HUMAN HISTORY 131 



culture where culture is judged by standards other than command 

 over nature. 



IB. How far can we employ our knowledge of primitive races 

 to fill in this framework ? Some reference has been made in the 

 fourth chapter to the position which these races occupy. It was 

 pointed out that they represent ' relicts ' of stages of culture 

 through which the civilized races have passed, due allowance 

 being made for the fact that they have developed to some degree 

 on speciahzed lines of their own since their separation from the 

 main stream (?f progress. In some few oases, as in the example of 

 the Seri Indians, there may have been decadence. 



Broadly speaking, these races fall into two groups. There are 

 the hunting and fishing races, and there are those which practise 

 a primitive form of agriculture. The former, it is to be presumed, 

 ceased to be in any important manner influenced by, if they were 

 not wholly cut off from, the main current of cultural evolution 

 before the end of the Palaeolithic Age. The latter may have 

 remained more or less in contact with the main stream of evolu- 

 tion until late Neolithic times, or they may have lost touch 

 earlier and have acquired independently the art of agriculture, 

 as was presumably the case with those American Indians who 

 practise agriculture. The chief hunting and fishing races are the 

 Tasmanians, Australians, Bushmen, Eskimos, and certain of the 

 American Indians. Professor SoUas has drawn up a comparison 

 between the culture of some of these races and that of certain 

 epochs in the Palaeolithic era. He has shown that Tasmanian 

 and Australian culture may be compared with early and late 

 phases respectively of the Middle Palaeolithic. A very striking 

 similarity indeed can be shown between the Aurignacian culture 

 and that of the Bushmen on the one hand and between the 

 Magdalenian culture and that of the Eskimo on the other. When 

 we consider the osteological evidence, however, we do not find 

 any striking similarity between Neanderthal man and AustraHans 

 and Tasmanians. The existence of the negroid skeleton of 

 Grimaldi is suggestive, but the likeness between it and the Bush- 

 men type is not close. The skull found at Chaacelade, however, 

 and generally considered as an aberrant type of Cro-Magnon man 

 does show a very curious resemblance to the Eskimo skull. Thus 

 though we cannot think of the Tasmanians and Australians as 

 actual relicts of the Neanderthal racial type, which we know in 



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