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THE PEOPLING OF ASIA.

(PLATE VIII.)

BY ALEŠ HRDLIČKA.

(Read April 21, 1921.)

The peopling of Asia, as may well be appreciated on reflection, constitutes one of the greatest problems of anthropology. The solution of this problem could not have been approached with any great hope of success until lately, for it involves in no small degree the peopling of the whole world. Even now many of the details are lacking or obscure; but through collateral as well as direct research. sufficient light, it seems, has by this time been obtained for the possibilty of our attempting, with due reservations, of some general deductions.

It is quite certain that these deductions are bound to receive substantial modifications as anthropological knowledge of the Asiatic countries and especially that of early man accumulates; they can for the present be little more than working hypotheses; nevertheless, what will be here outlined is supported by many facts of considerable weight.

Looking at the subject of the peopling of Asia with due perspective, we may readily come to the first definite conclusion, which is that the vast continent could not have been peopled either from the north or the east; and that consequently it could only have been peopled from the south, southwest or west. From this it logically follows that the eastern, central, northern and northeastern Asiatic populations must have been ethnic extensions from other parts of the continent. And as all these populations possess certain characteristics in common which enable science to classify them as "mongoloid," it is further plain that they could not have come from more than one direction or from more than one ancestral land or source.

These mongoloid populations comprise collectively considerably more than one half of the total population of the Asiatic continent, and if we can trace their derivation we shall have solved a very important part of the problem of the peopling of Asia.

The first question that obtrudes itself on this attempt is whether or not these mongoloid peoples were really the first inhabitants of the countries which they occupy today. To this it may be answered that there is no valid evidence whatsoever to the contrary. The various branches of the mongoloids are, it may be safe to assume, not of equal antiquity; there are older and younger branches of the stock; but outside of some marginal or recent mixtures none of these peoples show any evidence of having fused with any geologically more ancient or racially different man in the regions which they hold as their own. Added to this we have the corroborative evidence of a total lack so far of substantiated remains of early man in these territories. It is true that relatively small parts of Asia have as yet been thoroughly explored; but the archeological and related explorations by the Russians, Japanese and others represent already a large amount of labor with completely negative results so far as the presence of early man is concerned in the lands occupied by the mongoloid people. A few isolated supposedly "paleolithic" implements and a problematical piece of a sacrum, believed to be ancient by a few of the Japanese, are insufficient to sway the balance. The natives, particularly in China, have long been in the habit of collecting and selling everything in the way of old and odd objects, including stone implements, and examples of the latter may not seldom be found-at times nicely mounted-in the markets. of the Chinese cities; but they have never brought, so far as could be learned by interested foreigners, any implements or objects that could be identified as geologically ancient or pre-mongoloid, nor have any other indications of pre-neolithic sites been anywhere discovered in these countries. There is, therefore, to this day no evidence of any earlier man in all this vast mongoloid region, which comprises over four fifths of Asia, or the whole territory to the east of the Urals and the Caspian and to the north of the Himalayas, besides the great islands.

Where did these mongoloid peoples come from to their present

homes? Their traditions, such as they are, lean generally to the west or northwest. Nothing points to a possibility that they might have come across the great mountain ranges from the south; and they did not come along the coast or by the sea from the southeast, for the Malayan people of these territories, though mongoloid, are according to all indications only extensions of the stock into these regions from farther north. Everything points to the probability of the invasion having proceeded from the north southward. We have a very valid evidence for this in the presence in these regions of the scattered Negrito. The Negrito is a weak race physically as well as mentally. In both respects he is decidedly inferior to the Malay. His wide scattering over the islands of southeastern Asia with traces of his presence over a considerable part of the southern stretches of the mainland, indicates plainly that the Negrito must at one time have occupied these regions unopposed, for he could not possibly have prevailed over and penetrated though any stronger people. It was only subsequently that he was partly annihilated, partly mixed with the yellow-brown Malays and partly scattered by them into the mountains and least desirable places, as they advanced into his territory from the north. And this must have been about the same time that the streams of the ancestors of the present Hindu population reached and settled in India, breaking up the Negrito in that sphere and preventing the Malay from extending also into that territory. In Hither India, in Persia and in Asia Minor there are no traces of any mongoloid population except such as can be accounted for by border extensions or through historic introductions.

