The evolution of man : essays / by G. Elliot Smith.

  • Smith, Grafton Elliot, 1871-1937.
Date:
1924
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The evolution of man : essays / by G. Elliot Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    dence upon forest conditions is considered,1 is that a primitive human being is much more likely than an ape to have crossed to America by the northern Pacific bridge. The full significance and character of this astounding discovery will become more intelligible if we try to put the newly discovered creature into its place in the Human Family, as I have attempted to do in Figure 2. To the two extinct genera, Pithecanthropiis and Eo- anthropus, it is now proposed to add a third, Hespero- pithecus, the Ape-Man of the Western World. This long-lost cousin is the most surprising member of the Family. For, if the suggestion of his right to human rank should be justified, not only is he the only human being so far discovered who lived in the remotely distant time of the Pliocene Period, but he or his for¬ bears had already wandered so far from the original home of the Family (in Asia or Africa) as North America. In the second diagram, which is an attempt to represent the position of the Human Family in the Order Primates, this tentative suggestion with reference to HcsperopitJiecus has been graphically expressed. It must, of course, be understood that with the scanty evidence at our disposal the idea expressed in this diagram is little more than conjecture. But in helping us to understand the nature of the problem at issue it is much more useful to make a concrete proposal that can be criticized and attacked, than merely to play for safety and repress the whole issue as something dangerous that ought to be avoided. o o # The first diagram, representing the hypothetical family tree of the Human Family, is so arranged as to represent the members that have become specialized as branching away from the main stream, which leads to the highest type, and to give graphic expression to the conception that the attainment of the supreme position is not inconsistent with the Henry Fairfield Osborn, Nature, August 26, 1922, p. 28r.