HUMAN ORGANIC EVOLUTION: FACT OR FANCY? 



the difficulties of not just classifying fossil remains, but also 

 of showing relationships, especially when there is a paucity 

 of data. Thus, Weidenreich suggested that Solo man is derived 

 from Pithecanthropus, giving rise perhaps to the modem 

 mongoloid race. Another, view suggests that both Rhodesian 

 man and Solo Man are aberrant forms of Neanderthal man, 

 implying thereby a very wide distribution of Neanderthal man. 

 A third interpretation is that the Neanderthaloid population 

 provided the basis for independent evolutionary differentiation 

 of some of the present day races. Clarke suggests this to be 

 a possibility, but in terms of what is known of mammalian 

 evolution in general, it is not very probable. 



In what has been said in the foregoing paragraphs, one 

 may propose that the development of Homo sapiens took 

 place in Pre-Mousterian times, provisionally into middle 

 pleistocene times. That is based on the fact that by this time 

 no significant anatomical features can be found in pre- 

 Mousterian Homo sapiens which distinguish him from modern 

 man. The question might legitimately be asked, what happened 

 to the Neanderthal man? Unfortunately no definite answer 

 can be given to this problem. It is possible of course that the 

 more progressive species of Homo sapiens, which also brought 

 with it a new culture of more finely worked tools, displaced 

 in the course of time the older Neanderthalers. Or else that 

 the Neanderthalers became extinct for reasons not connected 

 to contacts with Homo sapiens, but that they encountered 

 some disaster or fell prey to disease. 



In this connection some remarks must be made about fossil 

 races. If it is difficult to distinguish middle pleistocene man 

 from modern Homo sapiens, it becomes immediately clear that 

 the origin of modern races is even more difficult to determine 

 when one is forced to rely on fossil evidence alone. It may 

 be said right at this point, that most anthropologists are quite 

 certain that modern races as we know them are a new and 

 recent phenomenon. The difficulty arises from the fact that 

 distinctions between modern races are literally superficial, e.g., 

 skin color, hair texture, eye shape, nose forms etc. Further- 

 more, no single individual fossil can be used by the taxonomist 



" Op. cit, pu 79. 



■39 



