December 17, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



573 



is surely a great field for scientific determina- 

 tion. 



But the greatest and most compreliensive of 

 all the problems of the Far East and the south- 

 ern archipelagos, is that of man's antiquity in 

 these regions. We know that since the Ter- 

 tiary these regions were and still are inhab- 

 ited by anthropoid apes. "We therefore have 

 had there forms near to man since at least the 

 Pliocene period. In the island of Java have 

 been discovered the remains of a creature that 

 is the closest to man of all non-human forms 

 thus far knovtn. Whether this being was di- 

 rectly ancestral to man or not does not matter ; 

 the point is that many things indicate this 

 region as the possible site of man's earliest 

 diilerentiation, of man's origin. But the truth 

 in the case remains to be determined. Explo- 

 rations in this field have thus far barely 

 touched the surface. There are vast promising 

 deposits, and almost endless numbers of caves 

 that demand exploration. Of all the fields of 

 anthropological research here is the most preg- 

 nant. And it lies fallow. 



Connected with the preceding is the problem 

 as to why early man has not populated the 

 mainland of eastern Asia. In all this part of 

 Asia, extending to the Turkestans, there has 

 not been found thus far a single object which 

 would unquestionably point to man's geologic 

 antiquity. The objects thus far discovered 

 over these vast regions are those of the Neo- 

 lithic period, and apparently not even the old- 

 est parts of the Neolithic. The man who 

 occupies these territories is not allied with 

 anything primitive; he is not very substan- 

 tially different from the white man; he is 

 more related to the white man than to the 

 blacks; his origins point westward, not south- 

 ward. The only conclusion that one can reach 

 is that the region which is now known as China 

 and the continent to the north of this, had 

 never been peopled by early -man, for which 

 there must have been weighty reasons. On 

 closer analysis it is possible to reduce these 

 reasons to two only — either early man never 

 was in southern Asia; or he was there in the 

 south but was prevented from reaching farther 

 north by insurmountable, for him, natural 



conditions. The fact that no trace of anthro- 

 poid apes has thus far been found in central or 

 northeastern Asia would somewhat favor the 

 second hypothesis. The barrier to the exten- 

 sion of these apes northward may have been 

 the same that prevented a similar extension of 

 early man or the human precursors. Though 

 it is also possible that early man developed in 

 the south but much farther westward, maybe 

 even as far as the African continent. All this 

 is to be determined. Yet certain facts indicate 

 that, whether early man did or did not once 

 exist in southern Asia, there did exist towards 

 the north a barrier that might have prevented 

 his spread in that direction. A large portion 

 of China is covered by a peculiar Quaternary 

 geologic formation, the so-called loess. The 

 loess is generally poor in fossils, and geologists 

 in China have inclined to the opinion that dur- 

 ing the deposition of these accumulations the 

 great region thereby covered was probably not 

 as habitable as it is to-day; that it did not offer 

 sufficient resources for man or many animals; 

 that the loess formation may represent condi- 

 tions such as exist in the Turkestans or south- 

 ern Mongolia at this day. It appears to repre- 

 sent a region where the alluvia left after over- 

 flows of the rivers after they dried were dis- 

 seminated by the winds and came to form the 

 earth's surface under semi-desert conditions. 

 But the actual facts are still to be established. 

 This only shows how great is the need of ac- 

 tual investigation, geological, paleontological 

 and from many other points of view, in these 

 regions. 



Such are at least some of the more particu- 

 lar, as well as the more comprehensive prob- 

 lems of the more eastern parts of the Asiatic 

 continent, presented in a simple and meager 

 manner. My object is merely to show how 

 necessary it is for American anthropology to 

 pay more attention to the Far East. The time 

 has come when we must cease to be provincial. 

 I would like to see our institutions establish 

 proper research stations in eastern Asia where 

 local workers could be trained for investiga- 

 tion in anthropology and related branches. 

 And I would like to see the American men of 

 science as well as others, help to establish for 



