270 • THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
times, of an early stage in the true and direct line of 
human evolution — a stage we may expect to find evolved, 
not in the Pliocene, but in the preceding or Miocene 
period. We may accept Pithecanthropus as representing 
a very early stage in human evolution (see fig. 187, 
p. 509). 
Our search for traces of ancient man, outside the 
bounds of Europe, has detained us rather too long in 
Java. There are still the islands of the Pacific and 
Australia to be surveyed. So far, no fossil remains of 
man have been discovered in Australasia ; ^ but there is 
no need to seek there for fossil forms. Ancient and 
primitive man still survives — more primitive than any 
fossil form of modern man yet found in Europe. Sir 
William Turner measured the brain capacity of twenty- 
four skulls of native Australian women. The mean 
capacity was 11 16 c.c. ; four of them were under 1000 
c.c, one was as low as 930 c.c. With brains of a smaller 
size than 930 c.c. we can scarcely expect a human 
intelligence. Of all the races of mankind now alive, 
the aboriginal race of Australia is the only one which, 
in my opinion, could serve as a common ancestor for 
all modern races. The common ancestor has to yield 
descendants which, on the one hand, might become the 
typical inhabitant of Central Africa, and, on the other, 
the fair-haired native of North-Western Europe. The 
1 After I had written the above, information reached England that the 
remains of Pleistocene man had already been discovered in Australia. 
When the British Association met in Sydney, Aug. 21, 1914, Professors 
T. W. Edgeworth David and J. T. Wilson were in a position to show a 
fossilised human skull, which was of Pleistocene age — "perhaps early 
Pleistocene." The specimen had been obtained some years ago from a 
well-known Pleistocene formation of the Darling Downs, Queensland. 
When discovered it was partly hid by a dense coating or mask of mineral- 
ised matter. This skull — known as the " Talgai " skull — is being investi- 
gated by Dr Arthur Smith of the University of Sydney, and a full account 
of the discovery may be expected at an early date. Enough is already 
known of this early native of Australia to leave us in no doubt that his 
brain was of modern size and that his characters are those we expected 
to find in an early Australian type (see Nature, Sept. 9, 191 5, p. 52). 
Another important discovery is announced from South Africa. In a 
Pleistocene deposit at Boskop, Transvaal, an elongated, large human 
calvaria has been found (see Nature^ Aug. 5, 191 5, p 615). 
