The Origin of Man and of His Superstitions

by Carveth Read

That the race was formerly fairer than it is now may be inferred from the whiteness of its children’s hair: the trait has outlived its utility. The occurrence of a fair complexion in some mountain tribes, in the Alps, e. g., has occasioned the conjecture that it may be due in some way to mountainous conditions,[23] of which snow might be one; but, if we suppose that the Nordic race extended during the Glacial Period into Western Europe (having already acquired its distinctive characters), a fair complexion in the Alps may be understood by supposing that, whilst the greater number of them followed the ice-sheet back to the north-east, some followed it southward up into the mountains—if the complexion is really ancient there.

Two objections to this hypothesis will occur to every one: (i) Why are not the Esquimo fair? Because, I suppose, they are much more recent immigrants into the Arctic regions, and perhaps were fully clothed when they arrived there. (ii) Could the Nordic people have existed in such circumstances unclothed? Whether this was possible physiologists must judge. We see the Fuegians maintain themselves, practically naked, under very inclement conditions. And it is not necessary to assume that the Nordic hunters were entirely naked; since the correlation between the hair, eyes and all parts of the skin is such that, if the whitening of any part (say the hair) was sufficiently advantageous to determine natural selection, the remainder of the body would be similarly affected. And, no doubt, the Mediterranean race was always whitish.

The Amerinds seem to have been derived chiefly from the Asiatic race. Pygmies and Australians may represent separate and still older stocks. But, as a result of migrations and conquests, most peoples are of mixed descent; and hence (i) individuals in the same locality sometimes vary greatly, because they inherit the blood of different strains in different proportions; and (ii) classification is difficult, so that whilst some observers are content to find half a dozen races, Deniker enumerates twenty-nine.

Besides general racial differences, there exist within each race and within each national group further differences between individuals in their physical, and still more in their mental, stature and ability. As it was necessary that Man should vary greatly in undergoing adaptation to the hunting life (as well as to different local environments), he was in an organic condition favourable to further variation.[24] And this has been utilised in his adaptation to a certain special condition of his gregariousness, namely, life in the hunting-pack; for this requires a difference of personality between leaders and followers, first in the chase and later in war. A good democrat may think it would have been a better plan to make all men equal from the first; and I would it had been so; for then the head of the race would not have had to drag along such an altogether disproportionate tail: a tail so huge and unwieldy that one may doubt whether it can ever be extricated from the morass of barbarism. But in the early days of gregariousness, a pack could not have held together, or have hunted efficiently, if all had been equal and each had exercised the right of private judgment. So in successful packs one led and the rest followed; as they still do, and will continue to do, of whatever kind may be the leader. And of all structures that make up a human being the most variable is the brain: the differences between men in stature and physique are trifling compared with those in mental power. Whatever feat of strength your Samson can perform, half a dozen ordinary men can also accomplish; but in every generation tasks are carried out by intellectual athletes, toward which all the ordinary men in the world, uniting their efforts, could do nothing—absolutely nothing.

§ 4. Prey and Competitors

If we suppose the differentiation of the Hominidæ from the Anthropoidea to have begun in the Upper Oligocene, and that the decisive change was initiated by some ape that adopted the life of a hunter, it is interesting to consider what the world was like in which he lived, what sort of animals surrounded him, what animals probably became his prey, and what were his rivals in the chase.[25]

The surface of the planet was less mountainous than at present; in Europe the Pyrenees had risen, but the Alps were only beginning to rise; and in Asia the Himalayas began to dominate the world only in the middle of the next epoch, the Miocene. The distribution of land and water, too, was very different in the Oligocene from that which we now see: Europe was divided from Asia by a broad gulf stretching from the Indian Ocean to the Arctic Circle, and an arm of this gulf toward the west submerged a great part of Central Europe; Asia was broadly connected with North America, where now the sea penetrates between Siberia and Alaska; Africa had no connection with either Europe or Asia; North and South America were separated—perhaps at Panama. In the Miocene, Europe, Asia and Africa became united. These physiographic changes may have affected climate; for during the Eocene tropical conditions prevailed far to the north, and coal-beds were laid down in Alaska; but from the Oligocene onwards there was a gradual fall of temperature, slow at first, but ending (for the present) in the cataclysms of the Glacial Period. There was also a decrease in some regions of atmospheric moisture, which determines the density of vegetation. In its general character the vegetation was similar to that which now prevails in tropical, subtropical and temperate regions of the world. The species of plants now existing had not yet arrived; but of the same genera and families as those we see, conifers, palms and dicotyledonous flowering plants crowded the forests and overhung the rivers. The forests were more extensive and continuous than ours outside the tropics; for by degrees browsing animals, feeding down the young trees, check the renovation of forests and clear open spaces, where grasses grow; changes of temperature limit the northern or southern extension of certain kinds of plants, and a failure of humidity starves all the larger kinds; converting, at successive stages, forest into steppe and steppe into desert.

Animals, especially mammalia, with which chiefly we are concerned, were, at the close of the Oligocene, very different from any that now roam the lands; all the species, most genera, many families and some whole orders have since disappeared. But there were plenty to eat and a good many to dread. Until we know the neighbourhood in which our ape’s adventures began, nothing precise can be said of his circumstances. Probably it was somewhere in the Old World, and probably it was in Asia. Unfortunately, we know nothing of the zoological antiquities of Asia until the early Miocene, and even then a very small selection of what must have existed, because geologists have hitherto explored a very small part of the continent—a few beds in north-western and northern India and in Burmah. But there is so much evidence of the migrations of animals in successive ages of the Tertiary Period, that any remains from the Oligocene and Miocene will help us to understand what sort of neighbours our remote ancestors had to live amongst.