We have therefore nothing substantial on which to base a possible origin of the mongoloid peoples in the southern or southwestern parts of Asia.

The mongoloid peoples, we have now seen, cannot be regarded as having evolved in their present abodes-for nothwithstanding certain speculations there is not a trace of any evidence and very little probability that there has ever been anything in the central or northwestern parts of the continent from which man could evolve; and there are no indications that man has lived in these vast regions except in the relatively recent post-glacial period.

The mongoloid people, it is quite plain, did not originate where

they are. They could not possibly have come from the east or from the north, and we have just seen that there is no likelihood of their coming from the south. This leaves but one broad avenue of approach which is that from the west through the great flat lands to the north of the Himalayan and central Asiatic mountains. And this connects the ancestors of the mongoloid peoples inevitably with the prehistoric westernmost Asiatic and through these with the old European peoples; while chronologically they can only connect, judging from the evidence of their main physical traits, with the late Paleolithic and the succeeding periods.

So much for the present for the mongoloids; and with these out of the way there remains to be considered only the peopling of southern and western Asia.

This part of the problem is again plainly divisible into that relating to the presence of the Negrito, and that of the Mediterranean, Semitic, Aryan and mixed populations.

According to all indications the Negrito was the first human inhabitant in any numbers of a large proportion of-if not of the entire-southern and southeastern coasts of Asia and of the neighboring as well as some more distant islands, reaching to New Guinea and possibly even to parts of Australia. Whence he came, how he came so far, and how he succeeded in occupying such extensive regions, including what now are far separated islands, are largely questions for future determination; but the facts show that all this has been accomplished.

It now seems most probable that the Negrito is racially connected with the Central African small black man; and that he extended over the great territory he once covered mainly over land, and that either over Arabia and by scouring the sea coast, or over land extensions and connections which may have since disappeared. Still he may have become enough of a navigator to reach at least some of the islands where he left his traces over the seas-the blacks of Micro- and Melanesia who have considerable Negrito blood have shown themselves to be quite capable of that. That the Negrito did not originate separately from the African blacks is amply evident from the many characteristic resemblances he bears to the latter; and that he did not originate in Asia and then cross

to Africa we may decide on one hand from his parentage to the Negro and on the other from the improbability of his succeeding in penetrating, weak as he was, from elsewhere into the heart of the African continent.

In his extension eastward and southward the Negrito may or may not have met with other human beings. He may possibly have met with some representatives of what is now commonly referred to as the "Australoid" type of man. Certain it is that he met with no large numbers, for these would have effectually checked his extension. Also, wherever better preserved, the Negrito shows still a pure type, without any signs of ancient admixture with such heterogeneous population. It seems most likely therefore that the territories over which the Negrito succeeded in extending were devoid at that time of other population. This enabled the small, poorly equipped black man, advancing always in the direction of better prospects and least resistance, to cover in time the enormous area over which we find his remnants to this day. Just when this happened and how long it took, can scarcely be conjectured; but it was not very long, speaking in the geological or evolutionary sense, for the Negrito is not a geologically ancient type, besides which he has modified but little in. his own way since his separation from the mother stock of blacks.

These deductions concerning the Negrito incidentally raise one great question, which is that about the place of man's origin. It has so far generally been believed that the cradle of mankind lay somewhere in southeastern Asia or what are now the adjoining archipelagos, for it is these regions in which live to this day two of the anthropoid apes, in which existed once, as shown by the Sivalik finds, still other anthropoid forms, and which gave us the remains of the Pithecanthropus, a being that so closely approaches to the ideal "missing link," half-ape, or half-man. These facts, together with the existence of apparently favorable environment for further evolution in the direction of man in the regions under consideration, have produced a powerful predilection in scientific minds in favor of these regions as the site of man's evolution. Nor is anyone in a position to-day to gainsay the possibility that the early phases of human evolution have taken place in what is now Malaysia

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