown example, though one of the Forest Bed specimens roughly resembles it.

Taking all the known facts into consideration it appears probable that Eoanthropus represents one of the types of human being existing at the very beginning of Pleistocene times.

It is satisfactory to observe that these conclusions tally very closely with those originally put forward by Mr. Charles Dawson and Sir Arthur Smith Woodward in their original papers.

It may also be noted that part of a skull of apparently similar type has recently been found by Mr. Marston in the 100-foot terrace of the Thames at Swanscombe, Kent, associated with Middle Acheulean implements. ¹⁵

[47] Summary

The details that we have been considering give but scant material for reconstructing a picture of the times. Even with the help of the much fuller results obtained in other districts the picture of the Drift period must remain very sketchy. Perhaps the Piltdown discoveries are the most helpful, for they reveal something of the type of human being then existing–a type which may be paralleled by discoveries at Heidelberg in Germany, and more recently at the Cave of Chou-kou-tien, near Peking in China. That this ape-like human being is ancestral to any part of the present human race cannot be taken for granted, and is, indeed, very improbable. The much more highly developed Neanderthal race, which was responsible for the Mousterian culture, is not generally regarded as ancestral to ourselves, owing to certain anatomical peculiarities, although their brain-capacity was fully equal to ours. So far as it goes, the present evidence seems to favour the view that fresh types of man appeared suddenly rather than by gradual evolution. Modern man (Homo sapiens) first appears, fully fledged, in the late Palaeolithic or cave period.

[48] How this Piltdown being lived it would be difficult to say without a good deal of guesswork. He certainly shaped rude tools of flint and bone, and equally surely lived by hunting elephants and other game. As to whether he built himself a hut or lived in a hole in the ground or in a tree, we can only guess. Even the locality of his dwelling is not absolutely certain, but it is likely to have been on the dry gravelly banks of rivers or on the sea-shore. In fact, Acheulean man seems to have had a distinct preference for such situations, which probably means that he was interested in fishing; a good example of this is provided by the Late Acheulean sea-side settlement on the raised beach at Slindon–a kind of Palaeolithic forerunner of Bognor Regis. In fact, our knowledge of the life of these people can still be pretty accurately summed up in the words of the old Roman poet: In ancient times a man's weapons were his hands, his nails and his teeth, with stones and branches broken from the trees, and also fire, when this had been discovered.' ¹⁶ We can hardly improve upon this as a general picture.