THE CRADLE OF MANKIND

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5165, 15 August 1927, Page 4

THE CRADLE OF MANKIND

WERE ADAM AND EVE CHINESE ?

SUGGESTION BY ENGLISH WRITER.

Are we really Chinese ? What a stupid question, you may think. We are English, Scots, Irish American, French, Dutch German, and so on, you will say ; and in any case we’re not a bit yellow or slant-eyed, you and I. But, really, I’m quite serious (says an English writer). My suggestion is that all the nations are descended from people Who had their origin in China.

I had ap opportunity recently of discussing the question with Dr. Roy Chapman Andrews, leader of the Central Asiatic expedition to Mongolia. He had just returned from five seasons spent in the sandy wastes of the Gobi Desert, where, with a band of men skilled in all branches of science, he had journeyed in an attempt to prove this theory, which has fired the imagination of the: entire civilised world.

‘‘Even before our expedition,” said Dr. Andrews, "there was ample circumstantial evidence to support the theory. It was known, for example, that during the Ice Age, when Europe and America were covered with huge glaciers that made animal life out of the question, there was an area in Central Asia that was practically untouched by the ice, thus providing the ■one spot on the earth’s surface where life could exist.

“The most probable source between the two continents is Centra] Asia. lOur view was that about ten million years ago (this is a very conservative estimate !) the prehistoric monsters —the dinosaurs, mastodons, and so on —flourished in the Gobi Desert and then began to migrate westwards towards Europe and eastwards to China and the American Continent. This would account, for the similarity of tire fossils found in both extremes.

“Ten million years ago the Gobi Desert was by no means an arid region, and even down to the> Ice Age, about two million years: ago, this district had plenty of trues, sparse forests, and sufficient game to make human life possible. Thieire were also lakes and rivers.

“Our theory suggested that, following the prehistoric reptiles and mammals, human life slowly developed until one day man, as we think of him to-day, started out across the Central Asiatic Plateau. Then as thc> centuriec- passed and he increased in numbers, he was forced to leave his first home, the Gobi Desert —or, if you like, the Garden of Eden —and emigrate to other parts of the earth’s surface. This was due to the rapid dehydration, or drying up, of Central Asia, with a consequent decline in game, trees, and shrubs.

“But so far this is all theory. Now for the facts established by the expedition. Contrary to ail expectations, we have found in the s-ands of the desert the skeletons of whole- families of dinosaurs, primitive mammals, mastodons, apd Baluchitiherium, meaning ‘wild beasts, of Baluchistan,’ a tremendous animal related to the horses and rhinoceros, that fed from the upper branches of trees. This brute, if it lived to-day, could quite comfortably poke its huge head through the upper windows of a house. Its height averaged 17ft. “In one spot, called ‘The Place of Muddy Waters,’ we had a thrilling experience. On a brilliant mid-summer dn.y about the year 10,000,000 8.C., a mother dinosaur waddled into the sun, laid a clutch of eggs in a sandy hollow, and left them to hatch in the warmth of the sun. Alas for her hopes ! A sand storni blew up and covered them, and other falls of red sandstones completely buried them. There they lay until the year A.D. 1923, when a band of inquisitive scientists unearthed the old lady’s eggs, still excellently preserved. At some remote date the eggs had cracked, the liquid run out, and ftuie; sand particles trickled in, so that all the eggs had solid ‘yolks’ of sand. Our only regret was that we could not hatch them.

“The- theory that prehistoric animal life did exist in Central Asia was thus proved. By a study of the fossil vegetation our experts were able to tell us the climate and the conditions of tree growth on the plateau at the time when these beasts roamed in search of food, “But our final discovery was, perhaps, the most thrilling of all. We found definite traces that man had lived in Mongolia in the Old Stone Age, between fifteen and twenty thousand years ago, and probably much earlier.

“With various scraps of evidence it is, not difficult to reconstruct the lives of these ancients. They werenot cavemen, for eaves did not exist. They lived, instead, beside rivers and lakes. Their shelters, were the crudest. In many cases , they lived and slept in the open, choosing the sunny banks with no covering of .any kind. Then, later op, they made themselves rough shelters of bushes and entwined branches. Certain of them were skilful in making stone weapons, which were used in hunting the huge beasts that roamed the plains. “When we can find remains of human life from the Gobi Desert that are older than any present known specimen, then our case will be definitely proved, and the- Central Asiatic Plateau will be settled as the scene of what is popularly known as the Dawn of Man.”