MAN'S RELATIVES: THE PRIMATES 487 



was of monstrous size, larger and heavier than the largest gorilla, and 

 comparable only to the Asiatic giants later to be mentioned. 



The exact relationship of these South African man-apes to man is far 

 from settled. One group of investigators believes that they were actual 

 ancestors of man and would place their occurrence in the late Pliocene; 

 others think that they are of early Pleistocene age and that they lived 

 too late to have been more than the unprogressive descendants of the 

 true human ancestors. This would make them merely contemporaneous 

 "cousins" of early man. Regardless of differing views the fact remains 

 that these fossils unmistakably show the kind of changes by which our 

 apelike ancestors were transformed into creatures recognizable as men. 



