Men of the Old Stone Age: Their Environment, Life and Art

by Henry Fairfield Osborn

Fig. 72. Restoration of the head of Piltdown man, full front, after model by J. H. McGregor. One-quarter life size. (Compare Figs. 68 and 71.)

Another theory as to the relationships of Eoanthropus is that of Marcelin Boule,[(21)] who is inclined to regard the jaws of the Piltdown and Heidelberg races as of similar geologic age, but of dissimilar racial type. He continues: "If the skull and jaw of Piltdown belong to the same individual, and if the mandibles of the Heidelberg and Piltdown men are of the same type, this discovery is most valuable in establishing the cranial structure of the Heidelberg race. But it appears rather that we have here two types of man which lived in Chellean times, both distinguished by very low cranial characters. Of these the Piltdown race seems to us the probable ancestor in the direct line of the recent species of man, Homo sapiens; while the Heidelberg race may be considered, until we have further knowledge, as a possible precursor of Homo neanderthalensis."

The latest opinion of the German anatomist Schwalbe[(22)] is that the proper restoration of the region of the chin in the Piltdown man might make it possible to refer this jaw to Homo sapiens, but this would merely prove that Homo sapiens already existed in early Pleistocene times. The skull of the Piltdown man, continues Schwalbe, corresponds with that of a well-developed, good-sized skull of Homo sapiens; the only unusual feature is the remarkable thickness of the bone.[AB]

Finally, our own opinion is that the Piltdown race was not related at all either to the Heidelbergs or to the Neanderthals, nor was it directly ancestral to any of the other races of the Old Stone Age, or to any of the existing species of man. As shown in the human family tree in Chapter VI, the Piltdown race represents a side branch of the human family which has left no descendants at all.

Mammalian Life of Chellean and Acheulean Times[(23)]

Southern mammoth.
Hippopotamus.
Straight-tusked elephant.
Broad-nosed rhinoceros.
Spotted hyæna.
Lion.
Bison and wild ox.
Red deer.
Roe-deer.
Giant deer.
Brown bear.
Wolf.
Badger.
Marten.
Otter.
Beaver.
Hamster.
Water-vole.

The mammalian life which we find with the more advanced implements of Chellean times apparently does not include the old Pliocene mammals, such as the Etruscan rhinoceros and the sabre-tooth tiger. With this exception it is so similar to that of Second Interglacial times that it may serve to prove again that the third glaciation was a local episode and not a wide-spread climatic influence. This life is everywhere the same, from the valley of the Thames, as witnessed in the low river-gravels of Gray's Thurrock and Ilford, to the region of the present Thuringian forests near Weimar, where it is found in the deposits of Taubach, Ehringsdorf, and Achenheim, in which the mammals belong to the more recent date of early Acheulean culture. The life of this great region during Chellean and early Acheulean times was a mingling of the characteristic forest and meadow fauna of western Europe with the descendants of the African-Asiatic invaders of late Pliocene and early Pleistocene times.

Pl. IV. The Piltdown man of Sussex, England. Antiquity variously estimated at 100,000 to 300,000 years. The ape-like structure of the jaw does not prevent the expression of a considerable degree of intelligence in the face. After the restoration modelled by J. H. McGregor.