MAN'S BIRTHPLACE

Evening Star, Issue 11897, 27 May 1903, Page 3

MAN'S BIRTHPLACE

In a paper read before the Berlin Anthropological Society by Professor Schoetensack, of Heidelberg, the theory is advanced of a single cradle of the human race, a protected continent where man's evolution could and did take place without let or hindrance. The similarity of this hypothesis to the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden will occur to the readers at once, and it is enlarged upon by critics and commentators. Says Charles De Kay, in an exposition of the professor's theory printed in the New York ' Times' (September 7): " The startling theory brought by Professor Schoetensack, of Heidelberg, before the Berlin Anthropological Society at a recent meeting will, if accepted by science, cause a return to the old belief in the origin of man in one spot, and explain the essential unity of the human race without regard to color. It is based on the reflection that during the geological ages, when, in the evolution of mankind, the brain must have been developed in a creature comparatively feeble, there were wild beasts of marvellous strength and agility, in whose domain so weak a race could not have maintained itself unless furnished with feet to outstrip its enemies. In America, Europe, Africa, and Asia the manlike animal could not have survived unless a hoof had been developed at the expense of the. other digits, as in horses or the two-toed quadrupeds. The northern or southern extremities of the globe could not have been the cTadle of the human race, says this theory, neither could any part of the globe where ferocious animals abounded. For in the former case the cold would have destroyed life before the brain was sufficiently developed to invent means of making fire; and in the latter, mank'nd would have been unable to exist in the face, of his natural enemies, save in the trees. But if ■-'arboreal life could have allowed brain development, it would have still left man a four-handed instead of a two-handed being. So we are forced to the supposition that these early stages were passed on an island free from carnivorous beasts, not far from the Equator. But that could hardly have beep a small island, since man would require more nourishment than so limited an area could afford. There would fiave to be a variety of a climate and surface and room for survival in one part when war, disease, or famines destroyed the inhabitants of another. There would have had to be almost a continent for this gradual development, with hills and deserts and smaller islands accessible where the human stock might survive ravages. Where, a*ks Professor Schoetensaik, does such a continent exist?" The pmfVs>or is of opinion that one

locality, and only one, fulfils the requisite conditions—namely, Australia. Here there are no large and dangerous caniiverous beasts, while the climate is temperate and equable, and so.dry that fire may easily be made. To quote again : " Dr Schoetcnsack supposes that at some remote epoch, where there was land connection between Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and Australia by way of Timor and New Guinea, the ancestors of the human race, still, perhaps, arboreal in habitat, were cut off by the changes in the earth's surface, which made of Australia a continent, and that then occurred the opportunity for these reasoning creatures to develop their flat feet, their hairless skin, their brain, and other human characteristics unmolested by carnivorous foes. The period he fixes on is the Phocene. ... The Tertiary, during which the human race must have been developing, had too many fierce animals in Asia to permit the inference that mankind developed there. But the Tertiary in Australia had no animals dangerous to man, yet offered marsupials fit for food, whose easy conquest may have hastened the progress of mankind from a creature eating more vegetable than animal food to one eating more animal than vegetable. In studying the natives of Australia, a singular variability of types has been discovered, which cannot be explained by immigration from outside, for they seem deeply characteristic. Traits of negroes, of Mongols, of Europeans are found among the various tribes of black Australians, not only in their habits, weapons, tools, and magical implements, but in their physical make-up, even in their features. This may be used to push the argument that the direct ancestors of the Australian 'black-fellows' were brothers of those primeval men, acquainted with fire, who spread to Asia, Africa, America, and Europe, and gradually invaded the polar regious, as well as the swamps and woods of the Equator, equipped not only with fire, but tools for getting food, weapons for obtaining meat and warding off the attacks of wild beasts, and crude ideas regarding spooks, spirits, and avenging gods." The earliest European men we know. Dr

Schoetensack asserts, had marked Australian characteristics 5 the stone utensils, the absence of pottery, the rude weapons, the primitive drawings of animals on cave walls all axe found among the modern natives of Australia. Tims the "garden" of Eden was in reality a continent. Mr De Kay concludes as follows:—" Professor Schoetensack a hypothesis is worth examination, and special attention should be given to the living; Australians before they disappear or lose their primitive habits and &m. and to the records in the rocks and sacred P ,accs ° f *»*■*» "■ weß. Perhaps tte caves of Australia may yield the skulk, the tools, weapons, and ceremonial implements of remote ancestors, and show more dearly the connection between them and the earliest men of America, Asia, and Europe. Acceptance of his argument the removal of the Garden of Eden to a definite quarter of the globe, and the explanation of the story in Genesis as a tradition concerning the origin of man which the Jews learned from the wise men on the Euphrates, to whom it had been handed down for immeasurable periods of timet"