New York City: Grand Central Terminal. Lancaster, Pa. Garrison, N. Y. Annual Subscription, $6.00. Single Copies, 15 Cts. SCIENCE is the official organ of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Information regarding membership in the Association may be secured from the office of the permanent secretary, in the Smithsonian Institution Building, Washington, D. C. Entered as second-class matter July 18, 1928, at the Post Office at Lancaster, Pa., under the Act of March 8, 1879. RECENT DISCOVERIES RELATING TO IN the great drama of the prehistory of man converge all the many branches of science which have been cultivated and encouraged by the American Philosophical Society since its foundation two hundred years ago. In fact, we do not progress very far in this most difficult, as well as most noble, branch of biological research if we pursue pathways which are purely anthropological or purely archeological. It is such specialistic mode of attack which has led more than one generation of man into pitfalls of opinion and of theory from which there is no escape except by direct retreat. In the list of those who have been compelled to reverse engines are the names of many great anthropologists, among them the renowned Hans Virchow, the still more widely known Ernst Haeckel and, probably to your great surprise, no less a name than that of Thomas Henry Huxley. Virchow opposed the recognition of the Neanderthal skull of 1846 with pathologic and theologic preconceptions. Haeckel also eagerly espoused the Ape Ancestry hypothesis by ignoring the profound cleft between ape and man. Huxley failed disastrously in rating the Neanderthal man with recent types of man and threw Darwin completely off the track of this veritable missing link. Huxley, too, failed to visit the Foxhall quarry of Ipswich, site of the greatest discovery in modern times, namely, the fireplace and tool flint quarry of Tertiary man. Even Jupiter nods when the purely specialistic pathway is pursued. In the triumphs of modern astronomy, four sciences converge, namely, mathematics, mechanics, physics and chemistry; but, in the triumphs of anthropology, beginning with its dawn in the mind of Blumenbach, 1796, and reaching a succession of climaxes in 1927, no less than twelve of the major and minor branches of science converge, as follows:2 The astronomy of Croll (1875) and Wallace (1880); the glaciology of Geikie (1894-1914), of Penck and Brückner (1909), of Leverett (1910); the glaciology and river terraces 1 Address before the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia, on April 28, on the occasion of the celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the society. 2 Osborn-Reeds: "Old and New Standards of Pleistocene Division in Relation to the Prehistory of Man in Europe," p. 413. of Depéret (1918-1921); the paleogeography of Suess (1885), of de Lamothe (1899-1918), of Daly (19201926); the clay laminae of De Geer (1910-1921); the loess of Schumacher, of Merzbacher, of Obruchev, and of Soergel (1924-1927). A host of other lines of research conspire to portray the great successive phases in the environment of man. These great stepping stones of the Age of Man, of the Quaternary, of the Glacial Period, lead to our modern and greatly extended conceptions of the antiquity of man. Whereas Charles Lyell, in his classic work, "The Antiquity of Man," postulated 400,000 years for the Quaternary Period, we have practically multiplied the Glacial Age of Agassiz by four in the demonstration that there were not one but four titanic glaciations during Quaternary time and have thereby reached a minimum estimate of 1,000,000 years for the Age of Man. But to complete the human prehistoric panorama as it is now painted, we can not stop with the inorganic sciences. It is necessary to muster the whole galaxy of organic sciences-botany, including paleobotany; zoology, including paleontology; anatomy, including comparative anatomy and embryology; anthropology, including ethnology and archeology. The latest of the biological sciences to make its tribute is psychology, including comparative and physiological psychology, especially, of late (Tilney, 1926-1927), the localization of functions in the brain, and finally, the latest of the psychic cluster, known as behaviorism. It is our recent studies of behaviorism of the anthropoid apes as contrasted with the behaviorism of the progenitors of man which compel us to separate the entire ape stock very widely from the human stock. While these twelve or more branches which bear upon anthropology have been advanced chiefly through the brilliant researches of specialists, it is our