OLDEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 144131, 28 June 1913, Page 7

OLDEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD.

ROMANCE OF SCIENCE. LONDON, May 16. Tho grinning skull of the oldest woman in the world is now beneath a glass case iu thr large central hall of the Natural History Museum at South .Kensington for all the world to see. It was the discovery of tiro fragmentary remains of this skull that sent such a thrill of excitement throughout tho scientific world in the lato autumn of last year. Mr. Charles Dawson, F.S.A., unearthed it from a pit at Piltdown Common, Sussex, in wdiioh ho had been engaged in geological excavation for several years, and a great company of distinguished professors gathered .at the meeting of tho Geological Society at which the discovery was first made public. It is not an object of beauty, even as skulls may bo regarded as varying in gracefulness, hut iu her defence it may be pleaded that tho woman was a semi-simian, combining in herself the traits of a human being with the characteristics of the apo. Scientists regard her as the one specimen extant of “the missing link.” Her age eludes one even now. She may have lived 50,000 years ago. or 100,000, or even 2UU.000, for geologists have agreed to differ upon so delicate a subject; but it is believed that she belongs to the Pliocene period, and it is certain that “our rough island story” was in its very earliest chapters when sha walked abroad on tho Sussex Downs. Her remains form ono of tho most romantic discoveries that have ever rewarded the researches of a geologist, and although a pilgrimage of scientists to England to inspect them is not predicted this year no geologist from Europe or America wfio finds himself in London this summer will meet the opportunity of leaving his card upon her at South Kensington. The actual remains are not exhibited to the general public. They are being treasured with all tho caro that should be lavished upon rare possessions at a time when her successors in this country are rather more mischievous than she, poor-, simian, ever showed herself to be. Savants and students may examine them, however. What the general public are shown ia a cleverly built-up model of the skull. The remains discovered comprised no more than a portion of the left side of the skull and a piece of the lower jaw, but with these as a guide Mr. Frank Barlow lias succeeded in reproducing what is regarded as a faithful and reliable model of the whole. By careful observation and scientific deduction, tho conjunction of the human and the simian traits in the same individual has been roproduemed with great skill. The task of making tho model has occupied Mr. Barlow for many weeks in tne vast workshops beneath the museum. By noting tho formation of the left, half of tho skull, ho explained yesterday, it was possible to, build np tho right side with a considerable degree of certainty, and on the same plan the lower jaw could be completed with a sura touch. While, however, tho conformation of tlie whole of tho skull could thus bo satisfactorily established, tho apjiearaiico of tho facial lioues and the upper jaw was largely conjecture. The jaw-bone is in every respect characteristic of that of tho chimpanzee, and Mr. Barlow said that in reconstructing the model he had followed tho logical course of furnishing it with the dental equipment of the simian typo. BIG TEETH AND SMALL BRAIN. , No modern human being possesses ‘teeth of the size and shape of those seen in this reconstructed model, and moro than anything else the powerful toeth and heavy under jaw servo to emphasise tho ape-like characteristics of this primitive being. A cast of the brain has been taken from the restored skull and, is also on view in the case. While th© brain cavity of a normal human being measures over 90 cubic inches this Pliocene skull has a capacity of not more than 64| cubic inches, showing that the brain development of modern woman is ono-third greater than that of the semisimian ancestor. From the greater development of the brain at the back of tho left lobe it is judged that tho individual was right-handed—another item in the chain of evidence preying the skull to be of the human species. There can be Httlo doubt that the Piltdown woman’s remains aro the earliest yet disentombed. They are older than the fragments found at Neandortal, in Prussia, in 1856, or even than the jaw found at Heidelberg, in Germany, in 1907. Some scientists, Professor Klaatsch among them, hold that this primitive type was driven back and extirpated by a higher race of man which existed contemporaneously with it on the earth. There is, however, no x'cal evidence to support this view.—DaiLv Mail.