If in opposition to our monophyletic hypothesis, the polyphyletic hypothesis—which maintains the origin of the different human species from several different species of anthropoid ape—be preferred and adopted, then, from among the many possible hypotheses which arise, the one deserving most confidence seems to be that which assumes a double pithecoid root for the human race namely, an Asiatic and an African root. For it is a very remarkable fact, that the African man-like apes (gorilla and chimpanzee) are characterized by a distinctly long-headed, or dolichocephalous, form of skull, like the human species peculiar to Africa (Hottentots, Caffres, Negroes, Nubians). On the other hand, the Asiatic man-like apes (especially the small and large orang), by their distinct, short-headed, or brachycephalous, form of skull agree with human species especially characteristic of Asia (Mongols and Malays). Hence, one might be tempted to derive the latter (the Asiatic man-like apes and primæval men) from a common form of brachycephalous ape, and the former (the African man-like apes and primæval men) from a common dolichocephalous form of ape.

In any case, tropical Africa and southern Asia (and between them Lemuria, which formerly connected them) are those portions of the earth which deserve the first consideration in the discussion as to the primæval home of the human race; America and Australia are, on the other hand, entirely excluded from it. Even Europe (which is in fact but a western peninsula of Asia) is scarcely of any importance in regard to the “Paradise question.”

It is self-evident that the migrations of the different human species from their primæval home, and their geographical distribution, could on our Plate XV. be indicated only in a very general way, and in the roughest lines. The numerous migrations of the many branches and tribes in all directions, as well as the very important re-migrations, had to be entirely disregarded. In order to make these latter in some degree clear, our knowledge would, in the first place, need to be much more complete, and secondly, we should have to make use of an atlas with a number of plates showing the various migrations. Our Plate XV. claims no more than to indicate, in a very general way, the approximate geographical dispersion of the twelve human species as it existed in the fifteenth century (before the general diffusion of the Indo-Germanic race), and as it can be sketched out approximately, so as to harmonize with our hypothesis of descent. The geographical barriers to diffusion (mountains, deserts, rivers, straits, etc.), have not been taken into consideration in this general sketch of migration, because, in earlier periods of the earth’s history, they were quite different in size and form from what they are to-day. The gradual transmutation of catarrhine apes into pithecoid men probably took place in the tertiary period in the hypothetical Lemuria, and the boundaries and forms of the present continents and oceans must then have been completely different from what they are now. Moreover, the mighty influence of the ice period is of great importance in the question of the migration and diffusion of the human species, although it as yet cannot be more accurately defined in detail. I here, therefore, as in my other hypotheses of development, expressly guard myself against any dogmatic interpretation; they are nothing but first attempts.

INDEX.