privilege and opportunity on this bicentenary occasion to gather all the reins and endeavor to present a truly philosophical series of generalizations, which may be summed up in advance under four chief captions: (1) The antiquity of man is now to be reckoned not in thousands, but in hundreds of thousands of years, and we foresee the soon approaching period when it will be reckoned in millions of years. (2) The Age of Man, or Pleistocene, can no longer be regarded as Act I of the prehistoric human drama, but rather as the final act, because at the very beginning of the Pleistocene we find the human race wellestablished and widely distributed over the earth. Act I of the Age of Man is during Tertiary time in what may be known as the "Dawn Man" stage and the "pro-human" stage. (3) While still supported by very able anatomists FIGURE 1. PREHISTORIC AND RECENT RACIAL STOCKS NEANDERTHAL STOCKS (LEFT); PARTLY KNOWN PLIOCENE STOCKS (CENTER); SIX PLEISTOCENE AND RECENT RACIAL STOCKS (RIGHT). (BELOW) LEVEL OF THE SUPPOSED FOSSIL BONE IMPLEMENTS OF THE HERPEROPITHECUS QUARRIES IN NEBRASKA-POSSIBLE EVIDENCE OF MIDDLE PLIOCENE BONE-TOOL AGE IN AMERICA. such as Gregory, the ape-human ancestry theory is, in my opinion, greatly weakened by recent evidence, and I am inclined to advocate an independent line of Dawn Man ancestors, springing from an Oligocene neutral stock, which also gave rise independently to the anthropoid apes. (4) The Dawn Man line belongs to a distinct family, the Hominidæ, ground-living, cursorial, alert, capable of tool-making, and living in a relatively open country on the high plateaus and plains of Northern Asia. (5) The Anthropoid Ape belongs to a distinct family, the Simiide, tree living, brachiating, sluggish, incapable of tool making, restricted to the forests of south temperate and tropical countries. LET US ABANDON THE APE-HUMAN THEORY The prologue and the opening acts of the human drama occurred way back 16,000,000 years ago in the Upper Oligocene Period. At this period, or before, the family of man sprang from a stock neither human nor ape-like, but possessing certain common attributes which have been transmitted over this very long period of time to variously branching races of human beings on the one hand and to variously branching races of anthropoid apes on the other. In this very ancient man-ape stock (Anthropoidea) resided the affinity which survives to-day in all blood tests, in peculiar susceptibility to or immunity from certain diseases, in resemblance of the hæmoglobin blood crystals, in the uniform division of the teeth to the number of thirty-two, in the extension of the caudal vertebrae into a tail, reversional both in man and apes, and in many psychic characteristics such as curiosity, fear, family protection and courage. It is not surprising that these and other common apehuman characteristics have survived when we see similar survivals among other animal stocks which we know parted company millions of years ago. Of all substances ever discovered, the heredity or the hereditary germ-plasm on which all these survivals depend is the most stable. The germinal stability which has preserved the earliest Cambrian organisms over a period now estimated at 500,000,000 years is also capable of preserving pro-human anatomical and physiological traits for the relatively brief 16,000,000 years which have elapsed since the close of Oligocene time. Consequently, many of the resemblances between ape and man which have been erroneously cited as proofs of ape-man descent are due either to very remote common inheritance or to the convergence of the ape toward the human type. An example of such convergence to the human type is shown in the foot of the gorilla by the recent observations of Akeley, of Morton and of Gregory. I regard the ape-human theory as totally false and misleading. It should be banished from our speculations and from our literature not on sentimental grounds but on purely scientific grounds and we should now resolutely set our faces toward the discovery of our actual pro-human ancestors. In my opinion, the most likely part of the world in which to discover these "Dawn Men," as we may now call them, is the high plateau region of Asia embraced within the great prominences of Chinese Turkestan, of Tibet and of Mongolia. The great plains area north of the high plateau should also be searched, because we have recently determined that this was probably the home of the primitive horse and, according to our theory, the home of primitive man should be looked for in the same kind of country in which the primitive horse flourished. In abandoning the Haeckel