250,000-years-old Inquest Held

Northern Advocate, 30 December 1938, Page 10

250,000-years-old Inquest Held

The British Association for the 1 Advancement of Science held an in- ■ quest over one of the oldest and deadest Englishmen, writes Waldemar Kaempffert in the “New York Times.” He lived in Swanscombe, now a part ‘ of London, 250,000 years ago. ; His remains are all too few—two petrified parts of his hinder skull—■but they constitute what Sir Arthur . j Keith considers the most important ; | discovery made in England in his L! lifetime, the famous Piltdown man > 1 not excepted. . ' A. T. Marston, a London dentist, . dug up the bones in 1935, together . with the remains of elephants, rhinoceroses, deer, and hunting dogs. When he submitted his bones to leading authorities, together with his ! opinion that they were at least J 100,'000 years old, he was treated ’ with the pitying scorn that usually falls to the loi of amateurs. Now that they have had two years : to study the Swanscombe man, to- | day the same authorities admit their error. Sir Arthur said the Swans- ’ combe skull came from the “only mid-pleistocene Englishman known ■ to us.” P ’ Link in Evolution The discovery is important be- . cause it provides another link in the L chain of evolution of the human race and because it shows that as . far back as 250,000 years ago there were human beings in England who were not markedly different from t the Englishmen who walk in Piccadilly. Though unlike any other known , European, the Swanscombe man bears some resemblance to the much older Piltdown man. Sir Arthur is sure there is some relationship between the Swanscombe and Piltdown men. Degree of Difference “The degree of difference between the Piltdown and Swanscombe skulls is that seen when we compare an automobile of 1900 with its successor of today,” he explained. At the end of the inquest Mr. Marston, the Swanscombe discoverer, arose. He did not mince words in describing the scorn and scepticism with which his findings originally , were received. He vowed he would go back to Swanscombe to find the rest of the bones, and wound up with his own version of the Swanee River. “ ’Way down upon the old Thames River—there’s where I want |o roam. “There’s whore my heart is ever, there’s where I found my bone.” The Middle Stone Age also occupied . the association. It is a period that goes back 140,000 years to the time when the climate of Europe was decidedly milder than now. It survived into the first cold phase of the last Ice Age and is still found in some places. During the warm interval between the two glaciations Homo Sapiens spread over Europe, produced his stone tool industry, and crowded out the Neanderthal man. Expert’s View According to Sir Arthur, in the Middle Stone Age, just as in the present age, each continent had its own peculiar races of humanity. Yet in the evolution of these races there seems to have been a remarkable degree of parallelism. Humanity seems to have passed through very similar stages. This raises the question of the resemblances of the culture of the Middle Stone Ago in different regions. Inter-continental migration is suggested by some to explain these resemblances, but Sir Arthur finds anatomical evidence against it which is like saying that Chinese and Englishmen show certain resemblances in culture yet belong to different stock. '