Origins of Modern Races of Mankind

Abstract

SIR ARTHUR KEITH'S presidential address to the first Speleological Conference of the British Speleological Association held at Buxton on July 25 made a bold attempt to resolve a number-of doubts and difficulties, which arise out of recent developments in the study of human palaeontology. This, Sir Arthur was careful to point out, is a matter relevant to the purpose of the Conference in that discoveries of the remains of ancient types of man in caves have provided a great part of the material, which points to the necessity of recasting the current view that modern races, black, white, brown and yellow, evolved from a common mid-Pleistocene ancestral stock. It will be remembered that it has been demonstrated recently (see NATURE, 137, 73; 1936) that certain characteristics of the modern Mongolian are to be observed in the remains of Peking man found in the cave of Chou Kou Tien. Sir Arthur would go further. Not only does he too find resemblances to the Mongolian in Peking man, but he also observes Australian and Negro characteristics in Pithecanthropus from Java and the Kanam skull from East Africa respectively. From this evidence, therefore, he draws, somewhat tentatively, the conclusion that at the beginning of the Pleistocene, the ancestors of the Mongol, the Australian and the Negro were already in occupation of the continental areas now inhabited by their descendants; and that after their separation each race underwent a series of parallel evolutionary changes in teeth, jaws, brain and other features showing simian affinities.