ape theory which reached its apogee in the fantastic speculation of Klaatsch that different races of anthropoid apes gave rise directly to different races of man, we now give an entirely new frame to the human prototype to separate it sharply from the anthropoid ape type. Reconstructing our pro-human ancestors and endeavoring to assign an adequate date to the origin of the pro-human stock, we depend on the science of phylogeny, which has become in itself one of the finest products of human scientific endeavor. Phylogeny made a brave start in the sciences of comparative anatomy and embryology but it awaited paleontology to place it upon a broad and firm foundation. Most of the recent advances in anthropology have been by paleontologic means and methods. To build up the unknown human prototype by phylogenetic means we must take advantage of the really marvelous knowledge gained from all the minor and greater steps in the ancestry of the horse, of the rhinoceros, of the tapir and of the titanothere since these animals were first discovered in North America by the great Joseph Leidy, of Philadelphia, in 1856. Our pro-human ancestors through their behavior, their tastes, their habits, and their fondness for travel were the architects of their own destiny, as the horses and titanotheres were the unconscious architects of their destinies. Moreover, the open country best adapted to the evolution of the horse is also best adapted to the evolution of the higher races of man. We have determined that the horse did not evolve in Southern Asia or even in the southerly portions of the high plateau regions of Central Asia. To the North is a great unexplored plateau and plains region of Asia which now appears to have been the center of the origin of the family of horses and possibly may have been the center of the origin of the family of man. Certainly, the family of man could not have originated in a densely forested country rich in natural food materials. Man's nomadic wandering instinct, which even in Upper Pliocene time impelled his migrations, is not a forest characteristic but a characteristic of the open country. Almost without exception, precocious human civilizations have been found in open country partly defor ested either by secular desiccation or by the severity of the northern steppe climates. Practically the same environmental conditions have favored the precocious development of the finer races of horses. Secondly, when we at last discover one of our prohuman ancestors in Miocene or even in Oligocene time, the human characteristics will be found plainly stamped on this ancestor, as the horse characteristics are plainly stamped on the Pliohippus, on the Protohippus, on the Mesohippus and even on the Eohippus. It was my observation of the full-bred horse of Middle Pliocene time, known as Pliohippus leidyanus, which led me to predict to the National Academy of Sciences the discovery of a full-brained proman also in Pliocene time; this prediction preceded the recent demonstration that Eoanthropus dawsoni of Piltdown is probably of Pliocene age. This distinctive pro-human stamp will be seen chiefly in certain outstanding characteristics of habit and of structure which were acquired millions of years ago. In contrast with the Simian and pro-Simian stamp, we may clearly present the chief characteristics in two columns: of a man rather than that of an ape; it reveals the erect bipedal, rather than the stooping quadrupedal position. The arms of the Neanderthals are not elongated as they should be according to the ape ancestry hypothesis; they are rather short. The legs of the Neanderthals and of the Trinils are not abbreviated as they should be for the ape ancestry hypothesis; they are decidedly long. they are decidedly long. Similarly, a superb series of embryonic hands and feet of unborn infants assembled by Schultz do not reveal reminiscences of the attenuated ancestral fingers of an ape-arboreal stage, resembling those of gibbons, chimpanzees, or even of gorillas, but they are short and blunt like modern human hands. The embryonic thumb, similarly, is well developed and reveals no symptoms of recovery from the abbreviated or useless thumb characteristic of all arboreal or branchiating types of primates. Still more, the embryonic big toe, while slightly set apart from the other toes, shows little vestige of former limb-grasping such as is seen in the foot of the anthropoid apes, which is so hand-like as to give the bearer the title quadrumana, or fourhanded. The human embryonic big toe is set apart like the toes of Eocene lemuroids such as the Notharctus of Leidy and Gregory. Comparative