Read before the British Association Meeting, at Southampton, in August, 



1882. 



Read before the Anthropological Institute, London, 9th January, 1883. 

 Reprinted from the Anthropological Journal for May, 1883. 



Where to Discover the Fossil Antecedents of Man ; 

 or, The Probable Region of Man's Evolution. 



Assuming that man was evolved from a form lower in organisa- 

 tion than that of the lowest type yet discovered, that his 

 origination formed no exception to the general law of evolution 

 recognised as accounting for the appearance of the lower forms 

 of life, Man's most immediate ancestors must have been similar 

 in structure to that of the existing anthropoid apes. Yet it is not 

 necessary to suppose that any of the anthropoid apes at present 

 existing belong to the same family as that of man. It is only 

 indispensable to the hypothesis of man's evolution to say that 

 man formed one at least of a set of families of man-like animals 

 somewhat similar to the present apes. For in seeking for a 

 transitional link between man and a lower form we naturally 

 look for a structure having a smaller brain capacity, and a body 

 less adapted to the upright posture. To seek for this is to search 

 for a form more ape-like in all respects. As was admirably 

 summarised by Darwin in his "Descent of Man" (p. 190), 

 " Nearly all the more important differences between man and 

 the quadrumana are manifestly adaptive in their nature, and 

 relate chiefly to the erect position of man, such as the structure 

 of the hand, foot, and pelvis, the curvature of the spine, and the 

 position of his head." If, then, by pakeontological evidence we 

 can trace the changes through which the human form has passed 

 from a semi-erect, quadrumanous, small-brained creature to an 

 erect, large-brained biped, we shall have raised the doctrine of 



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