On the race history and facial characteristics of the aboriginal Americans / by W.H. Holmes.

  • William Henry Holmes
Date:
1921
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: On the race history and facial characteristics of the aboriginal Americans / by W.H. Holmes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/38 page 428
    i cause, the children of the woodland cradle were compelled to seek their fortunes in the open, and the real struggle of existence began, the struggle that perfected the man. The grasping hands, freed from the forest and free to act independently of locomotion, led to the use of improvised implements in meeting foes, in preparing food, in constructing defenses and shelters, and finally to the shaping of tools, the initial step in the evolution of art, while the feet enabled their possessor to move with freedom in the pursuit of varied call¬ ings. Thus the hands, with the aid of the feet, directed by the rapidly developing brain, conquered the world. SPECIALIZATION OF THE RACES. Prolonged study of the available traces of man’s origin and early movements as recorded in the book of books—the geologic strata— has led to the view that the natal place of the race must be sought somewhere in southern Asia or on the great islands of the southern seas. As conceived to-day, the outward movements of the human pio¬ neer from the primeval home were at first and for a long time hesitat¬ ing and slow. New conditions had to be met and diversified obstacles overcome, the exigencies of existence tending to develop the capaci¬ ties of both brain and hand, and new environments to modify and emphasize the physical type of the isolated groups. We may think, for example, of certain groups of pioneers as they ventured into the open turning their faces to the west, occupying the valleys, skirting the shores of the inland seas, and climbing the intervening ranges until, in the fullness of time, the shores of the Atlantic were reached. Centers of population would develop at many points, and in western Europe traces of occupation recently uncovered date back to remote periods. From these centers expansion would take place in many direc¬ tions. Not finding a passage to the western world beyond the shores of Britain, the populations would from necessity spread to the east, where they would encounter other currents spreading to the north from the primeval home over the vast expanse of central Asia, these latter representing the great Mongol race which to-day comprises, wuth its many blends, the majority of the human kind. Other cur¬ rents from the southern home would pass to the east, occupying the shores of the chain of seas bordering the Pacific, peopling the count¬ less islands that dot the waters, reaching in due course the far north¬ east, where further progress would be arrested by the broad expanse of open sea now known as Bering Strait. The differentiations of types gradually produced by early isolations would, as populations increased, be lessened by constant blending along the borders, and to-day the process of obliteration of race distinctions is progressing in ever-increasing ratio.
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