TOWARDS ADAM

Hokitika Guardian, 26 June 1930, Page 7

TOWARDS ADAM

PEKING MAN’S ANCESTORS. SEARCH IN MONGOLIA. A careful search for the forerunners of the recently discovered “Peking 'Tan” is to be the chief object of tilt Central Asiatic Expedition’s fifth anci final trip to Mongolia this year undei the direction of Dr. Roy Chapman Andrews. “On our last trip in 1928,” Dr. An lrews said in discussing his plans with a group of Press representatives, “w< found eastward of the Kalgan-Urgr road a great area of Pliocene rock which is the stratum in which we art most likely to find remains of primitive man. We explored it superficially finding a shovel-toothed mastodon and other very interesting fossils, but wc were not able to spend much time there because it was toward the end of the season, and we had to conn back. This area comprises mam hundreds of thousands of square mile; and runs practically from Dolon-noi j northward up to the border of Oute’ Mongolia. It is a region of sand dunes. We got fight over to the edg< of them several times, but could no 4 get into them with our cars. Thi time we shall explore these dunes witl f he greatest care, leaving our cars a 4 the edge and taking to camels for r couple of months. In this formation we have all the conditions that on< could ask for from the standpoint o' locating the place where the ‘Pekim Man’ got his start. For that reaso’ We are looking forward to an extreme!' 1 important year of work. It is far am away the most important locality that we have ever investigated so fa as primitive man is concerned. Thi is going to he a very definite seal'd for the ‘Peking Man’s* ancestors. Dr. Andrewes had heard from tie Mongols that somewhere jn the mids 4 of this region was a great lake, tin shores of which were strewn with fos sil bones, and last summer he sent : ; Trained Mongol assistant to investi gate the truth of these reports. Tin man found the lake and brought bar -.nth him a number of bones, whic were sent to the American Museum o Natural History in New York, am there identified as skeletal parts of th giraffe, camel, rhinoceros, and othe funa of a. kind to indicate that thi: was the stratum exactly preceding tin time of primitive man. “If the Peking man’s ancestor? came down .from Mongolia,” Dr. An drewes declared, “it is almost certair that this is the region from which h< came. So far as we can judge from the material, winch the Motlgoi brought badk, it was ft fairly hospitable place ii which to live 111 those days. Probably it was sparsely forested—just enough to confront man with n healthy strug gle for existance without actually killing, him off—-and the finding of beaver bones suggests that there must have been a good deal of water there.” The edge of the sand-dunes is about ■OO miles northward of Kalgan. Dr Andrews anticipates that the expedition will lie able to reach this poin by car in three days, after whicl there will be a journey of eight or tei days by camel to the lake, where ltf hopes to find traces of primitive man When the sand-dunes have bee’ thoroughly explored a return vis! will lie paid to one or two fossil local 'ties which, first discovered in 1928 have not yet been properly investigated. It is believed that one of these 'ocalities bolds an almost complet* skeleton of the gaint baluchitherium. described by Dr. Andrews as the lar gest land mammal yet known tr science. Previously the expedition lacked the time and facilities to at tempt its removel, but Dr. Andrew. 1 hopes that this year they will b able to bring it back with them. The 1930 expedition will include in its personnel Pere Teilhard de Chard in, the French palaeonthologist and geologist, and will be accomanied by two Chinese who have been delegated by the Nanking authorities as officia' representatives of fue Chinese Government. t)ne of the Chinese, Dr Clfiang, of the University of Canton. : s to have the rank of co-director of the expedition. His colleague will b° Mr W. C. Pei, the young geologist who found the skull of the “Pekifig Man” last December.