WHAT IS MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE? 



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thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of years, 500,000 to 

 1,000,000 years being the latest estimate. 



Parts of skeletons found in Java and Europe show a type of 

 man much lower than any savage living today. Arrowheads, of 

 a kind older than any made within the memory of man, have 

 been found among the bones of extinct bisons under the soil of 

 our Western plains. Races of men must have once existed there 

 who have now vanished. 



Evidences in the forms of fossil bones and parts of skulls show 

 also that man has been changing during these many centuries. 

 His arms used to be longer, his frame more massive, his jaw and 

 face more ape-like. This does not mean that man has ascended 

 from an ape ; it simply shows a gradual development or evolution 

 through many thousands of years from some stock which gave 

 rise to the apes and to man separately. Just as we now have been 

 able artificially to improve plants and animals through scientific 

 breeding, so Mother Nature has, by a hit-and-miss method, im- 

 proved the breed of man on the earth. How these changes have 

 been brought about is only conjecture, but we do know that there 

 are great differences between the men on the earth today and those 



Amer. Mus. of Nat. Hist. 



From fossils that have been discovered in many parts of the world, Dr. J. H. McGregor has given 

 us his idea of the probable appearance of prehistoric man in different stages of development. 



of yesterday. But there are also as great structural differences 

 between the Bushmen of Africa and the white men of England or 



