Abstract
THE BIRTHPLACE or HUMANITY.—Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborn returns to his attack against the generally accepted theory of man's ancestry, in a short article in Science (June 8, 1928, p. 570). Darwin thought that “our progenitors, no doubt, were arboreal in their habits, and frequented some warm, forest-clad land,” and, as was pointed out in a recent leading article in our columns, this is the view still widely held. From considerations of a general kind, however, Osborn argues that a warm, forest-clad area was not the sort of place to stimulate the great progressive development which led to the human stock. Recent ethnographical and physiographical evidence indicates that intelligent progressive and self-adaptive types of mankind arise in elevated upland or semi-arid environments, where the struggle for food is intense and where reliance is made on the invention of implements as well as weapons. Again, the first modernisation of the entire mammalian kingdom, geology indicates, occurred in Oligocene times and was seemingly due to a wave of aridity concurrent with the complete elevation of great continental plateaux. This geological change caused a branching of the ways of mammalian evolution, for pre-existing mammals were compelled to choose between the warm, enervating, forest-clad regions, or the temperate, stimulating plateaux. Is it likely that the forerunners of mankind were exempt from this compelling and fateful decision? Is it not more likely that the stimulus seen in the development of so many mammalian groups was also that which gave the urge to the primate ancestors of man? If Osborn's speculation is right, he looks to the uplands of Mongolia or Tibet, the top of the world, as the most favourable geographical centres for such development, the final proof of which must rest upon the efforts of the fossil hunter and explorer.
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Research Items. Nature 122, 143–145 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/122143a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/122143a0