Man And His Ancestor: A Study In Evolution

by Charles Morris

It has been a frequently debated question whether man comprises a single species or two or more species of animal descent. If a line be drawn from the Gold Coast in tropical Africa to the steppes of Tartary in central Asia, it will present two markedly distinct races of men at its two extremities. At its southwestern end we find the most long-headed, prognathous, frizzly-haired, dark-skinned race of mankind. At its northeastern end is the most round-headed, orthognathous, straight-haired, and yellow-skinned race. Midway between these appear intermediate peoples, with heads round, oval, or oblong, hair straight or curly, skin fair or dark, faces upright or protruding, men possibly, to judge from their physical character, a result of the amalgamation of these two distinct races.

These differences may be the result of original difference in species or may be due to climatic and other influences of nature. Some writers accept the one view, some the other, and neither is sustained by any great weight of facts. The Pygmy race presents somewhat similar differences. Usually round-headed, these small men are in some instances long-headed, while such marked distinctions appear at times that Stanley classed two neighboring tribes as separate races. Here they present features of the Mongolian, there they are similar to the Negro. This goes to indicate that the distinction between the Negro and the Mongolian began far back in time, but it does not prove that it is the result of original difference in species, or that two distinct forms of ape separately developed into man. While this is quite possible, the theory of a single species has been most widely accepted. The chief writers on the subject think that the differences arose during that undeveloped stage of mankind when resistance to the transforming influences of nature was still weak, and when the structure of the human frame may have yielded readily to agencies which would have little or no effect upon it now.

Of one thing we can be sure, which is that there was a wide migration of the apes in remote times. Leaving the tropics, many species spread to the north, extending into Europe, which at that time seems to have been connected by land bridges with Africa, and spreading far through Asia. There was probably nothing at that time in atmospheric conditions to check such a migration. The Tertiary climate of Europe is believed to have been quite mild. And the ape family is by no means necessarily confined to warm regions. Monkeys are found to-day at high elevations on the mountains of India, enduring the chill of ten thousand feet of altitude.

Of the migration to Europe abundant evidence exists, fossil remains of monkeys having been found in many localities of that continent. Among these residents of early Europe was at least one representative of the anthropoid apes, the fossil species known as Dryopithecus, from the middle Miocene deposits of St. Gaudens, France. This species, apparently most nearly allied to the chimpanzee, was taller than any existing ape. Two or three other fossil remains, possibly of anthropoid apes of smaller size, have been found, and Europe seems to have been well supplied with apes of a considerable degree of development at a remote geological period. Among those may have been the form we have designated the man-ape, the ancestor of the human race, though no fossil relic attributable to such a species has been recognized.

Coming down to a much lower period, we begin to find traces of man, first in his rudely chipped and later in his polished stone weapons and tools. And the bones of man himself appear, extending through what is known as the Quaternary or Pleistocene period. Nearly all these remains have been preserved by the art of burial, a fact indicating some degree of mental progress, though their residence in caves and the rudeness of their implements are evidence that the race was still low in culture.

An interesting fact in connection with these ancient human remains is that most of them indicate a small race, with narrow skulls and prognathous jaws, recalling the Pygmies in general structure. This rude and small race continued until a late period of prehistoric time. It extended down from the cave bear and mammoth period through the later reindeer period, as is proved by discoveries made in the caves of the Belgian province of Namur. And there is good reason to believe that it continued into the age of bronze, for the small size of the handles of bronze weapons show they must have been intended for men with small hands.

These diminutive people seem to have been not over four feet eight inches high. They were not alone, however. Men of normal height were in Europe with them. The northward migration of the Pygmies seems to have been accompanied or followed by that of a full grown people. Yet the Pygmies have held their own in Europe as in Africa, with certain modifications. In Sicily and Sardinia, which form part of a supposed former land bridge between Africa and Europe, a small people about five feet high still exist, whom Dr. Kollman looks upon as representing a distinct race, the predecessors of the tall Europeans. In the Lapps of northern Europe we possess another small race, possibly the lineal descendents of the Quaternary Pygmies. Everywhere the small man has been forced to retire into forests, deserts, and icy barrens before the taller and stronger man. The folk-lore of Europe is full of traditions of a race of dwarfs, and its conflict with men of larger mould, and there are various indications that this race was once widespread.

What has been said here of the migration of man into Europe and his development in that country is preliminary to a consideration of the second great stage of human development, that due to the conflict with nature. The conflict with the animal world appears to have ended in the production of a dwarfish, forest-dwelling variety of man, in the lowest human stage of mental evolution. The conflict with nature ended in the development of a full-sized variety of man, dwelling largely in the open country and much superior in intellect, as indicated by his higher powers of thought and advanced degree of organization.

The conflict with nature took several forms, in accordance with the conditions of the several regions inhabited by man. Its result was to subdue nature to the use and benefit of mankind, and the methods, in the tropical localities of original man, consisted in the reduction of animals to the domestic state and a similar domestication of food plants. In other words, one of its early stages was the development of the herding habit, while a far more important one was that of the appearance of the agricultural industries. In Europe a third and still more vigorous influence supervened, that of the conflict with cold and man's gradual adaptation to the conditions of a frigid climate.

If the nomad dwarfs were the aboriginal men, all later races must have developed from them. While remaining in the forest and retaining their primitive habits, the Pygmies presented an instance of arrested evolution. For a new development to begin it was necessary to abandon the old locality and with it the old habits, and this they probably began to do at a remote period. When, indeed, the earth was their dominion, there was no reason for their remaining restricted to a forest residence, as they have been since the larger races took possession of the open country. We do not need to go back far in time in the East to find the Pygmy race in full control of the Philippine and other islands, and probably of Malacca and parts of Hindostan. Their present restriction and partial extermination have been due to the incursions of the warlike Malays. The Andaman Mincopies remained undisturbed until a recent date, and added fishing to their hunting pursuits. And the canoes which these islanders now possess were probably the invention of their race, and furnished the means by which the aborigines spread from island to island of those thickly studded seas.