42 TROPICAL RACES 



TROPICAL RACES. 



It is now desirable to inquire very briefly into the races of man- 

 kind inhabiting these tropical or warm climates as defined above, 

 in order that the tropical practitioner may understand the racial 

 relationship of the peoples amongst whom he is working ; and for 

 this purpose we give the following very condensed account, starting 

 with primitive man. 



PRIMITIVE MAN. 



From geological, zoological, and botanical considerations there 

 can be little doubt that in early tertiary times there existed an 

 Indo-African continent where, at present, the Indian Ocean lies. 

 This continent, embracing the Deccan, Madagascar, and South 

 Africa, is more extensive than Sclater'sLemuria, and is now known 

 as Gondwanaland. 



This Indo-African continent may, for many reasons, have been 

 the site of the primitive home of the human race, and indeed it 

 was in Java that Dubois found those remarkable teeth, calvarium 

 and femur, which to-day are recognized as belonging to Pithecan- 

 thropus erectus Dubois 1891, which, geologically, belongs more 

 probably to the early Pleistocene rather than to the Tertiary 

 Pliocene, as was at one time considered possible. These remains 

 belong either to a very early form of man or to an immediate precursor. 



Once evolved, there can be no doubt that the main factor in 

 man's further evolution has been the development of the brain, 

 and this may have been stimulated by his remarkable migrations, 

 for, diiven by food requirements, geological or meteorological 

 disturbances, man migrated from his primeval home and spread 

 westwards into Africa, where, in the then fertile and well-watered 

 northern regions of the Sahara, Caucasic man probably evolved. 

 He also migrated northwards into Asia, evolving there the common 

 ancestor of Mongolic-Am.erind man, which eventually formed Mon- 

 golic man in Asia, while the further migration into America gave 

 rise to Amerind man. Migrations from the south were easier in those 

 days, because the Himalayas were much lower than they are to-day. 



In the meanwhile the non-migrating common ancestor may have 

 evolved into Ethiopic man, who w^as eventually compelled by the 

 subsidence of the land to migrate westwards into Africa and east- 

 wards into Oceania. 



With regard to these early migrations, it must not be forgotten 

 that the climatic conditions were probably very different from 

 those of to-day, and, as it was a V\^arm interglacial period, were dis- 

 tinctly favourable to these movements; while the abundant land 

 connections of Africa to Europe, Asia to America, and America to 

 Europe, of those days materially facilitated them. Neither must 

 it be forgotten that these migrations, as well as subsequent migra- 

 tions, were not single, but multiple, taking place in successive waves, 

 and spread over a long space of time. 



