672 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION^ 1913. 



may be guided and defended, but as theories they can not be estab- 

 lished with evidence by exact science. 



For the habit of dwelling in the tops of trees reference is made to 

 the life of anthropoid apes. But the animal or semianimal ancestor 

 of man did not descend from the tree in order to become a man. 

 He dwelt on terra firma before his transformation into man, else 

 he could not present such physical divergencies from the present 

 anthropoid apes. It is true that we incidentally find certain savage 

 peoples who still live in trees, but this kind of dwelling accords well 

 with the building of huts. It constitutes chiefly a temporary safe 

 asylum in times of danger, not a fixed residence. It is a secondary 

 form of adaptation, the same as the pile dwellings. Man by origin 

 is neither a climber, like the anthropoids, nor an aquatic animal, 

 like the beaver, but he has learned to change the location of his home 

 to increase his safety, either raising it upon high trees or trans- 

 ferring it from terra firma to locations over the water according as 

 circumstances or necessity may call for one or the other of these 

 forms. But in either case he already had the hut complete and 

 sought for it a new foundation so that he might, at will, connect 

 himself with or separate himself from terra firma, in one case by 

 means of a ladder, in the other by that of a bridge. In this case, 

 therefore, there appears no primitive form of human habitation. 

 And this applies with still greater reason to the dwelling in hollow 

 trees, for from what we know about savage peoples of to-daj^^ trees 

 never constitute permanent homes, but at the most are but a passing 

 shelter. 



An analogous, if not identical, fact is pointed out in favor of 

 troglodytism (cave dwelling). This might have been a primitive 

 form of habitation, for nature has here united all the elements of a 

 substantial and clean residence. There is a floor, roof, walls, often 

 also interior divisions, covered vestibules, sunny terraces, sometimes 

 also sheltered places hardly accessible in the roclr^ walls, passages 

 running deep into the mountain and affording hiding places and 

 refuges. As a matter of fact, in rocky regions rich in caverns these 

 advantages early became known and were abundantly utilized during 

 long ages. But these do not exist everywhere, and for this reason 

 alone we can not speak of an epoch when cave dwellings were general. 

 Moreover, the earliest himian hordes were certainly too unsteady and 

 wandering to remain attached through the entire year to this natural 

 immovable kind of shelters. Their habit of hunting big game would 

 not permit them such a high degree of permanent settlement. Even 

 to-day in studying certain very primitive hunting peoples, such as 

 the Veddas of Ceylon, we find that they seek out the rocky parts of 

 their hunting territory only during the rainy season when they may 

 camp in the excavations and under shelter of the rocks. 



