Description of the Ipswich Skeleton

Extract

Mr. Moir has described the circumstances under which the skeleton was found and has given the evidence on which these bones have been assigned to the period preceding the formation of the Boulder Clay. It remains for me to give a description of the skeleton and to draw certain inferences as to the kind of man to which it belonged. Before doing so, however, I should like to mention a matter which may be of service to future investigators. So fragile were the remains, such was the degree of disintegration, that Mr. Moir found it impossible to extract the bones from the matrix in which they were embedded. He therefore, most wisely, cut out the stratum in which the bones lay as solid blocks, which were forwarded to me in the condition in which they were excavated. On reaching the Museum we impregnated each block with a solution of gelatine and then proceeded to expose the bones by removing from them the overlying boulder clay piecemeal and leaving them still in situ on the underlying glacial sands. The removal of the boulder clay required extreme care and great patience, but the advantage of leaving the bones attached to the underlying parts of the blocks became very apparent when we came to reconstruct the position of parts of the skeleton.