MAN FROM THE FARTHEST PAST 
that eventually evolved into man. Either of these con- 
clusions would demand decisive supporting material, 
which does not exist. The most that appears justifiable 
until further and conclusive evidence appears, is to con- 
sider the Pithecanthropus, as represented by the skullcap, 
to have been a high primate of as yet uncertain ancestry 
and no known progeny, far advanced in what may be 
termed a humanoid direction. 
Taking everything into consideration the indications are 
that the Pithecanthropus erectus was a being that well de- 
served the name of “‘a human transitional form from Java” 
which, not in single specimens but as a type, can show us 
the way followed in human evolution from the lower 
forms. 
Ruopesian Man 
Another extremely important discovery of recent years 
is that of the fossil man of Rhodesia, in South Africa. 
This is discussed here, not because it is earlier than those 
of Piltdown, of Heidelberg, and of Java, but because there 
is even less certainty regarding the period to which it 
belongs than is the case with these others. Of Rhodesian 
man Doctor Hrdliéka writes as follows: 
On June seventeenth, 1921, a very remarkable human 
skull was discovered in the Broken Hill Mine, northern 
Rhodesia (Plate 49). It was the skull of a man whose 
features were in many ways so primitive that nothing 
quite like it had been seen before; and coming from a part 
of the world which hitherto had given nothing similar and 
in which nothing of that nature was ever suspected, it 
aroused much scientific attention. 
Fortunately the specimen was saved, with but a minor 
damage, and later in the same year was brought by the 
manager of the mine to the British Museum of Natural 
History, where, safely preserved, it constitutes one of the 
scientific treasures of that institution. 
[154] 
