370 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1945 



Weidenreich, 1943), and the Sinanthropus and Pithecanthropus types 

 are ideal morphological ancestors for modern man. 



These ancient men differ markedly from modern man. They have 

 much larger and more massive faces, lower foreheads, smaller average 

 cranial capacity, and their limbs show characteristic differences. 

 Whereas the early Homo sapiens fossils, if alive today, probably could 

 pass unnoticed in the New York subway, one of these ancient men 

 would draw the attention of everyone. They were quite beyond the 

 range of variation of modern man. However, they were true men. 

 They had large brains (compared to those of apes), human faces and 

 teeth, and human limb bones. They walked upright as we do, and in 

 their morphology are infinitely closer to modern man than they are 

 to any ape. 



Ancient man spread out, just as early modern man did. His remains 

 have been found in Europe, Russia, China, Java, Palestine, and Africa. 

 Apparently, ancient man never reached the New World or Australia. 



To which of the living races are these ancient fossils particularly 

 closely related ? To none. The major races gained their individuality 

 long after the time when the earliest representatives of modern man 

 lived. Before these earliest modern men there is a morphological gap, 

 perhaps bridged by a skeleton from Palestine. 



If any of the modern races is particularly primitive, its remains 

 should be found in early strata and should be proportionately more 

 numerous in more ancient deposits. The only one of the modern races 

 of which this would be at all true is the aboriginal Australian. The 

 Wadjak, Cohuna, Talgai series of fossils seems to offer connecting 

 links between early modern man and the Australian. Also of living 

 men the Australian seems to have more in common with generalized 

 early Homo sapiens, although the living Australians have evolved 

 along lines of their own. They simply seem to have changed less than 

 the others. Even the aboriginal Australian is definitely a modern man 

 and lacks the peculiarities of the face and limb bone which character- 

 ize ancient man. 



Since the existing races have a common ancestor in early modern 

 man and since racial differences cannot be traced back even as far 

 as ancient man, what possible purpose is there in comparing living 

 races directly to the apes? Let us see how long a history of com- 

 mon ancestry the living races have compared to the time they have 

 been separate. Most students of human evolution feel that man must 

 have had an independent course of evolution since at least the end 

 of Miocene times. Many (Clark, Gregory, Hooton, Keith, Osborn, 

 Wood-Jones) would add millions of years to this. Early modern 

 man lived from 25 to 50 thousand years ago (considering the Pliocene 

 period to have lasted 6 million years, the Pleistocene 1 million, and 

 Recent 25 thousand). Let us be generous and say that the races 



