"THE COMING OF SAVAGE MAN 45 



At a far later date Hamitic and Semitic tribes went south- 

 westward toward northern Africa; the Semites making 

 Arabia their home and center of radiation, the ancestors of 

 the Hamitic people going farther and settling along the 

 southern shore of the Mediterranean. These regions were 

 highly favored during the moist and cool glacial period of 

 the Pleistocene epoch, when large parts of the Sahara desert 

 blossomed like a rose and supported a numerous population. 



Not very much later, if at all, people began to follow the 

 great river route up the valleys of the Euphrates and its 

 branches into Asia Minor. This region also offered great ad- 

 vantages being a border land between northern and southern 

 florae, and offering many choice specimens of both, especially 

 of fruits and nuts. 



There was a third route which apparently became of im- 

 portance only at a far later date in prehistoric times. It was 

 the most northerly of all, and led westward around the north- 

 ern end of the Caspian Sea, the foot-hills of the Caucasus, the 

 northern shore of the Black Sea, and up the Danube Valley 

 into the heart of Europe. It is now a broad zone of grass- 

 land or steppe, much like our western prairies. Whether it 

 was forested during the height of the moist glacial period 

 seems still uncertain. In that case the southern boundary line 

 of the forest has retreated northward since that time. It 

 was apparently the least attractive and last route to be fol- 

 lowed. It is crossed by great rivers pouring southward from 

 Russia into the Caspian and Black Seas, and every river 

 valley formed a branch route. Hence Russia and Poland 

 furnish many interesting remains of early prehistoric days 

 while the story of later epochs is left in the remains of the 

 Danube valley and its extensions northward. 



The history of the development of pithecanthropus or some 

 similar form into a human being worthy of the name is still 

 shrouded in darkness which will only gradually be dispelled 

 by farther discoveries in ill-explored western Asia and India. 

 We pass from the Iranian plateau to the far better explored 

 countries of Europe. 



