KEY TO MAN'S ORIGIN.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 208, 2 September 1919, Page 11

KEY TO MAN'S ORIGIN.

DCTERESTIXG LECTURE. A very interesting- illustfrated leoture I6n '•i-ome; Aspects of the Geological History and Cultural Development of Man" Tvas delivered, under the auspices of the Auckland Institute, by Mr. J. A. E.irtrum, M.Sc.. in St. Andrew's Hall. Llsx evening. There was a large attendance of members and of the public. In a very able manner Mr. Bartrum reviewed his subject. He eail that the. tev to man's origin was undoubtedly furnished by evolution, which was competent to explain his creation in various tteps from lower animals. His nearest relatives were anthropoid apes, such as the gorilla, and chimpanzee, and general opinion favoured the view that some ancestral type of anthropoid gave rise to man along one evolutional brandi; to anthropoid apes along another. He tuggejsted that the discovery in Java in 2SHI of fossil remains of an animal intermediate between man and apes perhaps supplied the "missing link." This animal bad. been called piteeantliropus. and, as it existed, many hundreds of thousands of years ago. was one of the mest momentous discoveries concerning mans ancestry. It was believed that rhe history of man in Europe effectively illustrated almost all steps in his later evolution. The earliest man of Europe A>as the ape-like Heidelberg man. represented by a lower jaw found in 190!) near Heidelberg in deposits; formed during the tei-«;nd interglae'uil period.

Tin- lecturer traced all the typos ;ind Mid that of all the early races the most 1 as.-i na ti n<r were the .-ro Ara<rnon men of tiie succeeding JJajrdalenian j>erioil. lie received a 'hearty w;te of tlianks at the conclusion oi the lecture.