NATURE CROWNED IN MAN 547 



branch of small apes (gibbon and siamang) and later the 

 branch of large apes (gorilla, chimpanzee, and oraug). This 

 left, towards the end of the Oligocene (others would say in 

 the Miocene), a generalised humanoid stem, perhaps weaker 

 physically by the divergence of the apes, but probably depend- 

 ent more on wits than strength. According to Professor 

 Sollas's estimates this sifting out of the generalised human 

 stem occurred some two million years ago. Once we have 

 parted company with Archbishop Usher there is no use 

 haggling over a million less or more. 



Ages passed, at all events, and from the humanoid stem 

 there diverged first of all Pithecanthropus the erect. It must 

 be confessed that we do not know much about him, whose 

 sparse remnants were found on the banks of the Bengawan 

 near Trinil in Central Java, but we get just a glimpse of a 

 being " human in stature, human in gait, human in all his 

 parts, save his brain ". The date was perhaps late Pliocene 

 or early Pleistocene, and there seems little doubt that Pithe- 

 canthropus belonged to a collateral humanoid stock, away 

 from the main line. 



The same sifting-out process appears to have been repeated 

 time after time. It was in all probability in the Pliocene 

 that there took origin the Neanderthal species, which reached 

 its climax and passed away with apparent suddenness (like 

 aboriginal races to-day) in the Mousterian or middle Palaeo- 

 lithic period. There is no doubt that in middle Pleistocene 

 Age, men of the Neanderthal type, quite distinct from those 

 of to-day, were widely represented in Europe, along with 

 woolly rhinoceros, mammoth cave-bear, ibex, bison, and 

 cave-hysena. He was a loose-limbed fellow, the Neander- 

 thaler, short in stature and of slouching gait, but a skilful 

 artisan, fashioning beautifully-worked flints with a character- 



