CHAPTER I. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 



The World peopled by Migration from one Centre by Pleistocene Man The 

 Primary Groups evolved each in its special Habitat But all sprung from 

 the Pliocene Precursor The "First Man" -The Human Cradle-land 

 Characters of the First Man The Transition from Pliocene to Pleistocene 

 Man 'Uniform Character of Pleistocene Man and his Works Progress 

 during the Stone Ages The Primary Groups specialised in pre-Neolithic 

 Times Duration of the New Stone Age The early History of Man a 

 Geological Problem -The Human Varieties the Outcome of their several 

 Environments Correspondence of Geographical with Racial and Cultural 

 Zones. 



IN order to a clear understanding of the many difficult ques- 

 tions connected with the natural history of the human family, 

 two cardinal points have to be steadily borne in 



. . ._ . . . . The World 



mind the specific unity ot all existing varieties, peopled by MI- 

 and the dispersal of their generalised precursors fne^Centre'b 

 over the whole world in pleistocene times. As both Pleistocene 

 points have elsewhere been dealt with by me some- 

 what fully 1 , it will here suffice to show their direct bearing on the 

 general evolution of the human species from that remote epoch to 

 the present day. 



It must be obvious that, if man is specifically one, though not 

 necessarily sprung of a single pair, he must have had, in homely 

 language, a single cradle-land, from which the peopling of the 

 earth was brought about by migration, not by independent 

 developments from different species in so many independent 

 geographical areas. 



1 Ethnology, Chaps. V. and VII. 

 K. I 



