Probably the First Migrations of Man
The Javanese man was thus already well equipped for his long migrations round the globe. Armed with stone, wooden, bone, and other weapons that lay at hand, and gifted with mental powers far beyond those of all other animals, he was assured of success from the first. He certainly had no knowledge of navigation; but that was not needed to cross inland seas, open waters, and broad estuaries which, indeed, did not exist in Pliocene and later times. The road was open across the Indian Ocean to Madagascar and South Africa by the now submerged Indo-African Continent. The Eastern Archipelago still formed part of the Asiatic mainland from which it is separated even now by shallow waters, in many places scarcely fifty fathoms deep. Eastwards the way was open to New Guinea, and thence across Torres Strait to Australia and thence to the Islands of the Pacific Ocean. In the northern hemisphere Europe could be reached from Africa by three routes, one across the Strait of Gibraltar, another between Tunis, Malta, Sicily and Italy, and a third from Cyrenaica across the Ægean to Greece, and the British Isles from Europe via the Strait of Dover and the shallow North Sea. Lastly, the New World was accessible both from Asia across Bering Strait, and from Europe through the Orkneys, the Shetlands, the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland. Here were, therefore, sufficient land connections for early man to have gradually spread from his Javanese cradle to the uttermost confines of the habitable globe.
THE OLDEST EXTANT REMAINS OF THE HUMAN RACE
| APE-MAN OF JAVA (Pithecanthropus erectus) | PILTDOWN MAN |
| as restored from the remains found by Dr. Dubois in Java in 1892. It is estimated that he lived at least 500,000 years ago. | of Sussex, England, whose antiquity is thought to be over 100,000 years. This restored model indicates a marked progress in type and intelligence. |
| NEANDERTHAL MAN | CRO-MAGNON MAN |
| whose remains were found in central France. It is probably a type of a hunting race existent more than 25,000 years ago. | skeletons of which type were found in the grotto of Cro-Magnon, Vézère valley, France, in 1868. Supposed antiquity, 12,000 years. |