EVOLUTION THEORY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 151, 29 June 1931, Page 5

EVOLUTION THEORY.

"MISSING LINK" PROBLEM. COMPLETE ANSWER SUPPLIED. Recent discoveries which threw new light on the theory of evolution were surveyed by Mr. Gilbert Archey, director of the War Memorial Museum, in a lecture on "Men of the Stone Age," given ill the museum library .hall yesterday afternoon. Mr. T. M. Michaels, a member of the Museum Council, presided. From the point of view of strict zoology, man's nearest relatives were unquestionably the great apes, said Mr. Archey. From the theory of evolution, which Darwin and later Huxley had expounded, scientists were led to the conclusion that man and the apes had come of a common ancestry. But one question neither Darwin nor Huxley had been able to answer, namely: What had become of the intermediary stages in the evolution of the ape man up to man as he was to-day? Discoveries during the past 40 years threw new light on the mystery. There had been the discovery of the Java man, the Piltdown skull fragments, the Peking man and the discovery of more evidence by a New Zealand mining engineer in South Africa. By taking a common line of comparison scientists had been able to supply a complete answer to the problem which had troubled 19th century theorists. The lecturer illustrated his address with the aid of blackboard drawings, based on a new series of models now on view at the museum, designed to depict the evolution of the human skull from age to age.