I.] GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 5 



human races, if not of all those that have been subsequently 

 specialised." 



Dr D. Hepburn also 2 declares that the femur is distinctly 

 human, and not merely ape-like, that it ante-dates all other human 

 remains hitherto discovered, and that of living races the nearest 

 akin are the Australians, Andamanese, Bushmen, thereby lending 

 support to the view that these low races spring from a common 

 primeval stock, which originally inhabited the now vanished Indo- 

 African Continent 3 . 



This pliocene inhabitant of Java may thus in a sense be taken 

 as the long sought-for "First Man"; and as it is 

 not very probable that he can have had any un- Cr ^f e ["nd 3 " 

 doubtedly human precursors elsewhere, the Indo- 

 Malaysian inter-tropical lands may also with some confidence 

 be regarded as the cradle of the human family. Ethnology thus 

 at last acquires a probable starting-point both for the dispersal of 

 early man over the globe, and for the subsequent evolution of the 

 human races in their respective zones of specialisation. 



In support of this view comes the opportune discovery made 

 by Dr Noetling in 1894 of the works of pliocene man in 

 Upper Burma 4 . To the doubts raised by Mr R. D. Oldham 5 

 as to the occurrence of these chipped flints in the original 

 deposit, suggesting that they may have been washed down 

 from the plateau over which such implements are scattered, the 

 finder has given a reply which seems to have satisfied everybody. 

 He shows that the flints were really found in situ associated with 

 the remains of such extinct fauna as Rhinoceros perimensis and 

 Hipparion antelopinum, and assigns the beds to the Lower 

 Pliocene, adding that he has made another find in the same beds, 

 a femur and a humerus, worn and polished by human action 6 . 



This tropical Indo-Malaysian could therefore already use his 

 hands to fashion his rude stone implements; he characters of 

 could walk erect and had even occupied a tolerably the First Man - 



1 Eth. p. 454. 



; The Trinil Femur contrasted with the Femora of various savage and 

 civilised Races, in J. of Anat. and Physio 1. 1896, xxxi. p. i sq. 

 3 Eth. p. 236. 4 Eth. p. 4234. 



5 Natural Science, Sept. 1895. 6 Natural Science, April, 1897. 



