CENTERS OF CIVILIZATION — SWANTON 377 



bounded by a line cutting through Peru and Bolivia from north to 

 south. 



Returning to the Old World we note that the boundary between the 

 Oriental and Palaearctic regions cuts directly through the Indus cul- 

 tural center and that the boundary between the Palaearctic and Ethi- 

 opian regions crosses the Nile close to Upper Egypt. The Sumerian, 

 Cretan, and Chinese centers lie considerably north of the southern 

 boundary of the Palaearctic zone in the general map of Bartholomew, 

 but on the maps of some zoogeographers they lie much closer. 



CONCLUSIONS 



From the foregoing discussion it appears that the higher civiliza- 

 tions have made their appearance and have spread among peoples of 

 varying physical types and that these centers have contributed to the 

 higher culture of mankind in about equal measure. If the races are 

 ranged in a dual category, Northern Fair and Southern Dark, the 

 centers of civilization fall within the former as usually defined, but 

 in all cases among marginal peoples, not far from the boundaries of 

 the darker races. If it is true that no primar}^ center of civilization 

 arose among the ultrablacks, it is equally true that none arose among 

 the ultrawhites. In one or two of these centers, moreover, there was a 

 brack strain at a very early period. Some of these centers — Egypt, 

 Sumeria, the Indus — show early evidences of considerable hetero- 

 geneity, and all of them signs of trading contacts with the outside 

 world. 



There is thus evidence that factors other than race were responsible 

 for the position of these cultural centers. All of them show signs of 

 contact, and none of those in the Old World, except the one in China, 

 is far from the Plateau of Iran where three of the principal zoogeo- 

 graphical areas come together. This would seem to be a natural point 

 from which life forms spread as indicated by their present geograph- 

 ical distribution. Although skeletal remains of primitive man have 

 been found at widely separated points very far from the region under 

 discussion, it is a fair question whether the distribution of animal life 

 may not indicate the actual center more accurately, and that there is 

 reason to look for the great cultural centers of mankind in the same 

 general territory. 



A summary of the foregoing discussion would result about as 

 follows : 



1. The primary culture centers lay among people of both dolicho- 

 cephalic and brachycephalic head form and among those who were 

 intermediate in pigmentation. 



2. They were in warm temperate latitudes. 



3. They were in areas containing heterogeneous populations or close 

 to areas of divergent cultures. 



