THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



matter. At this point then, our steps must be 

 directed exclusively towards the primitive world. 

 But, what can be said in regard to those primi- 

 tive bones and the possibility of fitting them into 

 the picture which we have just drawn? 



Here we remember once more that famous 

 Pithecanthropus of Trinil, who is half gibbon, 

 half man. Is it possible that he could be the very 

 type for which we are looking? There is one 

 thing which gives rise to doubts, and that is the 

 time to which he belongs. We have seen that it 

 is almost a certainty that genuine man lived in 

 the second third of the Tertiary period, that is to 

 say, in those tropical forests of middle Europe. 

 Recently, flintstone tools have been found in 

 France in the strata of that period, which the 

 scientist called the "Miocene Period." These 

 tools are almost identical with certain stone tools 

 of the crudest kind which every expert attributes 

 to human hands. But the great forests of this 

 Miocene period were inhabited by man-like apes. 

 In Austria, Switzerland and France, there lived 

 a genuine gibbon (Pliopithecus) and another 

 species lived in France, closely resembling the 

 chimpanzee, but yet standing by itself without 

 being any closer to man (Dryopithecus) . A 

 little later we also find genuine chimpanzees and 



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