THE ANTIQUITY OP MAN.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 11097, 14 December 1898, Page 2

THE ANTIQUITY OP MAN.

In his recent lecture at the Athenaeum Mr Tanner based his argument against the theory o£ evolution on the fact that, go back as far as we can, there ia no evidence of one animal developing into another. Prom a parent stock, no doubt, many types can be raised by artificial selection. There can be no reasonable doubt that the pony, the thoroughbred, and the huge draught horse have oil come from one stock. It is the same with the merino, the Lincoln, the Cotswold, and other diversified forms of the Bheep, But even then, he went on to argue, those types were evolved by the artificial interference of man, and that, left to nature, the tendency was to revert to one type, and that a degenerate one. In so far as the human race ia concerned that argument has received strong confirmation by the discovery of an ancienj; cemetery of large proportions in Egypt by Professor Flinders Pefcrie. This cemetery was of very great'age, but many perfect skeletons were found, A representative collection of these skeletons, carefully numbered, recently arrived at the Cambridge University from the spot near Thebes, where they were found. Material was thus furnished for a study of variation in the human skeleton, and the series of minute measurements which have been made not only furnishes valuable statistics but brings out several interesting features with regard to the original Dwnera of the bones. The ancient people, according to the discoverer jf their remains, constituted a ' branch of the same Libyan race that formed the Ammonite power," md their date is put down by him is between 3000 and 4000 b.c. The litnensions of tho long bones point o a stature similar to that of tho French ; but while in France the vomen vary most, the opposite held food with this race. Taking everything into consideration, support is ;iven by the investigation to a ;eneralisation in Professor Pearson's ortbeoming book, that "tho more irimitiye and savage a race, the 3ss will, be the variation of both exes, and tho greater will be the pproach to equality of variation etweenthem." That the early iu-

habitants of the country round Thebes followed the primitive custom of " squatting " is shown by the structure of the bones of the foot, which manifests tho peculiarities found in modem tribes adopting that practice. A Simian character, viz , the sacral notch in the base of the vertebral column, was looked £or, and might have been expected in such an parly race if there were anything in the theory of evolution. It was, however, looked- for in vain. In fact, in many characteristics the skeletons are most modern, while in others they are the reverse. The men and women to whom they belonged may be summed up as a hardy vigorous people, in the proportion of their limbs approaching to tho negroes, while the spine and shoulder blades show a more determinate affinity to Europeans,