86 READINGS IN EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 
In South America.—A number of finds have been recorded from 
South America, notably by the late Florentino Ameghino of Buenos 
Aires, who contributed so largely to our knowledge of South American 
prehistoric life. An expert from Washington, Doctor Ales Hrdlicka, 
has studied with the utmost care the locality and character of each of 
these finds in the Western World, and has expressed the opinion that 
none is of an antiquity greater than that of the pre-Columbian 
Indians. 
Further evidence lies in the uniformity of type, except for minor 
distinctions, of all native American peoples. There is no such racial 
differentiation as that seen in the Old World, and the argument is that 
there has not been time for such a deployment. The area and condi- 
tions as an adaptive radiation center are surely ample. 
In Africa.The only African relics thus far reported are those 
of prehistoric cultures, comparable to those of Southern Europe, in 
certain caverns of the Barbary States. There has also been reported 
from Oldoway ravine, German East Africa, a human skeleton of 
undoubted antiquity. It is described, however, as being neither a 
very early nor a primitive type. 
In Asia.—Asia has given us in Pithecanthropus the oldest known 
relic of the Hominidae, found at Trinil in the island of Java. Osborn 
says: “It is possible that within the next decade one or more of the 
Tertiary ancestors of man may be discovered in northern India among 
the foothills known as the Siwaliks. Such discoveries have been 
heralded, but none have thus far been actually made. Yet Asia will 
probably prove to be the center of the human race. We have now 
discovered in southern Asia primitive representatives or relatives of 
the four existing types of anthropoid apes, namely, the gibbon, the 
orang, the chimpanzee, and the gorilla, and since the extinct Indian 
apes are related to those of Africa and of Europe, it appears probable 
that southern Asia is near the center of the evolution of the higher 
primates and that we may look there for the ancestors not only of 
prehuman stages like the Trinil race but of the higher and truly 
human types.” 
In Europe.—It is in Europe, however, that the tale of human 
prehistory is the most complete, not only through the happy accident 
of preserval, but because it has been much more thoroughly explored 
than has the Asiatic evolutionary center. The latter, however, holds 
the greatest hopes for future exploration since, as we have emphasized, 
Europe is too small to be an adaptive radiation center and European 
