Chapter XXIV 



FROM PRIMITI\E TO MODERN MAN 



Primitive Man — His Times and Personality 



"^1 IE length of time during which man lias inhahitrtl the earth olTcrs a 

 subject for dispute and much (hilerence of opinion. All authorities, 

 ho\\c\ er, are agreed that se\'eral stages ot human progress must have 

 required the i)assagc of a reiatnely long period. None ol the modern I'stima- 

 tions of this period is less than 500,000 years. Many calculations, such as those 

 of Sir Arthur Keitli, far exceed this iigure and place the origin of man as hir 

 back as a million years or more. The beginnings of the human species arc 

 usuall}' attributed to the early part of the Pleistocene, or even the hite |)art 

 of the Pliocene, keith, however, does not bclie\e that this permits ot siilli- 

 eient time for the evolutionary process which so evidently has produci'd 

 all ol the ellects evidenced in the known leatures ot modern man as well as 

 those of certain extinct \arieties of mankind which have long since passed 

 Irom the stage. Keith concludes his tamous work on "The Anticjuity ol Man " 

 with the statement that " there is not a single tact know n to me w hich makes 

 the existence of the human torm m the Miocene period an impossibility." 



the I AMII ^' OI- MAN 



Man, in all of his races, both living and extinct, constitutes the sixth 

 family of the suborder of Anthropoidea, known as the Hominidae. This 

 family departed from the common stock representing the orthograde stem of 

 the primates at some time early in the Oligocene. At that critical juncture, 

 probably twent\-li\e million years ago, two great branches ot the suborder 

 parted company. Thenceforth they continued their further dilterentiation 



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