154 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



number of paleontologists, among them notably M. Boule, are dis- 

 posed to believe that we have not yet found our direct ancestor 

 in the Middle Pleistocene, it is really because that creature did not 

 exist in our regions at that time, and that he invaded them only 

 during the last period of the early Quaternary, bringing with him 

 his magnificent civilization. In this hypothesis the country of origin 

 of this creature would be probably Asia, from which so many later 

 invasions departed toward Europe. 



The discovery of the remains of Pithecanthropus in Java long 

 ago turned the attention of paleontologists in this direction toward 

 an epoch in which the problem of the origin of man does not 

 present itself with its present complexity. It was in Asia, it is 

 supposed, that the development took place of the hypothetical being, 

 the probable parent of Pithecanthropus, from which was descended 

 Homo neanderthalensis, and which later in its turn 

 gave origin to Homo sapiens. We have seen that the second 

 part of this hypothesis is not favored at the present time, but it is 

 recognized that the first part can still be defended with serious argu- 

 ments. It is certain, in fact, that, morphologically, the cranium of 

 Pithecanthropus affords an excellent passage term between the great 

 apes and the man of the Middle Quaternary. At the same time 

 nothing proves that, phylo genetically, it represents the transition 

 between the Pliocene ancestors of those apes and itself, for one 

 must bear in mind that it is with the anthropoids of those ancient 

 epochs and not with the living anthropoids that the affinity must be 

 searched for and demonstrated, and in the absence of documents 

 we have no evidence bearing on this point. 



Another conception consists in seeing in Pithecanthropus a Gib- 

 bon of great size. This rests in part upon morphologic compari- 

 sons and in part also, as M. Boule has remarked, on the frequent 

 occurrence in the geological epoch to which the Java fossil belongs 

 of gigantic animals whose living representatives are of greatly 

 reduced dimensions. Pithecanthropus would stand to the Gibbons 

 as Megatherium and the Glyptodon of America do to the Armadillos 

 and the Sloths, the Diprotodon of Australia to the Marsupials, the 

 Trogontherium of Europe to the Beavers, the Megaladapis of Mada- 

 gascar to the Lemurs. Consequently Pithecanthropus could not 

 properly be attached to the human line but is related to a different 

 line, that of the anthropoids ; and just as Homo neander- 

 thalensis represents a divergent branch and terminal of the 

 genus Homo, Pithecanthropus erectus would be a 



MH 



