Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1883 — How Was Man Distributed on the Earth? [ARTICLE]

How Was Man Distributed on the Earth?

This period, long as it appears, is, very short as compared with the myriad of ages of geological development that preceded it, and represents only the last and the shortest of the geological periods. The question arises, How has the human race been able to spread itself over tlie whole surface of the globe? Is it the product of different and independent origins in the several continents, or have all men sprung up from a common cradle, a “mother region?” On this point students are divided, Agassiz holding that men were created, and Call Yogt that they were developed, at different centers, and Quatretages and the theologians maintaining the unity of their origin. The fact is left that man, the same in all the essential characteristics of the species, had advanced in all of the habitable parts of the globe, and that not recently, and when provided with all the resources that experience and inventive genius could put at liis disposal, but when still young and ignorant. It was then that, weak and almost naked, having only just got fire and a few rude arms with which to defend himself and procure food, the lxtiman race conquered the Avorld and spread itself from within the Arptic circle to Terre del Fuego, from the Samoyed country to Van Dieman’s Land, from the North Cape to the Cape of Good Hope. It is this primitive exodus, as certain as it is inconceivable, accepted bv science as well as by dogma, that we have to explain, or at least to make probable, and that in an age when it is only after the most wonderful discovt r.es, by the awl of the most powerful machinery for navigation through the boldest and most adventurous enterprises, that civilized man has been able to flatter himself that he has at last gone as far as infant man went in an age that is so far removed from us as to baffle all calculations. We must insist on this point, for it brings into light an obstacle which those who have tried to trace out the connection between widely-separated races and to determine the course that had been followed by tribes now separated by oceans and vast expanses have hitherto found insurmountable. For if man is one—to which we are ready to agree—we must assign a single point of departure for his migrations. In these migrations man has gone wherever he could, and at every spot he has occupied and settled has acquired characteristics peculiar to the place, and which differentiated him from.men settling in other placesi Hence the varieties in human races. Some of these spots seem to have been peculiarly favorable to bis advancement, and became centers of civilization. The number of such centers is, however, very limited, and their distribution is significant—Popular Science Monthly.