Woodward, however, was fully satisfied with his own artistic work on
Eoanthropus; for he says: “While the skull, indeed, is evidently human,
only approaching a lower grade in certain characters of the brain, in
the attachment for the neck, the extent of the temporal muscles and
in the probable size of the face, the mandible appears to be almost
precisely that of an ape, with nothing human except the molar teeth.”
(Cf. Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1913, pp. 505, 506.) Of the cranial
capacity Woodward gives the following estimate: “The capacity of the
brain-case cannot, of course, be exactly determined; but measurements
both by millet seed and water show that it must have been at least
1,070 cc., while a consideration of the missing parts suggests that
it may have been a little more (note the parsimoniousness of this
concession!). It therefore agrees closely with the capacity of the
Gibraltar skull, as determined by Professor Keith, and equals that of
the lowest skulls of the existing Australians. It is much below the
Mousterian skulls from Spy and La Chapelle-aux-Saints.” (_Loc. cit._,
p. 505.)
Where Doctor Woodward came to grief, however, was in his failure to
discern the obvious disproportion between the mismated cranium and
mandible. As a matter of fact, the mandible is older than the skull
and belongs to a fossil ape, whereas the cranium is more recent and
is conspicuously human. Woodward, however, was blissfully unconscious
of this mésalliance. What there is of the lower jaw, he assures us,
“shows the same mineralized condition as the skull” and “corresponds
sufficiently well in size to be referred to the same individual without
any hesitation.” (_Loc. cit._, p. 506.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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