500 THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



The families of this people made their homes in caves 

 or rock shelters where they fashioned slings and spears 

 with heads of stone. With these weapons they probably 

 defended themselves and it appears that they success- 

 fully hunted the woolly mammoth and rhinoceros, the 

 cave bears, lions and leopards and several other animals 

 which since have become extinct. 



While it is unquestionably true that this race resem- 

 bled the apes in certain respects, it is a most significant 

 fact that they carefully buried their dead, left food and 

 weapons near them and very evidently believed in im- 

 mortality. This represents a vast stride forward and 

 places the Neanderthal man almost at the same level as 

 the Australian and Tasmanian native. 



Modern Man. — Not long since it was believed that 

 the Java man-ape, the Piltdown man, and the Nean- 

 derthal man represented stages in the gradual evolution 

 of modern man. Now it is thought that they are merely 

 offshoots from the main human stem (Fig. 143), and 

 though they throw a flood of light on the problem of 

 man's evolution, they are not to be regarded as his direct 

 ancestors. These primitive types have completely dis- 

 appeared, whereas the main branch has persisted, and not 

 only has it continued, but as man overcame barriers and 

 became widely distributed throughout the globe, the 

 species became differentiated into the present-day races 

 or sub-species. Some of these peoples, like the Austra-' 

 lians and the recently extinct Tasmanian races, never 

 evolved intellectually much beyond the Neanderthal 

 stage; others became much more highly developed. 



Cro-Magnon Man. — Among the highly developed 

 races of the modern human species the Cro-Magnon 

 holds a prominent position. Evolved in Asia, to the 

 best of our knowledge, it entered Europe by way of the 

 Mediterranean coast not less than 25,000 years ago, 

 and spread over practically the same territory as that 

 held by the Neanderthal people. In general appearance 



