538 HRDLICKA— THE PEOPLING OF ASIA. 



they are. They could not possibly have come from the east or from 

 the north, and we have just seen that there is no likelihood of their 

 coming from the south. This leaves but one broad avenue of 

 approach which is that from the west through the great flat lands 

 to the north of the Himalayan and central Asiatic mountains. 

 And this connects the ancestors of the mongoloid peoples inevitably 

 with the prehistoric westernmost Asiatic and through these with the 

 old European peoples ; while chronologically they can only connect, 

 judging from the evidence of their main physical traits, with the 

 late Paleolithic and the succeeding periods. 



So much for the present for the mongoloids ; and with these 

 out of the way there remains to be considered only the peopling 

 of southern and western Asia. 



This part of the problem is again plainly divisible into that 

 relating to the presence of the Negrito, and that of the Mediter- 

 ranean, Semitic, Aryan and mixed populations. 



According to all indications the Negrito was the first human 

 inhabitant in any numbers of a large proportion of — if not of the 

 entire — southern and southeastern coasts of Asia and of the neigh- 

 boring as well as some more distant islands, reaching to New Guinea 

 and possibly even to parts of Australia. Whence he came, how he 

 came so far, and how he succeeded in occupying such extensive 

 regions, including what now are far separated islands, are largely 

 questions for future determination ; but the facts show that all this 

 has been accomplished. 



It now seems most probable that the Negrito is racially con- 

 nected with the Central African small black man; and that he ex- 

 tended over the great territory he once covered mainly over lana, 

 and that either over Arabia and by scouring the sea coast, or over 

 land extensions and connections which may have since disappeared. 

 Still he may have become enough of a navigator to reach at least 

 some of the islands where he left his traces over the seas — the 

 blacks of Micro- and Melanesia who have considerable Negrito 

 blood have shown themselves to be quite capable of that. That the 

 Negrito did not originate separately from the African blacks is 

 amply evident from the many characteristic resemblances he bears 

 to the latter ; and that he did not originate in Asia and then cross 



