38 THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



As yet there is no actual connection with ape-like forms 

 ancestral to both the modern apes and man, but the table here 

 reproduced (Fig. 10) gives a tentative view of implied rela- 

 tionships. Exploration in Asia now being carried forward 

 under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural His- 

 tory will, it is hoped, yield additional light on the problem of 

 human origins, for all of our evidence points to central Asia 

 as the birthplace of mankind, and to the Miocene, 1,000,000 

 to 2,000,000 years ago, as the time of his origin. 



The antiquity of man has thus been made known by direct 

 evidence in the form of human relics, the greatest age of which 

 can hardly be less than half a million years. Corroborative 

 evidence lies in the great variation, not alone between the 

 several species of prehistoric man, but also among the many 

 races of Homo sapiens himself, of which Gregory recognizes 

 twenty-six, with a number of sub-races. And that the major 

 divisions are very old is attested by ancient murals and other 

 documents of the Egyptians and other oriental peoples. 



Man's distribution is world-wide. In these days of easy 

 travel, this is not so significant as it was in the ancient days 

 when dispersal meant slow tribal migrations sometimes cover- 

 ing generations of time. 



The intelligence of man so far surpasses that of his nearest 

 competitors, the anthropoids, that the mental gulf between 

 them is immeasurable, while the moral and spiritual attributes 

 of mankind were also long in the making. 



Communal life, as contrasted with the much more common 

 herding instinct of the gregarious, has been attained but twice, 

 among the social insects and among men. A long period of 

 time is again necessary for this attainment. 



Finally, man's remains, or the products of his industry, are 

 found associated with numerous extinct creatures, of which he 

 alone survives. 



