MEN OF THE STONE AGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20911, 29 June 1931, Page 7

MEN OF THE STONE AGE.

- THEORY OF EVOLUTION. A lecture on "Men of the Stone Age," was given by Mr. Gilbert Archey, curator of the Auckland War Memorial MuscVim, in the museum library hall yesterday afternoon. Mr. T. M. Michaels, a member of tho council of the instituto, presided. The lecturer said that from tho point of view of strict zoology man's nearest relatives unquestionably were the great a p e s. From the doctrine of evolution, which Darwin, and later Huxley, had expounded, students of man were led to the conclusion that man and the apes had como of a common ancestry. But there was a question which neither Darwin nor Huxley had been able to answer, namely: What had become of the intermediary stages in the evolution of the ape man and man as he was to-day? During tho past 40 years important discoveries had been made which threw light on tho mystery. There had come the discovery of tho Java man, the Piltdown skull fragments, the Peking man and the discovery of moro evidence by a Now Zealand mining engineer in South Africa. By taking a common line of comparison scientists had been able to supply practically a complete answer to the problem which had troubled the 19th century theorists. Mr. Archey illustrated his remarks with tho aid of blackboard drawings based on n. now series of models now on view in tho museum, designed to d.*oict tho evolution of tho human skull throughout tho ages.