86 READINGS IN EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 



In South America. — A number of finds have been recorded from 

 South America, notably by the late Florentino Ameghino of Buenos 

 Aires, who contributed so largely to our knowledge of South American 

 prehistoric life. An expert from Washington, Doctor Ales Hrdlicka, 

 has studied with the utmost care the locality and character of each of 

 these finds in the Western World, and has expressed the opinion that 

 none is of an antiquity greater than that of the pre-Columbian 

 Indians. 



Further evidence lies in the uniformity of type, except for minor 

 distinctions, of all native American peoples. There is no such racial 

 differentiation as that seen in the Old World, and the argument is that 

 there has not been time for such a deployment. The area and condi- 

 tions as an adaptive radiation center are surely ample. 



In Africa. — The only African relics thus far reported are those 

 of prehistoric cultures, comparable to those of Southern Europe, in 

 certain caverns of the Barbary States. There has also been reported 

 from Oldoway ravine, German East Africa, a human skeleton of 

 undoubted antiquity. It is described, however, as being neither a 

 very early nor a primitive type. 



In Asia. — Asia has given us in Pithecanthropus the oldest known 

 relic of the Hominidae, found at Trinil in the island of Java. Osborn 

 says: "It is possible that within the next decade one or more of the 

 Tertiary ancestors of man may be discovered in northern India among 

 the foothills known as the SiwaHks. Such discoveries have been 

 heralded, but none have thus far been actually made. Yet Asia will 

 probably prove to be the center of the human race. We have now 

 discovered in southern Asia primitive representatives or relatives of 

 the four existing types of anthropoid apes, namely, the gibbon, the 

 orang, the chimpanzee, and the gorilla, and since the extinct Indian 

 apes are related to those of Africa and of Europe, it appears probable 

 that southern Asia is near the center of the evolution of the higher 

 primates and that we may look there for the ancestors not only of 

 prehuman stages like the Trinil race but of the higher and truly 

 human types." 



In Europe.— It is in Europe, however, that the tale of human 

 prehistory is the most complete, not only through the happy accident 

 of preserval, but because it has been much more thoroughly explored 

 than has the Asiatic evolutionary center. The latter, however, holds 

 the greatest hopes for future exploration since, as we have emphasized, 

 Europe is too small to be an adaptive radiation center and European 



