220 SOME NEW BOOKS [SEPTEMBER 
been fully constituted in their primeval homes, and had begun those later 
developments and migratory movements which followed at long intervals after 
the first peopling of the earth by pleistocene man. By such movements were 
brought about great changes, displacements, and dislocations, involving fresh 
ethnical groupings, with profound modifications, or even total effacements of 
racial or linguistic characters, and complete severance from the original seats of 
the parent ‘stocks. In some cases the connecting ties are past recovery, so 
that the ethnical, like the geological, record must always remain to some extent 
a mutilated chapter in the history of the world and of humanity. But in our 
times many of the more serious gaps have been often most unexpectedly made 
good by the combined efforts of philologists, physical anthropologists, and 
especially archaeologists, who have come to the welcome aid of the palethnolo- 
gist, hitherto groping almost helplessly in this dark field of human origins.” 
Mr. Keane is a ‘‘monogenist,” and maintains that all the varieties of the 
human race can be traced back to one centre of evolution. The first splitting 
of the main stem was almost simultaneously into the three types—Negro, 
Mongol, and Caucasian—which still represent mankind on the globe. Homo 
Americanus is a great puzzle to ethnologists, more especially as the tendency 
of the most recent investigations is decidedly against the theory that palaeo- 
lithic man of quaternary times ever existed on the North American continent. 
By successive divergences from these three primary branches under the mould- 
ing influences of cross-breeding, and climatal, geographical, and other changes 
in the environment, Mr. Keane accounts for all the varieties of shadings which 
characterise and distinguish the present inhabitants of the globe. The ‘ cradle- 
land,” from which Homo sapiens first emerged and bade farewell to his con- 
geners of the brute creation, was, according to the author, a lost continent, 
“Tndo-African,” now repr esented only by Madagascar and a few islands in the 
Indian Ocean. Of the three divisions of mankind still living, the Negroid 
(‘“‘ Negrito”) type is regarded as most nearly approaching the original fourm of 
tertiary man. On the modus operandi of this primary stage of humanity he 
quotes from Dr. Munro’s writings on the influence which the erect posture 
played in the higher development of the brain, with regard to which he states 
(page 7):—‘“ This greatly strengthens the view always advocated by me that 
man began to spread over the globe after he had acquired the erect posture, but 
while in other physical and in mental respects he still differed not greatly from 
his nearest akin.” 
The three chapters dealing with the Caucasic peoples will be found of 
greatest interest to general readers of anthropology. Here some of the more 
burning problems of the hour, bearing on early European civilisation, are 
intelligently discussed ; nor does the author by any means submerge his own 
individuality in the various controversies which he summarises for his readers. 
He follows Prof. Sergi in assigning the Iberians, Ligurians, Pelasgians, etc., to 
an original home in North Africa. The “ Mediterranean race,’ ’ from whom a 
stream of ‘ migration set steadily and uninterruptedly into Europe throughout 
both Stone Ages,” was dolichocephalic, short in stature, and of a dark brown 
colotir. 
The task which Mr. Keane has set before himself in the compilation of this 
most readable book is one which few anthropologists would undertake, and 
which still fewer are competent to execute. He gathers his materials, apparently 
with great linguistic facilities, from far rays, however, from 
the original investigators, who are too often allowed to disappear, while the 
second-hand compilers are brought to the front. But, in extenuation, this much 
must be acknowledged, that his authorities are most faithfully given—and this 
is one of the most valuable features of the book. Scarcely a subject in the 
whole range of Anthropology and pre-historic Archaeology is omitted by this 
versatile author. Archaeologists, geologists, philologists, folklorists, and even 
modern globe-trotters come on and go off the stage with startling suddenness. 

