THE EVOLUTION OF MAU 749 



modern man's in shape. The Australian bushmen are believed to be 

 descendants of Solo man, a conclusion strengthened by the finding in 

 1940 of two Pleistocene skulls at Keilor, near Melbourne, Australia, 

 which were intermediate in character between Solo man and the present 

 aboriginal Australians. 



Another primitive skull, to which the name Rhodesian man has been 

 given, was found in 1921 in a limestone cave at Broken Hill, Rhodesia. 

 The skull was well preserved and has thick bones, very large eyebrow 

 ridges and a low, receding forehead but a cranial capacity of about 1300 

 ml. The teeth are large, but human rather than apelike and are badly 

 decayed, an unusual condition in apes and primitive man. The rela- 

 tions of this finding to other primitive man are obscure. 



324. Modern Man (Homo sapiens) 



The species Homo sapiens includes all the living races of man and 

 some extinct ones such as the Cro-Magnons. The idea that this species 

 appeared relatively recently in the late Pleistocene, when the Neander- 

 thalers were vanishing, is no longer valid, for the Swanscombe man is 

 now known to have existed in the middle Pleistocene. This skull, essen- 

 tially modern in shape and size, though having somewhat thicker bones, 

 was found in 1935 in the Thames Valley at Swanscombe in a gravel 

 deposit from the Middle Pleistocene. Its antiquity was confirmed in 

 1949 by the fluorine test, which depends on the fact that buried bones 

 and teeth gradually accumulate fluorine. The age of a fossil can be 

 estimated from its fluorine content. Other remains of Homo sapiens 

 which bridge the long gap between Swanscombe man and the Cro- 

 Magnon races have been found in central France in 1948 and in northern 

 Iran in 1951. 



More than 100 fossils of Hotno sapiens have been found from the 

 period between 15,000 and 60,000 or so years ago. The first of these were 

 found in the Cro-Magnon rock shelters in the Vezere valley in south 

 central France, and these are all referred to as Cro-Magnon men, even 

 though they fall into several different groups. The Cro-Magnons were 

 tall and large-boned, with massive, long skulls, a high forehead, prom- 

 inent chin, and no eyebrow ridges (Fig. 36.10). They lived in rock 

 shelters and caves and drew superb pictures of the contemporary animals 

 on the walls of these caves (Fig. l.I). Cro-Magnon man was a contem- 

 porary of the Neanderthalers and may have displaced and exterminated 

 him. 



The center of origin of modern man appears to have been in Asia, 

 in the general region of the Caspian Sea. The white races spread west- 

 ward around both shores of the Mediterranean to Europe, Southwestern 

 Asia and North Africa, displacing the Cro-Magnons who had in turn 

 displaced the earlier Neanderthalers. Some of the inhabitants of Ireland 

 and Scandinavia, and the Basques of southern France and northern 

 Spain, show marked similarities to Cro-Magnons and may represent 

 their descendants who were pushed westward by the migrating Neolithic 

 man. 



