THE RACE MANKIND SPRANG FROM

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1687, 29 June 1904, Page 17

THE RACE MANKIND SPRANG FROM

BEST TYPIFIED IN THE QUEENSLAND ABORIGINES.*,

A new suggestion regarding tlxe evolution of man is put forward by Dr Klaatsch. who is Professor of Anatomy aiid Anthropology at the Heilelburg University, in Germany. Tor 20 years he has been studying the skulls and skeletons of races in all parts of the world, and he has come to the conclusion that the race from which mankind has sprung is typified in a more perfect manner by the aboriginal of North Queensland than by any other living race. In no part of the world, he thinks, can the evolution .of the genus licmo in relation to the original type be better studied. The professor is now in North Queensland conducting investigations, and some interesting results are expected. » Some time ago the interest of students of anthropology wa's greatly roused by . a report that natives had been found in New Guinea who had lost the use of their nether limbs owing to their habit of living in trees. It was hoped that the Seligmaira expedition, which is at present in New Guinea investigating the question of cancer in natives and making general inquiries in the interests of anthropology, would have obtained further information of the curious race, but reports concerning the expedition which have, just been received show that up to the ..present it has failed to find any people answering to the description. The expedition has seen natives who live for a part of the year in hufs p'erched on trees, but they have the use of all their limbs, and anthropologically they do not materially differ from other natives.

The expedition is at present in thi western portion of New Guinea. It has ascended the Bensliack River for some distance, and many interesting photographs have beep taken of the natives who live on its banks. These natives do not, as has been supposed, exhibit the characteristics of the Australian aborigines, but are frizzy-haired Papuans.—“St. James’s Budget,”