The Piltdown Skull and Brain Cast

Abstract

THE excellent figure of the Piltdown brain cast which accompanied Prof. Elliot Smith's last letter (NATURE, November 13, p. 318) brings out clearly the differences which separate him and me. His figure represents a brain with approximately symmetrical right and left hemispheres, so far as these are viewed from the hinder or occipital aspect. If, then, the anatomical parts occupy corresponding positions on the two sides, he has solved the problem of how to reconstruct the Piltdown skull so as to obtain a considerably smaller brain than I had postulated. I have made a tracing of his reconstruction in order to fill in with some details the exact relationship of parts represented by his drawing. It will be seen he has obtained symmetry by the most simple means. In the original brain cast the right hemisphere of the brain measured only 555 cubic centimetres, the left half 645 c.c.; this difference of 90 c.c. referred only to the hinder part of each hemisphere. In Prof. Elliot Smith's reconstruction the hemispheres have been balanced by moving the left hemisphere towards or beyond the middle line and enlarging the left hemisphere. The middle line which Prof. Elliot Smith has selected is exactly that used by Dr. Smith Woodward in the reconstruction of the skull, not that which he employed when building up the brain cast; in building up the brain he employed another middleline altogether.