EXTINCT APES 283 



probably came into existence " in the Miocene or even an 

 earlier epoch." 



Without discussing the direct evidence, I may perhaps say 

 in passing that I happen to agree with those who are highly 

 sceptical of eoliths, and that I think the alleged proofs of the 

 great antiquity of H. sapiens are well-nigh valueless. I shall, 

 therefore, not be accused of prejudice in favour of the extreme 

 views. But when the extreme advocates of the opposing theory 

 — Boyd Dawkins, the late W. H. Sutcliffe, 1 and others — set out 

 to ridicule the attempt to find evidence of Miocene Hominidae 

 on the a priori ground that what is styled the highest mammal 

 could not have existed when proboscidians had primitive teeth, 

 deer only simple antlers, and horses three toes, it appears to 

 be time to call a halt in the process of destructive criticism. If 

 we had no more direct clue to the problem, the argument from 

 the general evolution of the Mammalia would be legitimate, 

 though singularly inconclusive ; but since we have fossil apes to 

 guide us, to discuss elephants, deer, or horses is illogical and 

 misleading. The older school may or may not be right in 

 thinking that there were no Hominidae before the Late Pliocene, 

 but they ought to base their conclusion either on the evolution 

 of the Primates (which, however, lends no support to their 

 doctrine), or else merely upon the absence of direct evidence of 

 the man-tribe from earlier strata, and not upon the evolution 

 of a totally different order of mammals. The point need not be 

 laboured, for though it has been forgotten, it will not be dis- 

 puted. It is true that a considerable amount of mammalian 

 evolution has taken place since the Miocene, but such evolution 

 is almost confined to the hoofed mammals and perhaps the 

 seals, and it would of course be quite an error to suppose that 

 the different groups of mammals have diverged from the 

 common stock at the same speed. For instance, we believe 

 that all the placental mammals have arisen from common 

 ancestors, small insectivore-like quadrupeds, since the end of 

 the Mesozoic era, and it is noteworthy that the two orders 

 which have diverged most from the ancestral type, to wit, the 

 bats and the whales, were already fully evolved before the end 

 of the Eocene, and are therefore astonishingly ancient animals 



1 W. H. Sutcliffe, "A Criticism of some Modern Tendencies in Prehistoric 

 Anthropology," in Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and 

 Philosophical Society, vol. 57, part II. 



