Pleistocene Man With A Big Brain.

New York Times 100 years ago today, April 8, 1913:
New Find In England of a Skeleton of the Post-Paleolithic Period.
SCIENTISTS ARE EXCITED
Discovery Throws Light on a Previously Very Obscure Prehistoric Age — Lecture on it To-day.
By Marconi Transatlantic Wireless Telegraph to The New York Times.
    LONDON, April 7.—Light on a very obscure prehistoric period in England will, it is expected, be thrown at a meeting of the Fellows of the Royal Anthropological Institute to-morrow, when W. H. Cook will describe a discovery of human remains in a deposit of brick earth near the village of Hailing, on the west bank of the Medway.
    The importance of the discovery lies, not in the actual light it throws on the transition stage from the paleolithic to the neolithic periods, but in the assurance it gives to archaeologists that material still exists from which the history of this long-past period can be reconstructed.
    The discovery, which consisted of a skeleton, was made last August in the course of excavation work. It lay in a stratum of brick earth, with four overlaying strata, the lines of which were unbroken and undisturbed. It was evident that the four upper strata had been formed since the human remains were deposited.
    Subsequent discoveries threw light on the probable period at which the burial was made. They included charred wood, bones, and a number of worked flints. Experts examined the flints, which belong to an indeterminate class occurring both in late paleolithic and early neolithic times. Animal bones that were found are assigned to the same date.
    One expert expresses the opinion that the brick-earth in which the skeleton was found belongs to a late pleistocene formation. In the corresponding terrace on the opposite side of the valley the remains of pleistocene animals occur, and it may be inferred that the brick-earth in which the skeleton was found is of like age.
    Very little is known of the English people at this transitional period. The Tilbury remains, which were found in 1883 at a depth of 34 feet, were usually regarded as the solitary representative of the Englishmen of the transitional period.
    The brick-earths at Halling are considerably older than the formations at Tilbury. Prof. Keith has found, however, close resemblance between the Hailing and the Tilbury men. Both were strongly built, small men about 5 feet 4 inches in stature. The Hailing man had a brain capacity little above the modern average for such a head. The head is well formed, with no trace of the great overhanging brow-ridges which characterize the Neanderthal skull. As was the case with the Tilbury skull, the teeth of the Hailing man are much worn. Most of the molar teeth were lost prematurely through disease. The disease, however, was not that which affects the teeth of modern civilized races, namely caries, but abscesses formed at the roots as a result of overwear of the teeth, with exposure of the pulp cavities.