440 



NATURE 



[September 22, 1923 



The Study of Man.' 

 By Prof. G. Elliot Smith, F.R.S. 



IN this address I propose to give a sketch of the 

 progress that has recently been made in some of 

 the manifold branches of study concerned with the 

 nature and history of man and his achievements, and 

 to suggest how thc>- can be correlated and integrated 

 as a real science of man with a distinctive discipline. 



The recent discoveries of the remains of Rhodesian 

 man and the Nebraska tooth have added a new species 

 and a new genus to the human family, and two con- 

 tinents to the known domain of its extinct members. 

 Intensive studies of the whole series of fossil remains 

 and comparison with the living races of Homo sapiens 

 have made it possible for us to construct a family tree 

 of the Hominidre, and to draw certain inferences as to 

 the nature of the evolutionary changes that have 

 occurred within the human family since it first came 

 into existence. From such investigations it appears 

 that some of the features regarded as distinctive of the 

 highest races of men are temporary phases in the lower 

 races ; and, what is much more striking, many of the 

 anatomical traits generally supposed to be peculiar 

 to the human family are found in new-born gorillas 

 and chimpanzees, but are lost by these apes before 

 they attain their maturity. Prof. Bolk, of Amsterdam, 

 has recently been studying this remarkable pheno- 

 menon,2 and has attempted to interpret the facts by 

 the Batesonian paradox that man has attained the 

 human status and the higher races have advanced a 

 stage beyond the lower, not by the acquisition of new 

 characters, but by inhibiting the full development of 

 his ancestral traits. I am unable to accept my dis- 

 tinguished friend's speculations. For man's mental 

 powers and the brain that makes their manifestation 

 possible cannot be explained simply as an unveiling 

 of possibilities dormant in his ancestors, for they are 

 positive additions to his equipment which represent 

 his distinctive characteristic. There is, however, this 

 germ of truth in Prof. Bolk's claim ; the apes have in 

 many respects departed further from the primitive 

 ancestral type than man has in that they have become 

 more highly specialised in adaptation to a particular 

 mode of life. They have lost not only many primitive 

 traits that man has retained, but also the plasticity 

 and adaptability that played a decisive part in the 

 attainment of man's mental pre-eminence. 



I propose here to submit a tentative pedigree of 

 man's Primate ancestry based upon the results of 

 intensive studies in comparative anatomy and em- 

 bryology, and discoveries in palaeontology, and to use 

 this as the basis for a study of the progressive changes 

 in the brain, which prepared the way for the eventual 

 emergence of those attributes of mind which distinguish 

 man from all other living creatures. 



In the course of this inquiry we shall see that during 

 the process of evolution man's Primate ancestors 

 wandered from America to Europe and Asia, and that 

 such world-wide migrations have been continued by 

 certain of their descendants ever since, providing the 



• Evening lecture delivered to the British Association Meeting at 

 Liverpool, on September 14. 



« L. Bolk, " The Part played by the Endocrine Glands in the Evolution 

 of Man," The Lancet, September 10, 1921, p. 588. 



NO. 2812, VOL. 112] 



new environments which weeded out those mei; 

 of the order that failed to adapt themselves to :.. 

 circumstances or to specialise and drop out of the rac< 

 for the attainment of a higher status. Nor did tbi 

 migration cease with the advent of man himself. H> 

 has ever been a wanderer upon the face of the car*' 

 and not until the invention of civilisation did c< 

 groups of human beings liecome anchored in dennit 

 localities. One of the great sources of confusion i: 

 modem anthropological >' s is the failure t 



distinguish between the i of population an< 



the diffusion of culture : in other words due recogr 

 is not given to the fact that a small group of pe<.; 

 a higher culture can impose the latter upon a 

 community without necessarily effecting any rectv... 

 able change in the physical characters of the peopl' 

 as a whole. 



The Discovery of Tutankhamkn s iomb. 



When the programme for the British Association 

 meeting was first tentatively drafted, more than si 

 months ago, the attention of the world at large wa 

 fixed upon the Theban Valley of the Tombs of tlv 

 Kings, and the name of the insignificant pharao 

 Tutankhamen was on every one's lips. The officers < 

 the Association then decided that the evening lectur 

 should be devoted to an exposition of the scientit. 

 results of the exploration of Tutankhamen's tomb, ana 

 it was hoped that Lord Carnarvon would have pre- 

 sided at it. I need not dwell upon the tragic even' 

 which have made impossible the realisation of eith- 

 of these proposals. Lord Carnarvon's death has dea 

 a ver>- serious blow to Egyptian studies just at tl 

 moment when it is more than ever important th. 

 British prestige in Egypt as a serious patron of archje 

 logical study should be maintained and strengthened. 



The work in Tutankhamen's tomb has yielded' 

 singularly little information of direct scientific vah: 

 Yet there are certain aspects of this dazzling illumina- 

 tion of the last phase of the eighteenth d\-nasty that 

 are worthy of attention. I need not emphasise tl 

 value of this discover}- in forcing upon the attentic 

 of the world the vastness of the achievements of the 

 ancient Eg>T)tians in the fourteenth centur\- B.C. At 

 a time when some of us have been trying to imprt 

 this fact upon students of anthropolog>' one cann 

 refrain from acknowledging the debt to Mr. Howa: 

 Carter for having accomplished in one winter what v, 

 have been striving in vain to do at the British Associ. 

 tion for more than twelve years. There is only oiu: 

 point in connexion with this discover}- to which I can 

 refer before I turn to consider other aspects of tlv 

 study of man. 



The Search for Gold. 

 The vast quantity of gold actually found in the tomb 

 is a point of special interest, for it raises problems of the 

 utmost significance with reference to the part played 

 by this relatively useless yellow metal in the history- of 

 civilisation. At a time when we have lost the use of 

 gold as currency it is interesting to contemplate a stai- 



