Pleistocene Skull Found in England

New York Times November 23, 1912

Special Cable to The New York Times.

London, Nov. 23.– An important prehistoric find in England is causing great excitement among scientists generally, and anthropology students in particular. While excavating in Sussex workmen unearthed the fragments of a human skull, which are now being pieced together. The detailed description is withheld until Dec.18, when it will be given at a meeting of the Geological Society.

Experts, however, declare that the skull is that of a paleollithic man, and undoubtedly the earliest evidence of man in this country, dating from the beginning of the pleistocene period.

It was found in association with bones of one of the most ancient types of elephant. The stratum in which it lay was the beach of a very old river bed. The skull belongs roughly to the same age as the famous Heidelberg skull and is quite as early as anything which has been found in Europe.

The skull resembles the Neanderthal specimen, but belongs to a much lower and even more primitive type of mankind than that. Before this discovery the earliest skull found in England was one dug up near Ipswich last year, but the conditions of the Ipswich find leave a loophole for doubt.

This is no doubt, it is said, about the geological age of the Sussex skull. Experts will not venture an opinion as to the date of the Sussex man, but he probably lived millions of years ago.