and human psychology also weaken rather than strengthen the ape-man hypothesis. The geologic rearrangement of the Piltdown, the Trinil and the Heidelberg races which we owe to recent geologic discovery renders both the Heidelberg and the Piltdown races far more ancient than we had supposed. All the present evidence points to closing Pliocene age for the Piltdown Dawn Man, appropriately named Eoanthropus by Smith Woodward. This Dawn Man has a flat vertical forehead like the modern Bushman, a very thick skull, a chimpanzee-like jaw, and a surprising brain capacity of 1,070 cubic centimeters. This brain cube exceeds that of the existing Indian Veddah tribes. As analyzed by Elliot Smith and by Tilney, this Dawn Man has a well convoluted forebrain, speech areas and diversified motor areas for the coordinated motions of the fore limbs, of the hands and of the fingers. LARGE TERTIARY BRAIN CAPACITY The Heidelberg race, now recognized as of Lower Pleistocene, is probably a giant pro-Neanderthal, characterized by projecting eyebrows and by a brain which would probably prove to be somewhat inferior in capacity to the more recent Neanderthals. We consequently reach an entirely new estimate of the brain capacity of the human race at the close of Pliocene time and the beginning of Pleistocene time, a period estimated at between 1,250,000 to 1,000,000,000 years before our era. The Trinil man of Java, Pithecanthropus erectus of Dubois, was formerly regarded as of Upper Pliocene, but now it is assigned by Dietrich and Osborn to a more recent geologic age, namely, Middle Pleistocene, since its fossil remains are found associated with stegodontine elephants much more recent in character than those of the Upper Pliocene, such as Stegodon insignis ganesa. Meanwhile, the brain of the Trinil man has been shown by Tilney to be distinctly prohuman, with a fairly well-developed forebrain or intelligence area. Consequently, we may now regard Pithecanthropus erectus as a very primitive type, a case of arrested development, possibly related to the Neanderthal stock, surviving in the southern subtropical forests of Asia, with a brain capacity of 940 ccm.-not far inferior to that of the native Indian Veddahs with a brain capacity of 1,000 ccm. It required a very long antecedent period to develop the Dawn Man brain capacity and Dawn Man intelligence as demonstrated, in the case of the Piltdown and probably contemporaneous Foxhall races, in the manufacture of many different kinds of small flint implements and in the use of fire. In the case of the Heidelberg race, we observe the manufacture of very large and varied flint implements, such as are found at Cromer on the eastern coast of England and which are believed to be of the same geologic age as the Heidelberg jaw. Flint tools were, however, by no means the first tools employed by man; they were almost certainly preceded by bone tools of great variety, and bone tools were in turn preceded by wooden tools. Not improbably there was a very long 'age of wood,' then a very long 'age of wood and bone,' followed by a very long 'age of flint' preceding the metal ages. During this enormously long period, which we must now reckon in millions of years, tool-designing and toolmaking, the adaptation of tools to certain purposes and needs of life, the use of these tools in offense and defense, in the chase, and in the preparation of food and of clothing laid the foundations of the intelligence of mankind. The above are only a fraction of the host of psychic contrasts which might be drawn between the daily behavior of the Dawn Man and the daily behavior of the pro-anthropoid ape. As I have elsewhere summed it up, in the life and conduct of the pro-ape was the potency of the super-apes living to-day-the orang, chimpanzee, gorilla and gibbon-but in the Dawn Man was the potency of modern civilization. The most welcome gift from anthropology to humanity will be the banishment of the myth and bogie of apeman ancestry and the substitution of a long line of ancestors of our own at the dividing point which separates the terrestrial from the arboreal lines of primates. It is true that Darwin used the expression, "Man is derived from some member of the Simiidæ," and that the term "ape-man" is deeply engraved in our consciousness, but I claim that it is misleading. The gorilla, chimpanzee and gibbon give us our conception of the ape. I hold that very few of the ape characters were possessed by man in his early stages; they are all characters belonging to an extremely ancient arboreal stage perhaps as ancient as Eocene time. Comparative anatomists find likenesses between apes and man |