H. H. Newman detailed hominid development through fossils from
Java, Piltdown, Heidelberg, and elsewhere. Although Piltdown man
later lost his place in the human family tree, Cole added a new find,
"made only a few months ago in Bechuanaland of South Africa," pur-
portedly of a being intermediate between humans and anthropoids.
"There is nothing peculiar or exceptional about the fossil record of
man. It is considerably less complete than that of the horse, . . . but it is
far more complete than that of birds," Newman asserted. "Much has
been said by the antievolutionists about the fragmentary nature of the
fossil record of man, but many other animals have left traces far less
readily deciphered and reconstructed." ⁶

Yet Bryan expressed concern only about the teaching of human evo-
lution. "The import of the Tennessee trial is in the presence of Mr.
Bryan there," the Chicago Tribune warned at the time. "What he wants
is that his ideas, his interpretations and beliefs should be made manda-
tory. When Mr. Darrow talks of bigotry he talks of that. Bigotry seeks
to make opinions and beliefs mandatory." Bryan's beliefs did not reject
all science, or even all evolutionary theory. "Hands off one thing and
one thing alone," the Tribune observed, "the divine creation of man,
the human being with a soul. You may not teach that the Piltdown
man reveals any relationship to the anthropoid ape." ⁷ Given the preoc-
cupation of both sides with scientific evidence of humanity's anthro-
poidal ancestry, I begin the story here.

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