MAN FROM THE FARTHEST PAST 
the mastery of the globe, slowly and patiently and under 
conditions of hardship and danger such as we now can 
scarcely imagine, only because it was on the whole the form 
best adapted to win in the struggle for existence. 
Perhaps we can picture to ourselves something of the 
appearance of primeval man. From the earliest human 
remains found thus far, we know that very far back man 
already stood nearly if not quite upright. He was prob- 
ably covered fairly thickly with hair, of which indeed we 
still find traces on our own bodies. No doubt it tended to 
grow longer and thicker on the head and Jaws, and it must 
have been shaggy and matted. In texture we may be 
pretty sure that it was neither coarse and straight, like 
that of the Mongol or the American Indian, nor kinky 
like that of the Negro, but something in between. Prob- 
ably, too, it was not black but brownish in color. How 
man came to lose his body hair to such an extent remains 
an unanswered question. One of the most plausible ex- 
planations suggests that some connection exists between 
this loss of hair and the wearing of clothing. But even this 
theory has a weak spot, for it seems to imply that all 
existing races, even those which go about naked today, 
must have worn clothes at some period of their develop- 
ment. 
Regarding the skin color of primitive man, we have 
reason to believe that it was neither the pale white of the 
North European nor the sooty black of the darkest Negro, 
but again something in between—some shade of brown. 
We have few clues to the features of man earlier than the 
Neanderthaler, about whose facial structure we know a 
good deal, but who comes on the stage rather late in the 
long drama of human progress. It is clear that true chins 
had not yet developed, for the more primitive lower jaws 
already found are in this respect quite apelike. The teeth, 
on the other hand, seem early to have acquired definitely 
human form, indicating that primeval man was depending 
more and more on his hands and less and less on his Jaws 
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