THE DATING OF EARLY HUMAN REMAINS. 59
HUNSTANTON SKELETON.
This skeleton was found by Mr. T. Tucker in 1897, in a bed
of undisturbed gravel, at a depth of about seven feet from the
surface. The age of the gravel is uncertain, and the remains
belong to Modern Man. No claim of Palaeolithic date has
ever been urged, still the circumstances of the discovery and
the race-type of the remains might be worth re-investigation
in the light of the comparative evidences which are now
available.34
CONCLUSION.
The origin and early history of man is a subject of universal
appeal, not merely to the archaeologist, the geologist, or the
biologist, but to all who have a spark of intellectual curiosity
in their being.
As we glance over the foregoing brief sketch of the present
state of this enquiry, the outstanding feature is this : how little
we yet know of the men themselves as compared with the mass
of evidence which has accumulated regarding the works of their
hands.
I chose this problem for the subject of my address, partly
from the universality of its interest, and partly because two
East Anglian discoveries have figured largely in recent specula-
tions, while the sites of several others are situated immediately
opposite to us across the Thames. Thus we in Essex, between
Ipswich, Tilbury, and Galley Hill, are in the vortex of the
controversy which rages round the origin and development
of the modern race-types of mankind. If these discoveries can
bear the interpretation placed upon them by some authorities,
then the development of modern man is pushed far back, com-
paratively speaking, into geological time, and has been a very
slow process.
For myself, I do not see that it matters whether the process
of human evolution has been slower or faster, but what I think
matters a great deal is this: that we should not build our theories
upon a foundation which is insecure.
34 E. T. Newton, Proc. Geol. Assoc., 1898, vol. xv., p 258.