ANCIENT MAN IN AFRICA AND JAVA 257 
distinctive types of mankind, so divergent that we must 
suppose them to be the product of a very long period of 
time. In Egypt and in England we have seen how 
little the native types have changed with the lapse of 
six thousand years. India and China will yet reveal the 
story of their prehistoric ancestral races, but in the mean- 
time we must be content with citing one observation — 
that made by Dr Fritz Noetling of Tasmania when he 
was in the service of the Geological Survey of India. 
When investigating a conglomerate deposit in Burmah — 
which contained the remains of animals belonging to the 
earliest part of the Pliocene period — he found flints show- 
ing distinct traces of having been worked by man.^ As 
in all cases where chipped flints of an Eolithic type have 
been discovered, the " humanity " of Dr Noetling's 
Burmah implements has been called in question. 
So far, our search in Africa and Asia for traces of 
ancient man has yielded only unimportant results. A 
visit to Java, however, will make amends. This island 
has given us the remains of a being which, after twenty 
years of debate, still occupies an undecided place between 
the realms of ape and man. 
Dr Eugene Dubois, who discovered the remains of this 
strange being, named it Pithecanthropus erectus^ because, 
although it possesses the human erect posture, it yet 
possesses many ape-like traits.^ Dr Dubois saw in this 
ancient being the representative of an extinct family of 
animals which occupied a position between the human 
family on the one hand and the anthropoid family on 
the other. Pithecanthropus, in the opinion of the dis- 
coverer, was but the harbinger of a family of " Missing- 
links." The story of the discovery of Pithecanthropus 
is well known. The site lies on the east bank of the 
' See Records of Geol. Survey of India, 1894, vol. xxvii. p. 10 1. Also 
Natural Science, 1897, vol. x. p. 89. 
- The more important papers on Pithecanthropus are : Dr Eugene 
Dubois, Pithecanthropus ercctus, Eine Ubergangsfonn, Batavia, 1894. 
Professor G. Schwalbe, " Studien ueber Pithecanthropus crectus^^ 
Zeitschrift fiir Morpholoi^ie und Anthrop., 1899, Bd. i. pp. 16-240. Dr 
Eugene Dubois, Trans. Roy. Dublin Soc, 1896, vol. vi. p. i. 
17 
