FIGURE 16. An Alaskan Glacier sweeping down the Valleys and gouging out Rock and Stone. A similar situation existed in many parts of now habitable Europe during the Glacial Period. gouging out valleys as they went and carried along with them masses of stone and rock fragments which were finally deposited along the melting front or lateral areas to the glacier.17 Glacial streams flowed from under the slowly moving ice and carried fine detritus and sand many miles beyond the ice line, eventually depositing this material in deltas or flood plains and burying deep all small objects lying upon the surface. The problem of the geographical center from which man migrated to finally populate the earth is still unsolved. Tradition has designated Central Asia as the place of dispersion. In Central Asia are found the remains of sand-buried cities so ancient that the very tra ditions concerning them have perished.18 Moreover, the wild progenitors of our domestic animals-horses, cattle, sheep, goats, swine, dogs, camels, buffalo and fowlhad their habitations in Central Asia. But there are other considerations. Geologists tell us that the land formation of the present continent of Europe underwent many changes in the later Tertiary and during the early Quaternary. Coincident with the glacial epochs there seem to have been alternating subsidences and upheavals of sections of the continent. There appears, however, to have been a strip of dry land fairly constant in its outline which extended from the valley of the Thames and the Rhine in northwestern Europe to the present island of Java at the southeast of Asia.19 It is in this strip of territory that the most important discoveries of prehistoric man have been made. 17 See figure 16. 18 Lull, op. cit., p. 377. 19 See Keane, op. cit., p. 54; Brinton, D. G.-Races and Peoples, 1890, pp. 86-89; Giddings, F. H.-The Principles of Sociology, 1909, pp. 214-216. The first important discovery of the existence of an early example of mankind differing markedly from any living and of a decidedly lower type, was made in 1857 when part of a skull was found in a cave near Düsseldorf, Germany. The bones consisted of the upper portion of a cranium, remarkable for its flat retreating curve, the upper arm and thigh bones, a shoulder blade and collar bone, and rib fragments.20 Figures 17 and 18 show the general contour of this Neanderthal skull. There was at first some difference of opinion as to its authenticity. Some naturalists maintained that it was a pathological specimen. But its normal character has since been fully demonstrated. Huxley conceived the Neanderthal man as short of stature but powerfully built, with strong, curiously curved thigh bones so constructed that the man must have walked with bended knees, pos sessing heavy brow ridges, heavy brutal jaw with receding chin. The artist's conception of the Neanderthal man is shown in the figures.21 Although the Neanderthal man was of the small stature of 5 feet 31⁄2 inches, he was probably a mighty hunter, able to contend with the rudest weapons against the rhinoceros, mammoth, cave bear, and other beasts. Since the discovery of this skull near Düsseldorf, other specimens of the same general type have come to light serving to indicate how widespread was the Neanderthal race of men. In 1866 part of a jaw quite different from the typical jaw of to-day was found at La Naulette, Belgium; and in 1886, at Spy, Belgium, specimens were discovered in which the Neanderthal type of cranium was associated with the Naulette 20 Keane, op. cit., pp. 33-34, 145-146. 21 See Frontispiece and figure 20. |