WHO WAS PRIMITIVE MAN? 105 



But before the middle of the Eocene period this homogeneous group 

 had begun to split up into main branches. And by the later Eocene 

 times the particular branch to which man's ancestors belonged had 

 reached, even in Europe, the stage of lemuroid creatures four-handed 

 and relatively small-brained animals, still retaining many traces of their 

 connection with the ancestral horse-like and insectivore-like forms. 

 These lemuroids were forestine, and, perhaps, nocturnal fruit-eaters. 

 They lived among trees, which their hands were especially adapted 

 for climbing. 



In the lower Miocene times the lemuroids again must have split up 

 into two main branches, that of the monkeys and of the lemurs. We 

 fiud no trace of the monkeys in the remains of this age ; but, as they 

 were highly developed in the succeeding mid-Miocene period, they must 

 have begun to be distinctly separated at least as early as this point 

 of time. To the monkey branch, of course, the progenitors of man 

 belonged. 



By the epoch of the mid-Miocene deposits the monkey tribe had 

 once more presumably subdivided itself into two or three minor groups, 

 one of which was that of the anthropoid apes, while another was that 

 of the supposed man-like animal who manufactured the earliest known 

 split flints. The anthropoid apes remained true to the old semi-arboreal 

 habits of the race, and retained their four hands. The man-like ani- 

 mal apparently took to the low-lying and open plains, perhaps hid in 

 caves, and, though probably still in part frugivorous, eked out his 

 livelihood by hunting. We may not unjustifiably picture him to our- 

 selves as a tall and hairy creature, more or less erect, but with a slouch- 

 ing gait, black-faced and whiskered, with prominent prognathous muz- 

 zle, and large pointed canine teeth, those of each jaw fitting into an 

 interspace in the opposite row. These teeth, as Mr. Darwin suggests, 

 were used in the combats of the males. His forehead was no doubt 

 low and retreating, with bony bosses underlying the shaggy eyebrows, 

 which gave him a fierce expression, something like that of the gorilla. 

 But already, in all likelihood, he had learned to walk habitually erect, 

 and had begun to develop a human pelvis, as well as to carry his head 

 more straight upon his shoulders. That some such an animal must 

 then have existed seems to me an inevitable corollary from the general 

 principles of evolution, and a natural inference from the analogy of 

 other living genera. Moreover, we actually find rude works of art 

 which occupy a position just midway between the undressed stone 

 nut-cracker of the ape and the chipped weapons of palaeolithic times. 

 This creature, then, if he existed at all, was the real primitive man, 

 and to apply that term to the cave-men or the drift-men is almost as 

 absurd as to apply it to the civilized neolithic herdsmen. 



The supposed Miocene ancestor of humanity must have been ac- 

 quainted with the use of fire, and have been sufficiently intelligent to 

 split rude flakes of flint. But his brain was no doubt about half-way 



