172 MAN: PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



moderate height, and diversified by a lacustrine system far more ex- 

 tensive than that revealed by the explorations of modern travellers. 



Under these circumstances, which are not matter of mere 

 speculation, but to be directly inferred from the observations 

 of intelligent explorers and of trained Anglo-Indian surveyors, 

 it would seem not only probable but inevitable that the pleistocene 

 Indo-Malayan should become modified and improved in his new 

 and more favourable Central Asiatic environment. 



Later, with the gradual upheaval of the land to a mean 

 altitude of some 14,000 feet above sea-level, the climate deterio- 

 rated, and the present somewhat rude and rugged inhabitants 

 of Tibet are to be regarded as the outcome of slow adaptation to 

 their slowly changing surroundings since the occupation of the 

 country by the Indo-Malayan pleistocene precursor. To this 

 precursor Tibet was accessible either from India 

 in S/ ribet Age or fr m Indo-China, and although few of his imple- 

 ments have yet been reported from the plateau, it 

 is certain that Tibet has passed through the Stone as well as the 

 Metal Ages. In Bogle's time " thunder-stones " were still used 

 for tonsuring the lamas, and even now stone cooking-pots are 

 found amongst the shepherds of the uplands, although they are 

 acquainted both with copper and iron. In India also and Indo- 

 China palseoliths of rude type occur at various points Arcot, the 

 Narbada gravels, Mirzapur 1 , the Irawadi Valley and the Shan 

 territory as if to indicate the routes followed by early man in his 

 migrations from Indo-Malaysia northwards. 



Thus, where man is silent the stones speak, and so old are 

 these links of past and present that amongst the Shans, as in 

 ancient Greece, their origin being entirely forgotten, they are 

 often mounted as jewellery and worn as charms against mishaps. 



Usually the Mongols proper, that is, the steppe nomads who 



have more than once overrun half the eastern hemisphere, are 



taken as the typical and original stem of Homo Mongolicus. But 



if Ch. de Ujfalvy's views can be accepted this 



The Pnmi- 3 



tive Mongol honour will now have to be transferred to the 

 Tibetans, who in any case still occupy the cradle 



1 See Mr J. Cockburn's paper "On Palceolithic Implements, &c." in Journ. 

 Anthrop. Inst., 1887, pp. 57 sq. ; and //i. p. 424. 



