Life, 1914-01-08 · page 7 of 44
Life — January 8, 1914 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page presents a satirical commentary on the Piltdown skull discovery. The text discusses Professor Leon Williams, a celebrated anthropologist who recently described the "Piltdown skull," discovered in a flint gravel bed in Sussex, England—estimated to be 200,000 to 1 million years old. The cartoon illustrates the humorous irony: children are being punished for gossiping about neighbors, with the caption sarcastically suggesting that if parents disciplined grown-ups similarly, those adults might one day become famous as "the missing link" between geological eras—a reference to evolutionary theory. The satire mocks both scientific ambition and parental hypocrisy, suggesting that future archaeologists might discover the skeletons of present-day gossips as evolutionary evidence.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Who Knows? ROFESSOR LEON WILLIAMS, the celebrated anthropologist, has been recently describing the Piltdown skull, which was discovered about a year ago in a flint gravel bed in Sussex, England. Professor Williams says this skull is quite old. It is reasonably cer- tain to be over two hundred thousand years old; it may be five hundred thou- sand years old, or even a million and a half. We regret that we have no means of verifying Professor Williams's esti- mate. We have seen a picture of the skull, and have been interested in com- paring it casually with some other skulls we have met, and we must say that it bears up very well. We believe that the owner of it, whose name we understand is unknown, is all right; or perhaps we should say that we know nothing against him, except pos- sibly that he was a native of Sussex. We understand, however, that some good men come from there, and we are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. What we wish particularly to point out is, not anything with regard to the character of the owner of the skull, but merely that each one of us should remember that the same opportunity may come to us. There is always the Possibility that two or three hundred thousand years later we may be dis- covered by some ambitious scientist, and serve to illustrate a theory of the universe which will be a great help to everyone concerned. Certainly this thought gives us all something to look forward to. Any one of us, if he takes the precaution to be buried in a sand- stone strata, may some day wake up to find himself famous as the missing link between two geological eras. T. LL M. IF OUR PARENTS WERE TO PUNISH US GROWN-UPS WHEN WE ARE NAUGHTY. “{'VE TOLD YOU A DOZEN TIMES NOT TO GOSSIP ABOUT YOUR NEIGHBORS comicbooks.com